The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 29.1885
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1885
• Sprache: Englisch
• Signatur: F 135
• Vorlage: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Rechtehinweis: Public Domain Mark 1.0
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-db-id1780948042-188500006
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18850000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18850000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Bemerkung: Seite I-II fehlen in der Vorlage. Paginierfehler: Seite 160 als Seite 144 gezählt.
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

JULY 17, 1885. J THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. bath. Collodion is still a great favourite with him. He has a very large establishment, but as he had a number of sitters we did not detain him. Sarony—the only Sarony. We had a very pleasant chat with this little gentleman, who is an artist, every inch of him. The very moment you put your foot into his magnificent reception room, which is an art-museum, you feel that you are in the establishment of a man of genius, taste, and art. Besides being an artist of great merit, Sarony is a connoisseur in objets de luxe, bric-a-brac, and everything pertaining to art. It is a veritable treat to have a half-hour's interview with this entertaining artist-photographer. What a pity there are not more Saronys in our profession. He truly is the Napoleon of photographers in the United States. Sarony's reception-room must be visited to be appreciated. We will not attempt a description of it for fear of not doing it the justice it merits. Mr. Sarony conducted us through his various studios in his vast establishment. He has private studios for his artists who work up large portraits. His own private studio, which he calls his “ den,” is truly a bijou. The walls are covered with old tapestries, sketches, and studies, and in every nook and corner is the room filled with a busy artist's unique collection of his works done at spare moments, when not at work on commissions from his various clientele. After a visit through his art studios, Mr. Sarony turned us over to Lieut. Richardson, his chief aide in the skylight room. There is no particular secret about Mr. Sarony’s operating room, it being just like a great many others. The usual para phernalia is to be found there which is to be met with in most well-regulated operating rooms. Mr. Sarony’s success is due to his skill as an artist, and to his own genius. He uses, and has used, the same materials that we can all purchase. Dry plates are used here altogether, the brand in use now being the Stanley. Sarony’s chef de la chambre noire used the ferrous oxalate developer entirely. We were shown some very fine negatives that were produced with this developer. Sarony has recently reduced his prices for cabinets to $10 per dozen. We suppose that “ the times ” and competition in prices in New York, as well as all over the country, are the cause It is not everyone who can see the value for $14 in the counter part of his own physiognomy. The great majority of the public value it ouly at a very few dollars, and photographers are doing all they can to make them think it is not worth much. Not very far from Sarony’s is the establishment of one of the fathers of photography in this country, Abraham Fogardus. This worthy disciple of Daguerre has a true patriarchal appear ance. Old Father Time deals very gently with many of the followers of what used to be termed “ the black art.” We came across many a veteran in the prefession in New York. They are stiil boys, and it is truly wonderful to see what calm expres sions these old veterans have after following this most trying of all the vexatious professions it is possible for a man to follow. It is astonishing that these faces do not become full of furrows and deep lines. Uncle Abraham does not look a day older than he did when he presided at a melting held in Chicago about thirteen years ago, which was the last one that ever was held of the N. P. A. Mr. Bogardus does his own operating. He uses dry plates, and makes good portraits. He is still a great favourite with many of his old clients, whom he retains. Bogardus has had the honour of photographing many of the leading men of this country. We saw some excellent portraits of General Grant and many other prominent men. Six dollars per dozen is the price at this establishment. Mr. Bogardus says business is good with him, notwithstanding the-numerous establishments that sur round in the adjacent avenues and streets that have cut the prices. An establishment that interested us is the studio of a Mexican Senor Moreno, who is one of the new-comers among the photo graphers of New York, and we think he will make his mark, as he undoubtedly lias genius and originality. Senor Moreno occupies the studio formerly carried on by Cavalho. of yellow paint fame, and you have to climb up four or five flights of stairs to his operating room. He labours under difficulties that by many would be considered almost insur mountable for the establishing of one’s self in a strange country ; that is, he does not speak a word of English, and he is deaf. 11 requires an interpreter to make him understand your require ments ; but as we understand bis language, Spanish, we managed to get along passably well with him. He is from Vera Cruz, Mexico, and from boyhood has interested himself in photo graphy', which he has a love for. Being 3 hard worker and an assiduous student, his chances for success in New York are in his favour. We were here shown some life-size heads that will attract attention at the Convention. They were made on an Inglis plate, with a rapid rectilinear Dallmeyer, which is his favourite lens, with an exposure of five second thirds stop. When Moreno gets a subject that fascinates him, he makes the negative, develops it, retouches and prints and mounts it him self. His prices are curious. He has a system which we think ought to be condemned, as having a tendency to bring down prices. In fact, it is this system of two prices to customers all over the country that has done more to break up good prices than anything else. His scale is $5 per dozen for cabinets, but for a club of ten, $30. A notice to this effect is at his door—for his life-size heads he charges $30 ; duplicates, $8 each. In and around Union Square there are several galleries. Rockwood’s price is $5 per dozen for cabinets ; Hugh O’Neill’s, $6; Marc Gambier’s, $4 ; Naegeli’s $3. We cannot go into a description of all the nalleries we visited, but must content our selves with mentioning only a few of the names of the many galleries that are to be found in New York.— The Eye. Uorrespondence. THE GALTON COMPOSITES IN THEIR RELATION TO THE DETERMINATION OF IDENTITY. Sir,—The achievement of consolidating into a single representative photograph the portraits of six or seven separate persons has naturally awakened curiosity. Other and more remarkable operations will probably follow. Little by little the field of inquiry will extend itself. In the natural course of evolution, possibilities will loom into view that are, thus far, not within the scope and purpose of the experimentalist. One of the more inevitable of these approaching develop ments falls so entirely within the pathway of procedure, that its investigation cannot be much longer postponed. In this very novel portraiture of the “composite order,” there are some attendant phenomena that are of a nature at once to challenge observation, and to lead in the direc tion indicated. At the very threshold, it becomes appa rent that due attention has not been yet conferred upon the conjointure—certainly under less exacting conditions —of au arranged series of the photographs of the self-same sitter. Of such composites, it is obvious that their super structure should be constituted of portraits taken at defi nite and well-separated epochs. The changes which ensue from youth to maturity, and from maturity to decadence, are clearly amenable to cer tain physiological limitations. These, by this time, photo graphy might have definitively elucidated. The “ seven ages” of the dramatist display, we may rest assured, various “ points in common,” which the photographer, as well as the psychologist, might now-a-day detect and investigate. That “ the boy is father to the man ” is admitted. But what a portrait will that be in which the boy, the lover, the soldier, and the justice are conjoined into one harmonious photograph! That will be a “modern instance” worthy of the age. In the Galton composites it has been noticed that in those that are the most successful, the final outcome is in some particulars more effective and life-like than are the •eparate portraits of the members of the group. If the question be here mooted, tentatively, whenca comes this curious and unexpected consequence? It is hoped that it may not be deemed waste effort. It should be recognised that the picture assumes in some degree the aspect of being in relief. T1 e appearance might be fitly styled " medalesque." How happens this? In reply, it may be pointed out that, in a kindred branch of art—in all such engravings as are designed to assume the appearance of medallion work, or basso-relievo— the