The photographic news

• Bandzählung: 24.1880
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1880
• 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-id1780948042-188000001
• PURL: http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id1780948042-18800000
• OAI: oai:de:slub-dresden:db:id-1780948042-18800000
• Sammlungen: LDP: Historische Bestände der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig
• Sammlungen: Fotografie
• Bemerkung: Exemplar unvollständig: Seite 1-82 in der Vorlage nicht vorhanden
• Strukturtyp: Band

• Digitalisat: SLUB Dresden
• Strukturtyp: Ausgabe

October 1, 1880.J THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS. 471 scapes, carte size, in sheets of six, and, as we look on, an assistant is hard at work with a pad of felt on the table before her, and a short wooden knife in one hand, smooth ing and flattening them, sheet by sheet. Deftly she seizes a curled and cockled print, and puts it, face downwards, on the pad; then, passing the wooden knife edge over the back, working from the centre, she converts the sheet into smooth paper, and gives it a “ set,’ - so that the impressions may be piled without difficulty. What are Mr. Payne Jennings’ rules as regards printing? it will be asked . In the first place, he employs a strong sensitizing bath—or, at any rate, not a weak one—never under fifty grains to the ounce ; he invariably sensitizes, prints, tones, and fixes in one and the same day, perform ing the operations as quickly one after the other as he can. He has recourse to acetate toning,* and, as everybody knows, he does not carry the toning too far. He believes that the hyposulphite bathalways requires to be neutralised with carbonate of ammonia, and he never employs anything but glazed earthenware in which to wash his prints, since it is not likely to harbour hyposulphite. During the first hour that the prints remain in the washing trough—into which fresh water is continually running—and after they have passed through several preliminary rinsings, they are con tinually being manipulated by hand, each sheet being turned over and separated, so that they may be perfectly washed. The paper is very quickly sensitized, and dried: ten minutes will usually suffice for the operation. This is the sensitizing room, and very light and airy it is. The front is of glass, covered with one thickness of yellow tammy; but an additional screen is provided to protect the sensi tized paper, and to keep in the warm air, just by the fire. A sheet is floated, drawn as usual over a rod at the end of the bath, and then lifted against the edge, so that it draws with a sucking action, bringing up with it the mini mum of solution. The sheet is then blotted against filter- paper, to still further remove the liquid, and is then so slightly damp that in five minutes all superfluous moisture has been driven off. The surface is now rubbed with a soft rag to remove any fibre from the filter paper, and it is ready for the printing-frame. Many might call the paper still moist, but, at any rate, it is not dry enough to cockle. The pressure-frames are set in the shade, and, as all Mr. Jennings’ negatives are very thin, the printing goes on apace. Mr. Jennings’ paper has a faint roseate hue. With few exceptions Mr. Payne Jennings prints from reproduced negatives. Indeed, he could only print so many pictures in this way. The original negative is treated as they do the original dies at the Royal Mint; the sove reigns that are coined in large numbers every day are all from the same original engraving; but it is from replicas of this, and not from Mr. Wyon’s own handiwork, that the actual striking takes place. Mr. Payne Jennings follows this example. From the original negative a transparency is produced by means of cirbon tissue, which, as our readers know, the Autotype Company prepare especially for such purposes. This transparency is usually dense enough without any intensifying; but when it comes to printing a negative from it (also in carbon tissue), rein forcing, to some extent, is necessary. This is done by means of permanganate of potash, the tissue, be it stated, being developed invariably upon thin patent plate coated with a film of gelatine. In this way Mr. Jennings has no diffi culty in producing negatives (which are never dense) all of the same intensity, so that he can print half-a-dozen of them at a time in one frame. Besides the small work, and his large, well-known studies, Mr. Payne Jennings is at this moment engaged in illustrating no less than eighteen different volumes of poems—“all, I am sorry to say, in silver,” said Mr. Jen nings. “ I should much like to employ a mechanical pro cess, or carbon, or platinotype, and I hope sincerely I may * Bec our “ Topic” in the News for September 17th. ' The “ At Home ” next week will be “ Mr. Butter’s Photo lithographic Establishment—the Velvet Roller,” soon be able to do so ; my only desire is to produce prints as delicately and brilliantly as I can, and, so far as I have seen, none of these processes can compete with silver. I shall be only too happy to adopt them when results as beautiful are to be secured by their means.” Mr. Payne Jennings, as a producer of pictures, must please his master—the public ; this is the main point he must keep steadfastly in view. It is curious, by the way, to note that America seems to have been the first to fully appreciate Mr. Jennings’ pic tures, and the high terms in which they were spoken of at the Philadelphia Exhibition may well be repeated :— “Nothing is more difficult than to describe art, the deli cate detail of which is spun out like the spider’s web to the finest gossamer thread, and in these pictures you can almost hear the gurgle of the running brook, the crackle of the twigs in the forest, and the music of the summer wind through the leaves. Mr. Payne Jennings exhibited a few of his works at Philadelphia, only a private case, and in the grandest photographic Exhibition ever collected in the world, he succeeded in achieving a distinction which placed him at once in the front rank of his profession. These later works have certainly added to his fame, and England may pride herself in possessing one artist at least who, in his peculiar branch, stands without a rival.” Mr. Payne Jennings, for his camera work, prefers either spring or autumn. Spring in half-leaf is the best time, he thinks ; the graceful outline of the trees is seen to advan tage, and the wind has less power than upon full foliage. Many photographs, he thinks, are marred by accidental lights ; you want broad effects and not lighting here, there, and everywhere. Again, photographs against the light furnish finer contrasts than can be obtained in any other manner; masses of shadow thrown into relief are then secured, and the lighting is much bolder. Mr. Jennings does not think that extra-rapid plates, however useful they may be, will add to the number of our artists ; the art photographer rarely wants to work with an exposure of one five hundredth of a second. He does not care much about depicting express trains going at lightning speed, or four- horse coaches at twelve miles an hour. He is concerned more in obtaining a bit of romance or poetry in his sketches— in depicting a deep-shadowed glen ora sedgy pool in which the yellow water-lilies grow. An old water mill beside the flowing river, forsaken, and in ruins, that lies here on the table, seems certainly to bear out what our host says. It embodies the well-known German ballad of the “ Mill- Wheel : ” " In einem kuhlen Grunde Da geht ein Muhlenrad, Mein Liebchen ist verschwunden Die dort gewohnet hat.” And here, perhaps, we may mention, that Mr. Payne Jennings seems always in his pretty pictures to be striving to embody some familiar poem or legend, an effort that possibly has had something to do with the great success which has attended the publication of his work. Here is a picture of the smiling Vale of Avoca, with Moore’s lines underneath:— “ There is not in this wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose besom the bright waters meet.” Here is a shining brooklet in the Dargle, which aptly illustrates Tennyson’s well-known lines:— “ I chatter over stony ways In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles.” We cannot help thinking that Mr. Payne Jennings has here found a new vein, and a rich one, too, in photography ; and those who can follow in his wake will certainly find both pleasure and profit.