The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 35.1891
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1891
• 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-id1780948042-189100009
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18910000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18910000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

210 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. [MARCI 13, 1891. developing bath,” intended to avoid the necessity of using a dark room ; and Mr. T. Miller exhibits a hand-camera of simple construction; he has a capital showman. Various photographic visitors to Liverpool were hos pitably entertained by the Liverpool Association at the Alexandra Hotel, a particularly comfortable establishment, ably managed. It is the headquarters of the Swiss Club at Liverpool, which club is the general place of social meeting for Swiss residing in and about the city. Its president, Mr. R. Engler, of St. Gall, says that at Neu chatel the various amateur and other photographers had tried for some time in vain to get satisfactory pictures of the snow-clad Alps, seen across the lake, and about seventy miles off in the distance, and that they found that with ordinary methods by far the best time to get satis factory photographs of them is shortly before sunrise, when they have deeper tints than later on, and have a bright and contrasting background. There is a Photo Club at Neuchfttel, and some of the professors at the University are among its members. The annual banquet of the Swiss Club in Liverpool was held on February 2nd last, and the Swiss Consul, Mr. Ehrensperger, was among those who attended. Liverpool has long been noted for its hospitality. At the close of a British Association visit, we once heard Professor Huxley speaking thereof at the concluding meeting, more or less, so far as memory serves, to the effect that the Mayor had taken him in a gorgeous chariot, drawn by six cream-coloured horses, and surrounded by splendours to which he was totally unaccustomed, to a fairy, palace, where he felt lost as in a dream, and fully ex pected that on the following morning his host would clothe him in a silken robe, and hand him a purse of golden sequins, in the good old Arabian Nights fashion. The Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association would have carried out that matter even better than the corporation; they would have had him drawn by six red unicorns and a basilisk ; they never do things by halves. The Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association has comfortable rooms of its own, well supplied with photo graphic literature, and has a dark chamber for the develop ment of negatives. At present the walls of the meeting room are decorated with photographs by Mr. Gibson, of Hexham, one of the most popular photographers in the North of England. His excellent prints have a peculiar tone, due to the employment of Blanchard’s platinum ton ing process. The History of Photography in Liverpool. Liverpool has made its mark in the history of photo graphy. The early work of Messrs. Sayce and Bolton in relation to the collodio-bromide process is well known. Last Saturday Mr. B. J. Sayce showed us some of his early collodio-bromide negatives and prints. One of them is a positive print taken in 1873 from an old and scratched collodio-bromide negative taken Sept. 3rd, 1864. Another is a negative taken with thirty seconds’ exposure on Sept. 5th, 1864. A third, dated June, 1865, is a negative taken on wet collodio-bromide with ten seconds’ exposure; the date of another is June 19th, 1865. One of them, dated July 11th, 1865, is a nega tive of high quality taken at an out-door meeting of the Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association, near Corwen, North Wales. It was acknowledged to be the best in the competition on that occasion. All the other photographers were using dry plates of various des ¬ criptions, by the processes then in vogue, with collodion as the vehicle. The Liverpool Amateur Photographic Association was established in December, 1863, and is stated to be the oldest strictly amateur photographic society in the world; it grew out of the old Liverpool Photographic Society, which broke up because of dissensions between amateur and professional members. The first president of the new Society was the Reverend T. B. Banner, and the first secretary Mr. John Glover ; the latter was then well-known in the photographic world ; he was a good experimentalist, and the author of a pamphlet on “The Art Bearing of Photography.” He died about 1865. In 1853, at the time of the Crimean War, Mr. John Thomas, of Rock Ferry, photographed the fort at New Brighton from the Lancashire side of the Mersey, at a dis tance of about three miles, and obtained as good definition as if he had exposed at a distance of a few hundred yards. He had to allow for the difference between the chemical and visual foci of the telescope object-glass employed. A feat like this was a novelty at that time, and it attracted the attention of the War Office. At the present time professional photographers have no organisation in Liverpool. The existing organisations are :—1. The Liverpool Amateur Photographic Associa tion. 2. The Liverpool University Photographic Society, established about two years ago ; in this Society Dr. Kohn, Professor of Chemistry at University College, is an active member. 3. The Photographic Society, established about two years, connected with the Liverpool Young Men’s Christian Association. 4. The Birkenhead Photographic Society, which holds its meetings on the south side of the Mersey. 5. The Wallasey Photographic Society, which holds its meetings on the south side of the Mersey, near Birkenhead; its president is Mr. H. Wilkinson, Massey Park, Liscard, Birkenhead. Mr. J. A. Forrest is usually considered to be “the father of photography in Liverpool.” His experience in the subject dates from about the time of Daguerre’s discovery. He is an amateur, and was a glass manu facturer, but some time ago retired from business. He published, in January, 1888, in the Liverpool Mercury, some “ Historical Notes of what Liverpool has done in the art-science of photography from its discovery in 1839 to the present jubilee year of photographic discovery, 1888.” All the rest of this article is an abridgment of the said memoir by Mr. Forrest:— Soon after 1839, the date of Daguerre’s discovery in France, and the time when our countryman, Mr. Fox Talbot, produced a process on paper made sensitive by the salts of silver, Mr. Spencer, carver and gilder, in Slater Street, Liverpool, who afterwards became the dis coverer of electro-plating, erected a photographic studio on St. James’s Mount, and for some years carried it on successfully. Finding the time of his exposures increas ing, he asked Mr. Forrest to see his studio, and try to find out the cause of the increase. He did so, and discovered that the glass on the studio roof had changed colour from a greenish tint to pink, arising from manganese forming one of the component parts of the glass ; this led to the abandonment of manganese in the manufacture of glass, from its liability to change by the action of the sun’s rays. The moving spirit of progress in Liverpool in the early stages of the art was the late John Atkinson, of Manchester Street, whose shop became the rendezvous of all interested