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

January 1, 1869.] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. present moment, none of the different m thods proposed are in use, it is simply by reason of their being incapable of furnishing the desired results. “ By the introduction of the paper we here propose, a real progress will, we believe, be made, for the results furnished, as regards variety of tone, are equal to those of the ordinary process, while the prints produced are certainly superior in respect to the great purity of the whites and extreme delicacy of the image. Our paper is sensitized by means of carbonate of silver. The manner of manipulating it is absolutely the same as that pursued with the ordinary kind of paper, with one additional operation only, which consists of submitting the pads of the pressure-frames to the action of ammoniacal vapour. This vapour fulfils the duty of a reducing agent, and it is the sufficiency of the vapour which is the principal condition of success. It is for this reason that we have chosen the pad of the pressure-frame for impregnation with ammo nia, as, by reason of its thickness, it is capable of absorbing a sufficiently large quantity of the gaseous fumes. “ The operation of fumigating is conducted by means of a box, fitted at the top with a lid, and at the bottom with a drawer in which a mixture of carbonate of potash and slacked lime is placed ; in the interior a division is effected by means of wire network, through which the ammonia vapour freely ascends into the upper portion of the box. The pads are placed inside without any special precaution, excepting that ot seeing that they are not packed too closely ; when they smell strongly of ammonia they are withdrawn and placed in the frames, when it will be found that the print ing progresses very quickly—three or four times as rapidly, in fact, as with ordinary albuminized paper. A failure is only then possible when there is an insufficiency of ammonia vapour. “For toning our sensitized paper we particularly recom mend sulphocyanide of ammonium, employed according to the following formula :— Sulphocyanide of ammonium... 80 grammes Acetate of soda ... ... 20 „ Chloride of sodium ... ... 10 ,, Chloride of gold .} gramme Water 1000 We have obtained, nevertheless, very fine results with other toning solutions, as, for instance, the acetate of soda toning bath. &c. We fix the prints in a 15 per cent, solution of hyposulphite of soda. " By moderating the cost of the material we hope to render it available for employment by everybody.” THE ART CLAIMS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. A few weeks ago we reproduced, with a brief comment, a notice of the Conduit Street Exhibition which appeared in the Gentleman s Magazine. The notice, although discrimi nating and appreciative on the whole, contained one or two statements—and at least one fallacy—which photographers who appreciate their art were not likely to endorse. The new number of the Gentleman's Magazine, with an early copy of which we have been favoured, contains a long letter from a gentleman well-known in photographic circles, and a rejoinder, both of which will interest many of our readers. We reproduce them below. Mr. URBAN,—I have just read in your last month’s “ Incidents ” a notice of the opening meeting of the London Photographic Society. The criticism indulged in by the writer of that notice is so very much in that old, old style, in which, ever since its first intro duction, photography has been abused by the ignorant, mocked at by “ artists,” and laughed at by those “ critics ” who, in their desire to impart information which they do not possess, only too often lay themselves open to the ridicule of better instructed men, that I take up my pen, with the idea of sending you a few lines to controvert some of the erroneous doctrines your critic has put forward, and to point out as concisely as I am able some of the true art claims of photography: to do so fully would demand an essay. The difficulty which has been felt in admitting photography to any art position has certainly not arisen from any wont of perfection in the means employed, but rather from the fact that hitherto art has been a .subject about which the majority of photographers have but too little concerned themselves. The assertion made by your critic— and which I, as well as many others who have devoted much time and study to the subject, considered as quite a fallacy of the past— that as a photographer’s camera has no soul, therefore his pictures can have none, is emphatically contradicted by your critic’s own observations as to the superiority of M. Adam-Salomon. Granted that a photographer’s camera has no soul, docs it follow that there fore the photographer has none ? Because a sculptor’s chisel has no soul, is it to bo asserted that his works cannot bear the impress of the soul ? Who would ever think of propounding such an absurdity? The chisel can do nothing of itself; no more can a camera: the mind must direct the use of either. But then, it may be argued, the mind may direct, but in the two cases its direction will bo of a different character ; in the one the mind will have an immediate influence over every touch and over every stroke, ■while in the other in will merely have, as it were, a passing influence, only extending to general selection of subjects, and not descending into the minute details of actual accomplishment. These are, it is said, the work of mere mechanism, quite independent of the brain of the photographer. This assertion, though it may find a place among many useless and unsubstantial theories, has no foundation whatever in actual fact. If the work of taking a photograph, apart from the selection of the subject, wore a merely mechanical act, a mere mechanic could do the work. 1 have been myself a mechanical engineer, and am well acquainted with what mechanical skill really is, and I have no hesitation in saying that our English mechanics are quite competent to perform any purely mechanical operation with the most absolute accuracy ; and yet, with all their skill, they could not take a photograph which could at all approach the work of any first-rate photographer—let us say the example taken by your critic, M. Adam-Salomon. The productions of this gentleman excel, not only in the greater skill with which back grounds and accessories arc arranged in them—not only upon general skill, in fact—but, as your critic very pertinently remarks, “ in the use of the brain in every part of the process.” Neither camera nor lens can claim the honour of producing the works of such a man: it is owing to the impress of a superior mind that they excel the works of lesser men. I have the pleasure of knowing M. Adam- Salomon personally: I have seen him work, and have assisted him in his operations, and, from an intimate knowledge of all that appertains to photographic manipulation, I can state with assurance that in his hands the same sitter, using the same camera, chemicals, lens, &c. (in fact, the same mechanical conditions), ay, with the same pose even, and the same management of light and shade, a result will bo produced which is quite different from that which any other photographer would produce. His result would be, in fact characteristic of him; and the same picture produced by any other man would equally contain points characteristic of its author. I should have liked tj have given many instances of men whose pictures arc at once to bo recognised by their individuality, and of pictures in which it has been granted by all impartial critics, that, great as may have been the difficulties with which the photographer has been beset, his triumph over those difficulties has been complete; and of which it might be said, without flattery and without exagge ration, that they were triumphs of mind over matter. As, however, your critic has contented himself with a somewhat general treatment of the subject, placing M. Salomon alone in a position of superior excellence, I prefer to adopt the same course ; and though I, in common with many others, very much doubt the real superiority of this celebrated Frenchman to many of our best English artists, still, for the sake of present argument, I will readily accept the position of his superior excellence. This, then, being allowed, and it having, I trust, been shown that, as your critic himself admits, this gentle man’s work is superior because it shows “the exercise of a master mind,” the objection to ideal pictures which is urged at once falls to the ground. If a “mere portrait” can and docs bear the impress of the mind of the man who took it, then there can bo no reason whatever why those pictures which " must bear the impress of a soul” should not bo, not only attempted, but successfully achieved. With the actual fact of all such pictures at the late Exhibition being failures, I have but little to do; there were few art photographs exhibited, and those possibly, with perhaps an exception or two, did not show the powers of photography to its best advantage. It is against the wholesale condemnation of all attempts at anything more than mere mechanical drudgery being made by photographers that I now write; and it is against the misleading influence of writers who, like your critic, give their opinions too freely upon subjects with which they are clearly not at all conversant, that I will ever bend the whole weight of my influence, not only in print, but also in every other way in which it falls within my province to. do so. One very important mis-statement, and one very important omission, in your critic’s remarks shows me plainly that I am not wrong in accusing that gentleman of ignorance of the subject on which he has written. His statement that the landscape photography of the late Exhibi tion showed no higher merit than was shown by pictures taken a dozen years ago is simply nonsense : while to assert that landscape