The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 13.1869
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1869
• 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-id1780948042-186900000
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18690000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18690000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Bemerkung: Heft 545 (S. 73-84), Heft 547 (S. 97-108), Heft 589 (S. 599-610) fehlen in der Vorlage. Paginierfehler: Auf Seite 444 folgt Seite 443
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. Vol. XIII. No. 543.—January 29, 1869. CONTENTS. PAGE Photographic Secrets 49 The Limitations of Mr. Swan's Carbon Process 50 De Omnibus Rebus et Quibusdam Aliis. By Nelson K. Cherrill 51 Photography in Hot Climates. By Dr. II. Vogel 52 Plain Paper Prints with a Preservative Surface. By T. Roberts 52 On Success in Dry-plate Photography. By A. de Constant ..... 53 Photography and the Magic Lantern Applied to Teaching History. By Samuel Highly, F.G.S., etc 54 PACK On the Reproduction of Drawings Without a Lens 55 Wrinkles and Dodges. By W. Knowlton 56 Correspondence.—On Dodges—Secret Dodges and Professional Openness — Mr. Swan’s Patent — Carbon Patents — Mr. Edwards’s Carbon Patent—Uneven Drying of Albuminized Paper—Piracy in Australia 56 Talk in the Studio 59 To Correspondents 60 photographic secrets. In some correspondence in another column a subject is discussed in regard to which wo should have scarcely thought it possible two opinions could have been main tained. Referring to Mr. Cherrill’s recent able and com prehensive paper on combination printing, read before the Photographic Society, Mr. Hooper questions the policy of giving publicity to the manipulatory details, or “ little dodges,” by which several negatives are printed with facility and accuracy, so as to produce one harmonious picture ; and adds, in regard to “dodges” generally, that “ most professions have their secrets, to which it would be unprofessional to give open expression,” further adding, that “it is a great truth” that “photographers do not tell all they know.” Is this a “ great truth?” Is it a truth at all? Or, if a truth in any case, is it one upon which photographers can congratulate themselves ? We think that with very slight qualification an emphatic “No” will be the response to each of these questions. In no art has communication been so free or so universal; in none have such facilities for communication existed; in none have the facilities been so generally and unreservedly embraced; and in no art, we believe, in the history of the world, has the freedom of inter-communication so rapidly and so copiously yielded fruit in the stupendous growth, wide-spread application, and rare perfection attained, in an existence little more than a quarter of a century. Photography owes almost everything to this constant and unreserved inter-communication of ideas. By means of photographic societies, which sprung up into active existence in all directions for the sole purpose of this inter communication ; by means of journals devoted chiefly to the same end—two agencies without their parallel in ex tent, if not in kind, we believe, in the history of any other art—photography has attained its present position as a science, an art, and a branch of industry. Its every phase has been the subject of this inter-communication: its physical and chemical laws, its minutest points of practice, its relations and capacity as pictorial art. Every class of society has taken part in this inter-communication : the ablest chemists and physicists, from Sir John Herschel downwards, have contributed freely both to its science and practice; royal academicians have not disdained to contri bute “dodges” whereby better art qualities might be obtained; professional photographers and amateurs alike have given freely of their treasures of experience ; and the humblest operator has often done good service by adding his hints on manipulation to the common stock of know ledge. There is not a professional photographer in exist ence who has not profited by, and is not indebted to, this inter-communication, the general result of which is now so common and wide-spread, that, like the air we breathe, it sus- tains tlife, ahnost without our consciousness of its existence. We believe that the allegation that “ photographers do not tell all they know ” is, as a general statement, utterly untrue. The majority of photographers, and pre-emi nently the best men, do tell all they know, and are well satisfied that success does not depend upon secret dodges. It is to professional photographers, if to any one, that secrets should be of value; and who are the professional photographers who have most emphatically declared that they had no secrets to hide, and who have most courteously and willingly, in private and in public, communicated every detail of their mode of working in their professional speci ality ? Men like Williams, and Mayall, and Hughes, and Robinson, and Rejlandcr, and Bedford, and Blanchard, and England, and Mudd, and a host of others whose works add lustre to the art, have repeatedly stated that they had no secrets. One of the most distinguished of these gentle men some time ago commenced a communication to our pages by disclaiming the possession of secrets, and desiring to “give especial emphasis to the fact that success in photographic portraiture is not due to the possession of occult formula), or to the employment of secret methods, but simply to the judicious application of the information open to every one.” The most sucsessful men know that secret dodges would avail them little: they rely for success upon the right application of the common stock of know ledge, personal skill, and constant care: upon, in short, the use of brains. Who are the men who have secrets, and rely upon occult dodges ? Generally the least compe tent and least successful in the profession. Of what do their carefully guarded secrets consist? Generally of something absurd and worthless, or of something which has been published in the journals which they have never read. Two examples occur to us: the first was the be lauded secret of a very secretive printer, the tones of whose pictures were very good. When communicated in the strictest confidence, it consisted in adding a pin to the toning solution! In the second case the secret was costly. The late Mr. Lucy purchased, after seeing some charming prints in Paris, a secret recipe for the toning bath, for £20. Some time afterwards he communicated the formula to us; when we at once pointed out that it was as nearly as possible identical with one published some time before in the Photographic News. One word of qualification is possibly needed here. There are secrets which are not published, secrets of value, and retained by good men. But these are all of a special kind. They chiefly consist in some special process, and have cost time and money in working out. They do not generally affect the photographic community, nor the art generally. If published, they might impoverish the origi nator, and would only enrich, at most, a dozen of his com-