Advancing Sheep

This picture was taken in 1987 with an MPP Microflex, a twin lens reflex camera in the Cotswold’s near Northleach.

Some History of Photography

The Camera and The Negative.

 (all of this text is my copyright)

Pre-History; 1452 – 1835

Everybody likes to create pictures in some form or other, from today’s digital camera right back to the paintings of early cave men, it is as though we all need to create an image of what we have seen by whatever means available, the amateur with pencil, crayon or paint; and the great artists creating for wealthy patrons. It is a language that crosses all barriers and is almost more potent than the written word, as has been said before, a picture is worth a thousand words. One could argue that photography started in the 15^th century when there was a sudden change from stylised representations of the human form and architecture generally to remarkably lifelike portraits and correct perspective in the representation of architecture, including the optical distortions of the lens or concave mirror¹ used to project the image onto the paper or canvass, it is well known that Cannaletto used a camera Obscura to get his perspective right.

The early years; 1835 – 1855

It can be seen therefore that the history of photography started long before Talbot devised his process. William Henry Fox Talbot liked to make sketches of views he observed on his tours of the continent using a Camera Obscura, he also had an interest in optics and mathematics, he had wondered how the image from the camera obscura reflected on the paper might be fixed in some way², he was unaware of the experiments of Thomas Wedgwood and Humfrey Davy in 1795³ who had succeeded in forming an image on white paper or white leather moistened with Silver Nitrate, when exposed to daylight to look at the formed image, it would simply turn black, and yet Humfrey Davy (inventor of the miners lamp) had discovered that Hypo-sulphite of soda (Hypo – now known as Sodium Thiosulphate) dissolved Silver Nitrate⁴, the fixing connection with the silver image had not been made, the silver Nitrate changed by light is left untouched – a fixed image! But it may have been thought that the process was not worth pursuing because the image with its reversed light values, white being black, was unattractive and did not conform to what could be seen.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce⁵ had succeeded in obtaining a fixed image by coating a pewter plate with bitumen, the exposure time was hours long and not practical, he was able to produce the first photograph in a camera from nature, requiring an exposure of 8 hours duration⁶.

LOUISE JACQUES MANDE DAGUERRE announced his process for producing photographs ‘Daguerrotypes’ on the 7^th of January 1839, WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT had been experimenting with his negative – positive process from 1835 and on hearing of Daguerre’s announcement publicised his own invention, announced by Michael Faraday on the 25^th of January, Fox Talbot presented a paper on the 31^st of January at the royal society; but there was a third inventor of a photographic process who has been being overlooked; HYPPOLYTE BAYARD invented his process and in June 1839 exhibited some of his prints⁷, both Daguerre’s and Bayard’s processes produced a unique positive print, the Daguerrotype on a shiny silvered brass plate that had to be held so that the light reflected, in such a way as to make the positive image visible, otherwise it was the negative image that was visible. Bayard’s print was on paper, similar to Fox Talbots. These were three different, separately evolved processes, in isolation from each other, around the same time!

1David Hockney

2The First Negatives, p1

3AG 28, p37.

4Find reference

5Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, p1006.

6Victorian Photography, p15.

7Focal Encyclopedia, p94.

The Calotype

The Calotype 1841 – 1860 (this is the first post of Photography history this and all text here is my copyright)

Fox Talbot’s ‘Calotype’, developed from his early experiments, was a negative – positive process, the most successful of the three systems, using good quality writing paper for the negative, coated with Gallic acid, silver nitrate and ascetic acid¹ (gallo-nitrate of silver), exposed in the camera for several minutes, developed by a further application of the same solution, and then fixed with either common salt, potassium bromide, potassium iodide or finally and thereafter Hypo; the negative must be well washed to remove the Hypo and the other residues which would otherwise destroy the image in the longer term, this whole process had to be completed within the space of a day. The main drawback of the paper negative is that it has to be prepared and sensitised on the same day as it is to be used; and the paper grain is visible on the print, but Fox Talbot used to wax some of his negatives after processing which made the grain much less apparent.

Claude Félix Abel Niépce De St. Victor, invented a process of coating glass with Albumen and silver salts²; during 1849 the Langenheim brothers, William and Frederick, working in America, separately developed a similar process³, the use of a glass plate for the negative gave a print of high clarity and sharpness but was not much used for photography, the process was used primarily to produce lantern slides for some 75 years, falling out of favour around 1914.

In 1851, Gustave Le Gray improved the Calotype negative by waxing the paper negative before sensitising⁴, the rest of the process being the same as the Calotype negative as described above; the wax made the paper grain invisible giving much greater clarity, also these negatives could be prepared days in advance as the waxing slowed down the rate of deterioration of the emulsion. With all of the preceding negative types, the time needed for a printable image to form (exposure time) was several minutes depending on the amount of light available.

1The First Negatives, p9.

2Focal Encyclopedia, p1006

3The First Negatives, p38

4A Guide to Early Photographic Processes, p46.

Northleach from the Crail

I have now added some more images to my website, this is one of the first, there will be more to follow in due course

Tree Stump

This picture of a tree stump dappled with sunlight was taken in Prescot as I walked through the graveyard. This and many other pictures are for sale by clicking on the image and following the links.

I am Back On Line

After a computer failure which put me off line for some time, I am now back with a nice new monitor, I have been having a look at my pictures and find they look a lot better than with the old CRT monitor which was over 10 years old and had served me well. So, its back to work!

Cloud Over The Mersey

This picture was taken from the waterfront in Liverpool, click here if you would like to purchase a copy

If you would like to help make this plan

If you would like to help make this planet a better place click here;- http://zfer.us/s7pzC

Wall With Windows

This unusual wall has windows and was probably part of an out buildingor stable. this is in Prescot churchyard and is close by another ancient wall. This picture is for sale, click here and follow the links.

Ancient Tree 1

This photograph was taken at the same time as Ancient Tree 2 and can be purchased by clicking here