Antique Photography Newsletter, #1
Below you will find Issue #1.
Each issue begins with a description of progress on our various websites, then has a feature article.
Here is an index to featured articles:
Issue #1 November 2007
Featured Article: Miscellaneous Notes (see issue below)
Issue #2 December 2007
Featured Article: The Superior Sensibility of Bromide of Silver to Colored Light
Issue #3 January 2008
Featured Article: 19th Century Photograph Sizes
Issue #4 February 2008
Featured Article: Original Tintype Patent
Issue #5 March 2008
Featured Article: Introduction from DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE of PHOTOGRAPHS of NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 1877 plus free download of complete text.
Issue #6 April 2008
Featured Article: Paper and Pellicular Negatives 1887
Issue #7 May 2008
Featured Article: Producing Collodion Positives and Negatives
With one Bath, and in Less Time 1856
Issue #8 June 2008
Featured Article: Portrait Photography from: The Chemistry
of Light and Photography, by Dr. Hermann Vogel 1875 - plus free download of complete text.
Issue #9 July 2008
Featured Article: First Exposures 1890
Issue #10 August 2008
Featured Article: Auction Price Database Research
Issue #11 September 2008
Featured Article: On the Tinting and Coloring of Photographs
Issue #12 October 2008
Featured Article: Preparing the Energiatype
Issue #13 November 2008
Featured Article: Extract from: Doings of the Sunbeam, by Oliver Wendell Holmes 1863
Issue #14 December 2008
Featured Article: Extract from: A Popular Treatise on Photography, by Désiré van Monckhoven 1863
Antique Photography Newsletter
Issue #1,
November 2007
Welcome! Our intentions for this monthly newsletter
is to inform our readers of the activities on our
various photo-history websites, and to provide in
each issue records, articles or transcripts of the sort
we publish on our websites — but without repeating
information available on the sites. This ‘FEATURED
ARTICLE’ will only be available through the newsletter.
——————————
This first issue of Antique Photography Newsletter is
being published on one of our sites as an example of
the kind of content you can expect to see. Future
issues will NOT be on-line. Back issues will NOT be
provided, though we may at some future date publish
a compendium of Featured Articles.
The newsletter is being mailed by a commercial mail
service, so you must confirm your opt-in to get on
the list, and each issue will include an unsubscribe
link.
—-
WEBSITES
Classyarts - Public Domain Images
and Photographers Database 1839-1949
http://www.classyarts.com/
We have begun to enter a few images into the
photo database, as of November 1st 2007 we
have 120 images entered. This is a slow process
but we hope to speed things up when we have
written the software to allow users to help with
the data entry in exchange for credit on the site,
good towards images or photographer information.
The photographer’s database is coming along very
nicely, with 38219 records so far. We recently added
photographers listed in the Cork Ireland 1875, Boston
MA 1904, New York City 1869 and San Francisco
1922 city directories. We continue to add records
from census records and old newspaper ads, as well
as those whose imprints appear on photos in our
image archives.
—-
Public Domain Photo Blog
http://www.pdphotoblog.com/
As of November 1st 2007 we have 67 posts on this
blog, and for each post a good-resolution public
domain image, with a short description of the image
and information on the photographer.
The blog posts show a thumbnail image above the
description — click on that and you get a page
that will generate links allowing you to use the image
on your own website or blog, at a size of 100, 200
or 300 pixels for the largest diameter. That page
also displays the full size image, usually a little larger
than a full-screen, which may be downloaded and
used as you please — it is in the Public Domain!
—-
PhotoHistory Blog
http://www.photographyhistory.net/
If you are reading this newsletter on-line, this is the
site where it is posted. The blog posts for this site
are reprints of articles from old books and magazines
on photography.
As of November 1st 2007 there were 21 articles posted
– we just started this site last month. As the articles
accumulate we think it will be a major source for historic
photography information. The Featured Article in this
issue is the sort of thing published on this blog — a
reprint from the British Journal of Photography 1887.
—-
When Was That?
http://www.whenwasthat.org/
The When Was That? site is our only paid-access blog,
though subscriptions are free to paid members of the
Classyarts site. In it, we publish research results on how
to date old photographs, based largely on our collection
of dated images. We analyze features like clothing, card
styles, photographer’s imprints, and so forth — and
report how those features are distributed in time and as
a percentage of all dated cards for the time the feature
was popular.
Thus, for example, we studied lengthwise imprints on the
backs of card-mounted photographs, with the name of
the photographer in large type. Darrah, in his book _Cartes
de Visite_ says these usually date 1868-82. We found
them to be rare in the 1860s, while up to 40% of cards
from the 1870s showed this feature. The style, however
did not die out, it just dropped to about 25% of cards from
the 1880s, and 10% of cards from the 1890s. In the 1880s
and 1890s, almost half of the cards with lengthwise
imprints, had the photographer’s name printed at an angle,
while that characteristic was seldom seen in the 1870s.
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FEATURED ARTICLE
Miscellaneous Notes
From: THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY
No. 1392. VOL. XXXIV. JANUARY 7, 1887.
NOTES
The progress of the great Lick telescope has been a subject of
great interest to the scientific of our readers ever since its
inception, which the recent disaster to the extra disc which was
being ground to curves suited for photographic purposes has only
served to intensify. For some little time to come the fate of the
perfected discs will be in suspense, as they are now about to set
out on their journey across the continent of America. The lenses
have been worked to the required surfaces at the works of Messrs.
Alvan Clarke & Sons, in Cambridge, Mass.; and as their
destination is in California it is evident they have a journey of
some thousands of miles before them.
In order that this journey may be safely performed precautions of
the most careful and elaborate nature are being taken. Most
photographers, probably, have in the experience of a lifetime,
wrapped up a large lens and found it a task requiring
considerable care; what must be the case when the weight, of the
unmounted lens alone is counted by hundredweights and the
diameter is over three feet! However, the huge lenses are wrapped
up, but in cloth instead of paper, and, in order to ensure
freedom from scratches, the fabric has been washed many times and
thoroughly beaten; it is then tightly wrapped round the discs.
After the cloth comes a thick layer of paper. The box to hold the
lenses is of wood, and is shaped to conform to the figure of the
lenses; it is lined with felt, and the costly discs are packed
tightly within. The felt is attached with glue, no nails being
used anywhere near the glass.
This would seem to be precaution enough, but it is only the
beginning; the wood box is packed into a strong steel box of
cubical shape, curled horsehair being the packing material. This
steel chest is again placed in another of similar material, and
kept from touching it by a series of spiral springs which stud
the whole inner surfaces of the last chest, both being made
air-tight and waterproof. Finally, the last steel casing is
packed with asbestos to make it fireproof, and the whole is slung
within a wooden framework. There is yet a further provision for
turning the chest round day by day on its journey, by a quarter
turn at a time, the object being to prevent any molecular
disarrangement and avoid the possible production of polarization.
The whole is insured for fifty-one thousand dollars.
—-
In making gold assays a certain amount of the material containing
the precious metal is taken, and, after being melted with
metallic silver, the latter is dissolved away, when the gold is
left behind, and after heating, weighed. When, however, the
precious metal in the sample is excessively minute in quantity,
the weighing of the small proportion left after the above
operation becomes an operation requiring the greatest nicety of
handling and delicacy of weighing. A very neat method of
estimating these exceedingly small quantities was described in a
paper by Herr Gozdorf, in a recent number of the _Chemical News_,
Instead of weighing the gold, it is measured; the last drop of
washing water with the contained gold particles, is guided on to
a sheet of aluminum foil, and after drying, picked up by a bead
of borax in a loop of platinum wire. Upon heating before the
blowpipe a perfect sphere of gold is obtained, and can be
measured under the microscope with great accuracy, its weight
being proved by reference to a table of constants. The writer
states that the smallest bead he has measured was one a little
over the two-millionths of a grain — a weight, we need scarcely
say, utterly beyond the powers of the most delicate balance to
estimate.
—-
Among those who undertake the tinting of photographs at a cheap
rate, Naples yellow is a great favorite, the flesh tints can be
produced so rapidly and effectively by its aid; but we would
utter the strongest warning against its use. It is certain to go.
We recently saw some very clever tinting in which it had been
employed, and in a very short time the carnations had assumed a
most ghastly hue.
—-
Oxalic acid has long been known as being readily decomposed by
sunlight, and according to M. E. Duclaux, in the _Comptes
Rendus_, a process long sought by physicists for measuring the
chemical power of the sun’s rays with accuracy may be found by
utilizing the above action. Certain precautions have to be taken,
such as the use of flat vessels into which the same quantity of
acid is always used; and taking a solution of three grams per
liter, he states the results to be very constant.
—-
The advantage of reducing wastes to the smallest possible bulk
prior to sending them to the refiner or commencing to reduce them
at home, cannot be too strongly impressed upon those who may now
be collecting them. The smaller the bulk to be treated, the fewer
will be the crucibles, and the smaller the quantity of flux
required, to say nothing of time and fuel. Many consider that if
the paper be simply burnt to a cinder it is all that is
necessary. But, in this cinder state, the residue occupies
considerably more space than is desirable, and also is of greater
weight. If, after the paper has been apparently consumed by
ordinary burning, the cinders are placed in an old iron pot on
the fire, they will, after a time, be converted into a pale brown
or white ash which is very compact and heavy. Ashes so obtained,
if the paper has been sensitized on baths of the ordinary
strength, will generally contain about half their weight of pure
silver.
The chloride from the washing waters, and the sulphide from
fixing baths, should always be thoroughly dried; this may easily
be done in the kitchen oven. These should then be reduced to
powder in a mortar, and, if time can be spared, passed through a
coarse sieve. If residues were always thus treated the cost for
their reduction would be far less, in most cases, than it is at
present, while the returns would be eminently more satisfactory
to all concerned.
—-
PHOTOGRAPHING WITH PHOSPHORESCENT SUBSTANCES
At a meeting of the Franklin Institute, Mr. Frederick Ives read a
preliminary communication on this subject, giving the result of
some investigations which he had undertaken at the suggestion of
Dr. Wahl.
After making a photograph of a street scene by exposing in the
camera for thirty seconds a tablet coated with Balmain paint, and
then placing it in contact with a photographic sensitive plate
for about the same length of time, Mr. Ives made exposures on the
limelight spectrum, to determine to what kind of light the tablet
was sensitive. He found that phosphorescence was produced only by
exposure to the violet rays, and that the light given out by the
excited tablet was chiefly the indigo blue, to which photographic
sensitive plates are more sensitive than to any other color. But
he also observed that a tablet exposed to sunlight, and then
given a rest of several hours in total darkness, in a cool place,
became quite sensitive to the dark heat rays at the opposite end
of the spectrum, which caused a temporary exaltation and
corresponding rapid exhaustion of the feeble phosphorescence
remaining in the tablet. He succeeded in obtaining strong
photographic negatives showing this action, and concluded that by
this means it would be possible to obtain camera photographs of
perfectly dark objects which radiated or reflected sufficient
heat, provided that the lenses used were capable of freely
transmitting such dark heat rays.
M. Ch. Zenger, in a recent communication to the French Academy of
Sciences, asserted that he had obtained a photograph of towers
and other objects at midnight on a dark night by the aid of a
phosphorescent tablet, and attributed the result to the action of
dark ‘actinic’ radiations, which he supposed that the objects
gave out at night. Mr. Ives pointed out that, as the tablet
proved to be insensitive to such rays, Zenger’s explanation was
certainly incorrect. Mr. Ives’s investigation had proved that
bodies intensely heated by exposure to the sun during a hot
summer day might, under certain conditions, be photographed at
night by the action of heat which they radiated; but the method
did not seem sensitive enough to give such results with glass
lenses, and he thinks Zenger’s photograph may have been due to
unsuspected feeble phosphorescence remaining from a previous
exposure in daylight, several hours or even a day or two before.
Mr. Ives offered explanations of other phenomena observed by M.
Zenger, and concluded by claiming to be the first to discover
that photographs of dark objects maybe made in the camera by the
action of heat which they radiate or reflect.
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END of Antique Photography Newsletter #1
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