Picturing the Present
J.T. Zealy. Jack (driver), Guinea. 1850. |
J.T. Zealy. Delia, American born, daughter of Renty, Congo. 1850. |
|
Worksheet #2 Due |
Albumen paper manufacture |
|
1850 first practical prepared paper produced with albumen = egg white |
|
Paper is made light sensitive by 'floating' it on top of
a tray filled with silver nitrate solution (producing light sensitive
silver chloride in the albumen layer) |
|
Paper is hung to dry in the dark |
|
Exposed in contact with a negative image |
Daguerreotype |
Salted paper print from calotype negative |
Albumen print |
 |
|
 |
Southworth and Hawes. Portrait of an Unknown Woman c. 1850. SFMOMA. Picturing Modernity. San Francisco: SFMOMA, 1998. |
David Octavius Hill. Miss Crampton of Dublin. c. 1845. SFMOMA. Picturing Modernity. San Francisco: SFMOMA, 1998. |
Nadar. Sarah
Bernhardt. 1865. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb /7/7f/Nadar_2.jpg/482px-Nadar_2.jpg |
Gustave Le Gray. Brig Upon the Water. 1856. Albumen print. |
Albumen print advantages: |
Smooth, glossy surface that looked modern |
|
Provided sharper, better contrasted, more detailed print |
|
Provided consistency not possible with calotypes |
|
Carte-de-visite |
Carte-de-visite camera |
carte-de-visite
= visiting card |
|
Collodion image created with a multi-lens camera and printed on
albumen paper |
|
Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi. Portrait
of an Unidentified Woman. c. 1860 - 1865.
Uncut albumen print from a carte-de-visite
negative.
Carte-de-Visite album
http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?ItemId=6039
Andre Disderi. Supplicies (Heads of Executed Men). c. 1850s. Carte-de-visite.
other newsworthy carte-de-visites
Matthew Brady Studio. Abraham Lincoln. c. 1863. Albumen Cabinet Card.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/george_eastman_house/2719970005/
Carte-de-visite (front and back).
http://www.ephemera-society.org.uk/images/cdv_6.jpg
Three kinds of stereoscopes |
The Sterescope |
1832 Sir Charles Wheatstone describes the phenomena of binocular vision and designs an apparatus that fuses two separate drawings into a single three dimensional image |
|
Unknown Artist. Pre-photography stereo cards. c. 1840. |
Stereoview of theGreat Exhibition.
1851. |
In 1851 Queen Victoria is presented a special stereoscope during the Great Exhibition and within 3 months, 250,000 stereoscopes and millions of cards are sold to the public |
By 1856, the London Stereoscopic Company had sold 500,000 viewers |
London Stereoscopic Company motto,
"No home without a stereoscope" |
Stereoscopic Camera
http://www.glowbox.demon.co.uk/4655oALL.jpg
Holmes-Bates Stereoscope with stereograph. |
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/1871_Bates_stereoscope_BostonAlmanac.png |
Photographer Unknown. Untitled (Stereoscopes in Use). c. 1860s.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
William England. Views of Switzerland #30. Albumen stereo card.
Chinese woman with bound feet
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/stereo&CISOPTR=245
J.F.A. Claudet. The Geography Lesson. 1851. Stereoscopic daguerreotype.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
“What an educational revolution is here… Why our Tommys and Harrys will know the world’s surface as well as a circumnavigator…What a stock of knowledge our Tommys and Harrys will begin life with! Perhaps in ten years or so the question will be seriously discussed… whether it will be any use to travel now that you can send out your artist to bring home Egypt in his carpetbag to amuse the drawing room with.” – 1858 issue of The Athenaeum |
Maxime Du Camp. The Colossus
of Abu-Simbel, Nubia. 1850. Salted Paper Print.
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Along_the_Nile/1.L.htm
"I had realized upon my previous travels that I wasted much valuable time trying to draw buildings and scenery I did not care to forget. I drew slowly and not very correctly... I felt that I needed an instrument of precision to record my impressions if I was to reproduce them accurately." - Maxime Du Camp |
Maxime Du Camp. The Colossus
of Abu-Simbel, Nubia. 1850.
Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1982.
Francis Frith. The Sphinx and
the Great Pyramid Geezah. 1858. Albumen print.
http://www.shafe.co.uk/crystal/images/lshafe/Frith_The_Great_Pyramid_and_the_Great_Sphinx_1858.jpg
Mechanical Photography = a verbatim style of photography which featured maximum detail and sharpness |
Francis Frith. Great Pyramids. 1862. |
Frith's trademark "mechanical picturesque" approach: |
|
Juxtapose
human figures with giant monuments |
|
Dense detail |
|
Sense of
mass and scale |
|
Avoided
expressive or dramatic effects |
Francis Frith. The Pyramids
of Dahshur, Egypt. 1858.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Maxime Du Camp. View of Nile ruins. 1850. |
Bisson Brothers. The Garden (Swiss Alps).
1860. |
Bisson Brothers. Valley of Chamonix seen from Le Chapeau. 1860.
Missions Heliographiques = formed in 1851 by the French government to record France's important monuments
Gustave Le Gray. The Ramparts of Carcassonne. 1851. Salted Paper Print from Calotype negative.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2005.100.34
Henri Le Secq. Amiens Cathedral. c. 1852. Salted paper print from waxed negative.
Gustave Le Gray. Le Pont Du Garde. 1851. Salted paper print.
http://www.allartnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Gustave-Le-Gray-1820-1884-Le-Pont-du-Gard.jpg
19th Century Science and the Photograph |
Southworth and Hawes. Early Operation Using Ether for Anesthesia. 1847. Daguerreotype. |
“It is to science…that photography, the child of science, renders, and will unceasingly render, the most valuable aid. …Photography is never imaginative, and is never in any danger of arranging its records by the light of a pre-conceived theory.” – Robert Cecil, British Prime Minister |
