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APRIL 16, 188O.| THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. 181 Uhe P9qotographir Elews, Epril 16, 1880. PHOTOGRAPHY IN and out of the studio. The Process op Photography — Photographic Art asd Photographic Science — The Illumination op Dark Booms. The Progress of Photography.—Had the jurors who re ported on the photographs in the Exhibition of 1851 to perforin a similar task to-day, most assuredly they would not pronounce such an opinion as the following : “ Rapid as have been the discoveries connected with photography, and great the improvements since the invention of M. Daguerre, there is yet much to be done to enable it to rank amongst the sciences of the age.” Photography has won its spurs since 1851, and of this there cannot be a better proof than a glance over the gorgeously-bound volumes of the jurors’ reports presented to the British Museum. These volumes are four in number, and are illustrated by about a hundred photographs from paper negatives, in size mostly ten inches by eight. Whatever appearance these photographs may have presented nine- and-twenty years ago, the majority are sadly changed now, and only a few would seem still to have retained whatever glory they once possessed. We had the opportunity a few days ago of looking over these volumes, and were greatly interested with the glimpse of what must be called a past age. It was very curious to note the variations wrought by time. Most of the prints of a black tone were apparently unchanged, keeping an even colour up to the i very edges of the paper. On the other hand, those of a chocolate hue had, with scarcely an exception, begun to I fade at the edges, presenting a patch of brownish chocolate ! colour surrounded by a border of yellow. The oddest circumstance, however, about these chocolate-coloured prints was that in some instances the whites about the centre of the pictures had preserved their purity, while those at the edges had turned to the greenish-yellow sickly hue so well known to the pioneers of the black art. There were hosts of pictures which were full of i stains, presenting a marble-like look, enough to make a modern photographer’s hair stand on end. But, with all their defects, there is in these prints much food for reflec tion. Nor are the remarks of the jurors themselves with out significance. Speaking of the progress of the art, even in that day, they observe: “ Perhaps its advance cannot be more strongly proved than by one fact, —that the method at first adopted, a very few years since, for procuring Daguerreotype portraits, required that a person should sit without moving for twenty-five minutes in a glaring sun shine. The improvement, as shown in the almost instanta neous process of the present day, is most striking.’’ This was written, be it remembered, before the full advent of col lodion, and yet they had “ instantaneous ” processes even in those days! The jurors do not state precisely what duration of time they understood by the term “almost instantaneous ”; but probably, with the recollection of five and twenty minutes of torture in their minds, they meant to imply about a minute or so. If this could be called instantaneous, what would they term the twentieth part of a second, the length of the exposure of many gela- J tine plates ? Photographic Art and Photographic Science.—In reading the report of the jurors it strikes one as a singular fact that while the whole of the exhibitors—English, French, American, German, and Austrian—have, with one excep tion—M. Claudet, who showed a Daguerreotype of the spec trum, the first on record—turned their attention to the artistic side of photography, the jurors seem to have had only its scientific aspect in view, and were, on the whole, dissatisfied with what had been done. Take the concluding paragraph, for instance: “ In closing our remarks on this department of the Exhibition, we may be permitted to re cord some degree of disappointment at the absence of speci mens of the application of photography to any department of representation other than such as please the eye or administer to personal feelings. As regardsits application to an infinity of useful and instructive purposes, we have literally nothing I We find, for instance, no specimens of copies of ancient inscriptions (a few incidentally occurring on the Roman ruins, perfectly familiar to everyone, only excepted); no delineations of tropical or remote scenery ; no specimens (for the single exception of Claudet’s spec trum is hardly to be cited) of the actinic spectrum; or of natural vegetables or animal colours; no impressions of the lines in the photograph corresponding to those in the luminous spectrum ; no magnified representations of the microscopic products of nature, or of the dissected parts of plants or animals; no copies of pages of ancient manu scripts, no miniatures of printed books (holding out the promise of future publications in miniature), or that of condensing in volume for preservation in the museums, &c., the enormous mass of documentary matter which daily more and more defies collection, from the mere impossibility of storage ; but it will one day become matter of history, and a thousand other applications which it would be tedious here to mention.” Putting this snub—to use no harsher term—by the side of the sneers and coldness with which artists until very lately have been accustomed to regard photographers, it is a wonder photography has made the progress it has. The scientific men—that is to say, those who have had what may be termed a scientific education—who have taken up photography may be counted on one’s fingers. The improvements, the count less expedients, the never-ending experiments, have nearly all been made by the hardworking, unscientific photo grapher, whose enthusiasm in his art alone made him triumph over the bitterness and disappointment of innumer able failures. And nearly as much as the man of science is the artist indebted to photography. Errors in lighting, perspective, and posing, which were at one time common enough even with skilful artists, have been made manifest by the inexorable camera, and are now impossible. There are now not a few photographers whom no artist would be ashamed to class as of his own rank. It is no slight boast that in the comparatively short space of thirty years, photography has asserted its right to be considered both an art and a science. Ihe Illumination of Dark Rooms.—There is a gleam of hope that photographers may yet save their eyesight. Conjointly with the abandonment of ammonia in the deve lopment of gelatine plates, comes Captain Abney’s bromo iodide emulsion, and a welcome return to orange glass— at least, let us trust so. It is held by some—though we are not prepared to say with how much truth—that the fumes of ammonia in the dark room are more prejudicial to the eyes than even the abnormal expansion and contrac tion of the pupil, and the straining of the ciliary nerves. It is very certain that the photographer, first by a minute inspection of the image on the ground glass, with his eyes close to the screen; second, by the exposure to the strong light of the studio ; and, third, by a precipitate plunge into Cimmerian darkness, tries his eyes very severely, and no wonder many men say that when they shut themselves up in their dark rooms to develop gelatine plates they feel quite dizzy and confused for a few seconds. Mr. Brudenall Carter, the well-known oculist, says, in his work on the diseases of the eye, “In the case of all the muscular efforts which are necessary to clear vision, fatigue, by producing relaxation of muscle, produces dimness of sight.” If this be so, let photographers hasten to verify Captain Abney’s formula, away with ruby glass, and take as much care of their eyes as they do of their cameras, -0