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590 views320 pages

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n !

>
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2015

https://archive.org/details/concisehistoryofOOgern
A Concise History of

Photography
1 CECIL BEATON. MARTITA HUNT AS ‘THE >1AD WOMAN OF CHATBOT’, 1951
A Concise His to ry of

HELMUT GERNSHEIM
in collaboration with
ALISON GERNSHEIM

GROSSET & DUNLAP


NEW YORK
L ^ -y

T/f/^

/ ^6/

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN 1965


BY GROSSET AND DUNLAP, NEW YORK

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

© THAMES AND HUDSON 1965


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 66 10281
PRINTED IN GERMANY BY CARL SCHUNEMANN BREMEN
5

CONTENTS

THE TECHNICAL EVOLUTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The Pre-History of Photography 9

The camera obscura 9

Photochemistry 1

The Invention of Photography 17

The earliest attempts at photography 17

The introduction of photography on metal 20

The introduction of photography on paper 26

The introduction of photography on glass 31

The introduction of photography on film 36

The evolution of equipment 36

The evolution of colour photography 52

THE ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Pictures and Their Makers up to 1914 59

The daguerreotype 59

Photographs on paper 79

Photographs by the collodion and gelatine processes 96


Exploration and Topographical 97

Landscape 107

Architecture 111

Portraiture and genre 116

War Reportage 139

Social Documentation 146

Photography of Movement 153

Pictorial Photography 161

The New Amateurs 166

Naturalism and Impressionism 169

Pictures and Their Makers: The Modern Period. . . 191

The revolution in photography 191

New Objectivity 204

Contemporary portraiture 221

Fotoform 227

Reportage 244

Colour photography 280

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 291

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 294

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 296

INDEX OF NAMES 305


Of what use are lens and light
To those who lack in mind and sight f

TRANSLATION OF LATIN INSCRIPTION


ON A BRUNSWICK THALER IN 1589
THE TECHNICAL EVOLUTION
OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The Pre-History of Photography

THE CAMERA OBSCURA


‘That window, that vast horizon, those black clouds, that raging sea, are

all but a picture . . . You know that the rays of light, reflected from
different bodies, form a picture, and paint the image reflected on all

polished surfaces, for instance, on the retina of the eye, on water, and
on glass. The elemental spirits have sought tcYfrx these fleeting images;
they have composed a subtle matter, very viscous and quick to harden
and dry, by means of which a picture is formed in the twinkling of an
eye. They coat a piece of canvas with this matter, and hold it in front

of the objects they wish to paint. The first effect of this canvas is

similar to that of a mirror; one sees there all objects, near and far,

the image of which light can transmit. But what a glass cannot do,
the canvas by means of its viscous matter, retains the images. The
mirror represents the objects faithfully, but retains them not; our canvas
shows them with the same exactness, and retains them all. This im-
pression of the image is instantaneous, and the canvas is immediately
carried away into some dark place. An hour later the impression is

dry, and you have a picture the more valuable in that it cannot be
imitated by art or destroyed by time The correctness of the drawing,
. . .

the truth of the expression, the stronger or weaker strokes, the gradation
of the shades, the rules of perspective, all these we leave to Nature,
who with a sure and never-erring hand, draws upon our canvasses
images which deceive the eye.’

In this episode from his science-fiction Giphantie (1760) Tiphaigne de la


Roche recounts a long-cherished dream of humanity: to fix the reflections
of the mirror and make pictures without the aid of the artist’s pencil. The
fact that light affects various substances -fading of textiles, and suntanning
of the skin -had of course long been observed. The picture-making
activities of Tiphaigne de la Roche’s elemental spirits might be ascribed
to photochemistry, but without the formation of a clear optical image

9
in the camera obscura, which plays an equally essential role in photo-
graphy, recording nature automatically would never have become possible.
Knowledge of the optical principle of the camera obscura images can
be traced back to Aristotle; its use as an aid in drawing, to Giovanni
Battista della Porta. The photographic camera derives directly from the
camera obscura, which was originally, as its Latin name implies, a dark
room, with a small hole in the wall or window-shutter through which an
inverted image of the view outside is projected on to the opposite wall or
a white screen. In southern climates where people darken their rooms in
hot weather, this phenomenon may well have been noticed even before its

underlying optical principle was described by Aristotle. He observed the


crescent shape of the partially eclipsed sun projected on the ground through
the holes of a sieve, and the gaps between the leaves of a plane tree. He
also noticed that the smaller the hole, the sharper the image.
A was given early in the eleventh century by the
clearer description
Arabian scholar Alhazen in his work on optics, which later became the
main source-book of Roger Bacon and other European scholars.

Tf the image of the sun at the time of an eclipse -provided it is not


a total one -passes through a small round hole on to a plane surface
opposite, it will be crescent-shaped . . . The image of the sun only
shows this property when the hole is very small.*

It may be assumed that knowledge of the camera obscura effect was wide-
spread amongst Arab scholars, who preserved Aristotelian learning through-
out the Dark Ages in Europe.
During the next five centuries the use of the camera obscura for the
observation of solar eclipses without harming the eyes by looking directly
at the sun was referred to by a number of scholars including Roger Bacon.
The first published illustration (111. 2) of it is contained in De radio
astronomico geometrico liber (1545) by a Dutch physician and mathe-
et

matician Reiner Gemma Frisius. The earliest printed account antedates this
by twenty-four years. Cesare Cesariano, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci,
described in an annotation in his 1521 edition of Vitruvius’s De architectura
the camera obscura in which the image of everything outside the room
can be seen. Leonardo had already written two descriptions of the camera
obscura in his notebooks, which however were not published until 1797.
The fullest and best description of the camera obscura was published
by a Neapolitan scientist Giovanni Battista della Porta in Magiae naturalis
(1558), in which for the first time it was recommended as an aid in drawing.

10
ilium in tabula per radios Solis
,
quam in c<rlo contin-
gir:hoc eft,fi in ccelo fuperior pars deliquiu patiatur, in
radns apparcbit inferior deficere,vr ratio exigit optica.

Sic nos exatfc Anno . 1 544 Louami eclipfim


. Solis
obferuauimus , inuenimusq; deficere paulo plus dcx-
q
tantem.hoc eft. lo.vncias fiue digiros vt noftri locmun-

2 FIRST PUBLISHED ILLUSTRATION OF THE CAMERA OBSCURA, 1545

‘If you cannot paint, you can by this arrangement draw [the outline
of the images] with a pencil. You have then only to lay on the colours.
This is done by reflecting the image downwards on to a drawing-board
with paper. And for a person who is skilful this is a very easy matter.’

In the second greatly enlarged edition which appeared thirty-one years


later Porta extended the practical application of the camera to portraiture,
the sitter being posed in direct sunshine outside the room and in front of
the aperture in the window-shutter. Magiae naturalis was one of the best-
known works on popular science published during the sixteenth century,
appearing in many editions and languages. For this reason its author was
for a long time believed to be the inventor of the camera obscura.
The first significant improvement to the camera obscura was the insertion
of a bi-convex lens in the aperture to form a brighter image. Its use was
recommended by Girolamo Cardano, a Milanese physician, in De sub -
tilitate (1550).

11
3 NINETEENTH-CENTURY TENT
CAMERA OBSCURA, OF THE TYPE
USED BY JOHANN KEPLER IN 1620

Daniello Barbaro, a Venetian nobleman, in La Pratica della perspettiva


(1568) mentioned that by adding lens diaphragms of various sizes the
image could be sharpened. Egnatio Danti, a Florentine mathematician and
astronomer, in La prospettiva di Euclide (1573) made known a further im-
provement of adding a concave mirror to redress the hitherto inverted image.
Daniel Schwenter, professor of mathematics at Altdorf University,
described in Deliciae physico-mathematicae (1636) an elaborate lens-system
combining three different focal lengths. The scioptric ball or ‘ox-eye’
consisted of a hollow, revolvable wooden sphere with a hole bored through
its axis and a lens fitted at either end, each of different focal length.
Combined, they gave a shorter focus than either separately. Screwed into
the window-shutter of a darkened room, the scioptric ball projected on
from all directions in which
to the opposite white wall or screen, pictures
the ballwas turned, instead of only the view directly in front of the
window. Schwenter mentioned that the artist Hans Hauer used the instru-
ment for drawing a large panoramic view of Nuremberg and obtained
excellent perspective with its aid.

12
The camera obscura in its original form as a darkened room in a house
restricted the artist to the view outside, or to portraits of people posed in
front of the hole, but in the seventeenth century portable cameras, which
had first been suggested before 1580 by Friedrich Risner and published
posthumously in his Optics (1606), were constructed.
Fourteen years later the astronomer Johann Kepler while making a survey
of Upper Austria in his capacity as Imperial Mathematician, sketched in

a small black tent, through the top of which projected a tube containing
a biconvex lens, and a mirror to reflect the image down on to the drawing-
board. The tent-type camera obscura was still in use in the early nineteenth

century (III. 3).

Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit scholar and professor in Rome, described


and illustrated in Ars magna lucis et umbrae (1646) a camera obscura light
enough to be carried on poles by two men. It consisted of an outer cube
made of lightweight but strong material, with a lens in the centre of each
wall, and an inner cube of transparent paper for drawing on. The artist

entered through a trapdoor in the floor (III. 4).

Kircher’s pupil Kaspar Schott, professor of mathematics at Wurzburg,


realized that it was not necessary for the artist to get inside the camera;
it would perfectly suffice to look through a small hole in its side. In
Magia Optica (1657) Schott mentioned that a traveller returned from Spain
told him about a camera obscura small enough to be carried under the
arm. Fie then constructed one in the form of two boxes, one slightly smaller
so that it could slide within the other to adjust the focus. Two convex
lenses were fitted in an adjustable tube and erect images were obtained.
The earliest reflex camera was described and illustrated by Johann
Christoph Sturm, professor of mathematics at Altdorf, in Collegium ex-
4 ATHANASIUS KIRCHER, PORTABLE CAMERA OBSCURA, 1646
5 JOHANN ZAHN, REFLEX TYPE
PORTABLE CAMERA OBSCURA, 1685

perimentale, sive curiosum (1676). A plane mirror at 45° to the lens


reflected the image the right way up on to a piece of oiled paper stretched
across the opening in the top of the camera, which was shaded by a hood
for improved visibility of the image. Nine years later Johann Zahn, a
Premonstratensian monk at Wurzburg, illustrated in Oculus artificialis

teledioptricus (1685-6) several types of box camera obscura small enough


to be taken anywhere. The reflex type (III. 5) was only about 9 inches
in height and width and about 2 feet long. For the first time such refine-
ments are described as an opal-glass focussing screen, and painting the in-

terior of thebox and lens-tube black to avoid reflections. In size and design
Zahn’s cameras were prototypes of nineteenth-century photographic box
and reflex cameras.

6 s’gravesande, sedan-chair camera obscura, 1711


7 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY book camera obscura
8 GEORG BRANDER, TABLE CAMERA OBSCURA, 1769

By the eighteenth century the use of the camera obscura was common
knowledge among educated people; long descriptions of the apparatus were
contained in most works on optics, treatises on painting, and books of
popular recreation. Cameras were constructed in innumerable types and
sizes, from the original darkened room -now usually in a tower, to give
an extensive panorama of the surroundings -to pocket cameras only 6 to
8 inches long and 2 or 3 inches wide. Some were in the form of a book
(III. 7), others were concealed in the head of a walking-stick. To aid
the artist in portraiture, still-life, and were table cameras
interiors, there

(III. 8 ), while for landscapes box cameras and sedan-chair


portable
cameras (III. 6) were employed. Sometimes carriages were adapted by
lining the interior with dark material and having well-fitting curtains and
a table to draw on. As in the sedan-chair type, the lens was fixed in the
roof and the image reflected on to the table by a mirror, so that the
traveller could make sketches whenever he came to a beauty-spot without
bothering to leave his vehicle.

PHOTOCHEMISTRY
Whereas since the middle of the seventeenth century the existing optical
apparatus could have been used for photography, from the chemical point
of view it was not until 1725 that Johann Heinrich Schulze, professor of
anatomy at the University of Altdorf near Nuremberg, observed that the

15
darkening of silver salts (on which most photographic processes depend)

was not due -as previously believed -to the sun’s heat or to air, but
to light alone. While trying to make phosphorus, Schulze saturated chalk
with nitric acid which happened to contain some silver. He performed the
experiment near an open window in sunshine, and was surprised to see
that the mixture on the side of the flask facing the light turned purple,
while the portion away from the light remained white. Tests by the fire
proved that the colour change was not due to heat. Using a mixture con-
taining more silver, the discoloration took place much more rapidly. Finally,
Schulze covered the flask with paper from which he had cut out letters.

‘Before long I found that the sun’s rays on the side on which they had
touched the glass through the apertures in the paper, wrote the words or
sentences so accurately and distinctly on the chalk sediment, that many
people . . . were led to attribute the result to all kinds of artifices.’ Beyond
making evanescent stencil images Schulze did not carry his experiments
towards photography. He published his observations in 1727 in the trans-
actions of the Imperial Academy at Nuremberg, entitling his paper jokingly
Scotophorus pro Phosphoro lnventus 3 for he had been trying to make
phosphorus, ‘bringer of light’, and discovered instead ‘Scotophorus’, ‘bringer
of darkness’.
Schulze’s experiment became widely known, not only in scientific circles,
being also published in many popular books of ‘rational recreations’ as a
parlour-trick.
Extending Schulze’s observations, the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm
Scheele proved that the violet rays of the solar spectrum have a more rapid
darkening effect on silver chloride than the other wavelengths -a fact
which on proved a disadvantage in photography until the introduction
later
of panchromatic emulsions, as it caused an incorrect translation of the
colours of nature into the monochrome tone scale. Scheele also published in
Chemische Abhandlung von der Lufl und dem Feuer (1 777) that silver

chloride acted on by light becomes insoluble in ammonia.


Jean Senebier, librarian in Geneva, carried Scheele’s photometric obser-
vations further, and published in Memoires physico-chymiques sur /’ influence
de lumiere solaire (1782) his experiments on the relative speed with which
la

the different spectrum colours darken silver chloride: from 15 seconds for
violet light to 20 minutes for red. Senebier also made important investiga-
tions of the effect of light on resins, finding that some lose their solubility
in turpentine after exposure to light: i. e. they harden -a phenomenon later
used by Nicephore Niepce in his photographic experiments.

16

*
The Invention of Photography
THE EARLIEST ATTEMPTS AT PHOTOGRAPHY
The first to try to fix the images of the camera obscura by chemical means

were the brothers Joseph Nicephore and Claude Niepce, officers in the
French army and navy respectively, while stationed at Cagliari, capital of
Sardinia, in 1793. Beyond the fact that they made some experiments to-
gether, referred to in a letter from Nicephore to Claude on 16th September
1824, nothing is known.
Towards Thomas Wedgwood, son of
the close of the eighteenth century
the potter Josiah Wedgwood, and an amateur scientist, conceived inde-
pendently the same idea. Tom Wedgwood was familiar with the camera
obscura used for sketching great country houses to ornament dinner and
tea services made at the Etruria pottery works. His knowledge of the light-
sensitivity of silver nitrate was acquired from his tutor Alexander Chisholm,
formerly chemical assistant of Dr William Lewis, the first person in Eng-
land to publish (in 1763) Schulze’s investigations.
Wedgwood’s attempts at photography were published in the Journal oj
the Royal Institution, London, in June 1802 by his friend (Sir) Humphry
Davy. Wedgwood’s main object was to fix the images of the camera obscura
on silver nitrate, but he failed to do so ‘in any moderate time’ -without
stating what he considered moderate. Wedgwood and Davy both succeeded
in making copies of leaves, insects’ wings, and the then fashionable paintings

on glass, by simply laying them on paper or white leather sensitized with


silver nitrate, or silver chloride which Davy found more light-sensitive.
Davy also made photomicrographs. However, the pictures were unfixed
and could only be viewed by candlelight, otherwise they darkened all over.
It is astonishing that such a distinguished scientist as Humphry Davy, who

referred to Scheele’s experiments, failed to notice his statement that ammonia


dissolves the silver chloride unaffected by light, and could therefore have
been used to fix the image.

17
-

It was left to later experimenters to complete the invention of photo-


graphy of which Thomas Wedgwood laid the foundation, but he has the
honour of being the first to demonstrate the possibility of photography
a great step forward from Schulze.
In 1813, eight years after Wedgwood’s early death, Nicephore Niepce,
(III. 10) now living in retirement at his country estate Gras near Chalon-
sur-Saone, revived his earlier ambition through his interest in lithography,
which began become popular in France that year. Lacking artistic skill,
to
Niepce by photochemical methods. He laid engrav-
tried to obtain images
ings, made transparent with wax, on lithographic stones coated with an

unspecified light-sensitive varnish and exposed them to sunlight. From this


he progressed to attempts to fix the images of the camera obscura in April ,

1816. He succeeded in taking pictures of the courtyard of his house on paper

9 NICEPHORE NIEPCE.
HELIOGRAPH OF CARDINAL
d’amboise, 1826-27
10 NICEPHORE NIEPSE. PENCIL AND VASH. PORTRAIT BY C. LAGUICHE, C. 1795

sensitized with silver chloride, but only partially fixed with nitric acid. As
the parts which were light in reality appeared dark in the photographs -they
were negatives -Niepce tried to print through one of them, and though un-
successful in making a positive copy, his knowledge of this possibility
forestalled Talbot.
For many years Niepce experimented with different light-sensitive
materials and eventually turned to substances mentioned by Senebier which
harden, instead of darken, under the influence of sunlight. In July 1822
he made his first successful photo-copy of a copperplate engraving by
laying it on a glass plate coated with bitumen of Judea, a kind of asphalt
used in engraving on account of its resistance to etching fluids. In the
following years Niepce copied several engravings by superposition on metal
plates (usually zinc or pewter) instead of glass, for he intended them to be
etched and printed from. The best is a portrait of Cardinal d’Amboise
(III. 9) which Niepce made in 1826 and had printed by the Parisian engraver
Lemaitre the following February.

19
11 J.
E. MAYALL. DAGUERREOTYPE
OF L. J. M.DAGUERRE, 1846

THE INTRODUCTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY ON METAL


The world’s first successful photograph was taken by Nicephore Niepce ^
on a pewter plate in 1826 (III. 12), using his first professionally-made
camera supplied by the Parisian optician Charles Chevalier. It shows the
view from Niepce’s workroom window, with the pigeon-house on the left,
a pear-tree with a patch of sky showing through the branches, in the centre

and on the right another wing of the house.


the slanting roof of the barn,
The appearance of sunshine on both sides of the courtyard is due to the
long exposure of about eight hours on a summer’s day. The coating of
bitumen of Judea dissolved in oil of lavender became hard in the parts
affected by light, whilst that in the dark parts of the picture remained
soluble and was washed away with a solvent consisting of oil of lavender
and white petroleum (turpentine). The result was a permanent positive
picture in which the lights are represented by bitumen and the shades by
bare pewter.
Niepce gave the name Heliographie (sun drawing) both to photographs
made in the camera and to engravings copied by superposition.
In September 1827 Niepce came to Kew near London to visit his brother
Claude, bringing with him this camera view, the engraving of Cardinal

20

*
d’Amboise, and several other heliographic reproductions. At Kew he made
the acquaintance of the botanical painter Francis Bauer, who recognizing
the importance of the invention persuaded Niepce to address a memoir on
the subject to King George IV and to the Royal Society. However, as the
cautious inventor refused to disclose the details of his process, the Royal
Society would not take cognizance of it. Before returning home, Niepce
gave Bauer all these photographic incunabula ,
and after several years’
‘detective. work’ by the authors Ills. 9 and 12 and both memoirs came to
light in 1952.
Giving up pewter, which is too soft a material to form a satisfactory
printing plate -always Niepce’s final aim -he changed to silverplated sheets
of copper, improving the contrast of his pictures by blackening the bare
parts of the silvered plate with iodine vapour. The exposure, however,
remained unpractically long.
In December 1829 Niepce signed a partnership agreement with Louis
Jacques Mande Daguerre (III. 11), theatrical designer and co-inventor with

12 NICEPHORE NIEPCE. FIRST SUCCESSFUL PHOTOGRAPH FROM NATURE, 1826


Charles Marie Bouton of the Diorama. This was a popular show of enormous
views painted on semi-transparent canvas, with changing effects according
to whether the picture were illuminated by reflected or transmitted light. In
order to achieve perfect perspective and realistic detail Daguerre made pre-
liminary sketches with the camera obscura ,
and had for many years been
trying to fix its images automatically instead of tracing them by hand -but
in vain. All Daguerre could contribute to the partnership was an improved

model of camera obscura and his talents, and it was formed explicitly for
the purpose of perfecting Heliography. Two years after Niej^ce’s death
Daguerre discovered that an almost invisible or latent image could be
brought out or developed with mercury vapour, thus reducing the exposure
time from at least eight hours to 20-30 minutes. It was not until May 1837,
however, that he found a way of fixing the pictures with a solution of
common salt.

Believing his new process to be distinct from that of Niepce (though


founded to a large extent on his late partner’s knowledge) Daguerre called
it Daguerreotypie. After unsuccessful attempts during 1838 to get it taken
up commercially by subscription, Daguerre secured the patronage of the
astronomer and Deputy Francis Arago, who was instrumental in the French
Government’s acquiring the invention. The scientist Gay-Lussac, a Member
of the Upper Flouse, strengthened Arago’s plea for the purchase of the in-
vention by an argument so obvious that it is surprising that other important
discoveries have not been helped similarly by governments: if the invention
remains in the hands of an individual there is danger that it will remain
stationary for a long time; made public, however, it will soon be perfected
by the ideas of others. In July 1839 the Government acquired the daguer-
reotype in order to give it free to the world in return for pensions to
Daguerre and Niepce’s son, and the Legion of Fionour for the former.
Nevertheless, Daguerre took out a patent in England five days before
details of the process were made public in Paris.
Speculation ran high (III. 13) after Arago’s much publicized statement
in the Chamber of Deputies that the daguerreotype ‘requires no knowledge
of drawing and is not dependant upon any manual dexterity. Anyone may
succeed with the same certainty and perform as well as the author of the
invention’. Details of this first practicable method of photography were not
revealed by Arago until 19th August 1839, at a joint meeting of the Academies
des Sciences and Beaux-Arts at the Institut de France (III. 14). On this
date, which counts as the official birthday of photography, a vast and
curious crowd overflowed into the courtyard of the Institut and ‘there was

22

*
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13 TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHIC MANUAL IN THE WORLD, JULY 1839,


BY ‘f-n’ (PROBABLY KARL VON FRANKENSTEIN, GRAZ).

14 ARAGO’S OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE DAGUERREOTYPE, AUGUST 1839

as much excitement as after a victorious battle’. Nowadays photography is

so completely taken for granted that it is difficult to realize how magical


the idea seemed to Daguerre’s contemporaries that Nature could be made
to produce a picture spontaneously (III. 15). Though realistic representa-
tion of the everyday world had been the aim of many painters from the
time of Van Eyck and even much earlier in the Hellenistic period, the sudden
achievement of their hopes without the need for an artist was so startling that
Paul Delaroche exclaimed in bewilderment: ‘From today, painting is dead!’
Miniature painters and engravers feared for their livelihood, and in reaction-
ary circles the daguerreotype was even disapproved of on religious grounds.

‘The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible,’


‘as has been shown
thundered the Leipziger Stadtanzeiger indignantly,
by thorough German investigation, but the mere desire alone, the will
to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no
man-made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God

23
y .

A COMIC SONG,
/w\ '/> s//> /•// > n/yt'///////r // ^yri ///.

Miami )-ortc.
CDMif&StXD A DKDJrj'J'XV Wt>

il j;M/i)A$vx'dm& xay*?
OF PHOTOCENIC CELEBRITY,
sr
P PI AX >
a D
1

i'S

15 THE DAGUERREOTYPE SONG, 1839


should have abandoned His eternal principles, and allowed a Frenchman
in Paris to give to the world an invention of the Devil? . . . The ideal
of the Revolution -fraternity, and Napoleon’s ambition to turn Europe
into one realm -all these crazy ideas Monsieur Daguerre now claims to
surpass because he wants to outdo the Creator of the world. If this thing
were at all possible, then something similar would have been done a
long time ago in antiquity by men like Archimedes or Moses. But if

these wise men knew nothing of mirror pictures made permanent, then
one can straightway call the Frenchman Daguerre, who boasts of such
unheard of things, the fool of fools.’

The manipulation published in Daguerre’s manual Historique et Descrip-


tion des Procedes du Daguerreotype et du Diorama (III. 16) immediately
after the historic meeting at the Institut de France was briefly as follows:

A silvered copper plate, bought ready-made, was sensitized with iodine


vapour which formed silver iodide on the plate. After exposure in the
camera the latent image was developed by vapour of mercury heated over
a spirit-lamp, the mercury attaching itself to those parts of the silver iodide
which had been affected by light. The was fixed with hyposulphite
picture
of soda and rinsed with distilled water. The result was a finely detailed
positive picture with a delicate surface which had to be protected by a
cover-glass against abrasion, and sealed to prevent tarnishing through con-
tact with air.

IIISTORIQIE ET DESCRIPTION

ox* p^

DAfrlERREOTYPE
rt l»u Diorama,

PAR DAGUERRE,
fce*. 1 I*-;* £7'* * Lsn-'.'fr ' -t cn.4 ti pom feme Hi

PARIS,
16 TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION M.PHONRK C.IKOI \ KT f*.
Oij-MfM -ii. • X. *« 7. .< ar falnqumi <r, .

of Daguerre’s manual, published


i .

IIEI.LUH, UHKAIHE.
20 august 1839
X

From August 1840 onward daguerreotypes were generally toned with


chloride of gold, an important improvement due to Flippolyte Fizeau. This
increased the contrast of the image and made the mercury adhere more
strongly to the silvered plate.
Owing to the length of the exposure (20-30 minutes) the daguerreotype
could not be used for portraiture -its most desired application -until after
considerable improvements had been made to Daguerre’s process and appa-
ratus by experimenters in America, England and Austria.

THE INTRODUCTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY ON PAPER


Immediately after Arago’s announcement of Daguerre’s invention on 7th Jan-
uary 1839 several independent inventors came forward with claims to have
also made pictures by the action of light. The majority of them do not bear
investigation, but a few were genuine and should be briefly recorded, if only
to show how ripe the time was for the invention of photography.
Friedrich Gerber, a veterinary surgeon and professor at Berne University,
announced in the Schweizerischer Beobachter on 2nd February 1839 that
since 1836 he had been able to fix the images of the camera obscura on paper
coated with silver salts. From his description it is evident that Gerber had
independently achieved the production of direct positives, and a negative
process which allowed him to make any number of positive copies; also,
enlarged photographic images of microscopic objeciifc'l-Iowever, his achieve-
ments with the camera had obviously not yet reached any degree of per-
fection, and his success seems to have been mainly in photographic images
of objects laid on prepared paper. At any rate, only the latter were seen by n
a critic, and none of Gerber’s photographic incunabula has survived. 1

The Rev. J. B. Reade was a distinguished scientist in the astronomicaland


microscopical Reade had followed up the photographic experiments
fields.

of Wedgwood and made photomicrographs on white leather, and on silver


chloride paper washed over with a solution of gallic acid which he knew
to be used in the tanning of leather. Reade considered gallic acid to be
merely an accelerator and did not realize that it was in fact developing a
latent image. Fie fixed his pictures with hyposulphite of soda, which he
found listed in Brande’s manual of chemistry on Flerschel’s authority as a
solvent of silver salts. Apart from ‘solar mezzotints’, as he called his photo-
micrographs made with a solar microscope, Reade also made contact copies
of botanical specimens by superposition on sensitive paper, and
and lace
took some photographs in the camera obscura. They were shown at the
Royal Society, London, in April 1839, and in comparing notes with Talbot

26

*
on their methods, Reade mentioned that he had been speeding up his photo-
graphs with an infusion of galls. A recently discovered letter from Reade

to his brother dated 1st April 1839 seems to contradict Reade’s claim, made
many years later, that his experiments began in 1837.
On hearing of Daguerre’s discovery, the great English astronomer Sir
John Herschel set himself the task of solving the problem of photography
independently. Within a week he achieved what had taken others years to
accomplish. His first photograph, of his father’s big telescope at Slough near
London, was taken on 29th January 1839 on paper sensitized with carbonate
of silver and fixed with hyposulphite of soda. On 14th March Herschel read
a paper to the Royal Society ‘On the Art of Photography’ which was
accompanied by twenty-three photographs on paper, some of them negatives,
others positives. Apart from the photograph of the telescope they were all
copies of engravings or drawings by superposition. Out of consideration for
Talbot, whose achievement Herschel did not want to belittle by his own
independent discovery, Herschel withdrew his communication from publica-
tion in the Royal Society’s Transactions, and only an abstract was printed
in the Society’s Proceedings.

^Photography owes Herschel many valuable contributions, not least as


regards nomenclature. In his notebook the verb ‘to photograph’ and the
adjective ‘photographic’ appear three weeks before the German astronomer
Madler first published the noun ‘Photographic’ in the Vossische Zeitung on
25th February 1839; and Herschel used the term ‘photography’ in his paper
to the Royal Society of 14th March. Furthermore, he introduced ‘negative’
and ‘positive’ in his second communication on photography to the Royal
Society in January 1840, and the term ‘snap shot’ twenty years later.
On the practical side, the earliest extant photograph on glass is due to
Herschel, in September 1839, and the cyanotype or blueprint in June 1842.
It is impossible to enumerate all his invaluable and frequently prophetic
suggestions. The most striking is undoubtedly his forecast in 1853 of micro-
film documentation of public records and works of reference and their sub-
sequent enlargement on a readable scale -a scheme which had to wait eighty-
five years for realization.

Hippolyte Bayard, a French had been making photographic


civil servant,

experiments since 1837, and after the announcement of the daguerreotype


redoubled his efforts. By 5th February 1839 he was able to show some imper-
fect negative images on silver chloride paper -similar to Talbot’s but made

before details of Photogenic Drawing were published. Learning that Da-


guerre’s pictures were positives, Bayard, thinking that this constituted an

27
advantage over negatives, set to work to do the same. It is a curious fact
that in the first years of photography the direct positive process was by
most people regarded as superior to the negative/positive process which
required two manipulations in order to get a picture, instead of one -with-
out considering the convenience of being able to make any number of copies.
On 20th March Bayard obtained his first direct positives on paper in the

camera. The exposure was stated to have been about an hour. In June he
showed thirty photographs of still-life, sculpture and architecture at a mis-
cellaneous exhibition in Paris. Arago, to avoid prejudicing his negotiations
with the Government on behalf of his protege Daguerre, persuaded Bayard
by a grant of Fr. 600 for better equipment, not to publish his method at
present. For this trifling consideration Bayard did not divulge his mean-
while improved manipulation to the Academie des Sciences until 24th Feb-
ruary 1840, thus losing his right to a more prominent position as an in-
dependent inventor of photography, which would undoubtedly have been
accorded to him had he published prior to Daguerre.
Two German scientists, Franz von Kobell, professor of mineralogy, and
Carl August von Steinheil, professor of mathematics, both at Munich Uni-
versity, have occasionally been stated in German source-books to be in-
dependent inventors of photography in 1837. Our researches published in
1959 prove, however, that their photographic experiments did not begin
until March 1839 when they drew up a joint report on Talbot’s invention
for the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. They presented their report on
13th April, together with three paper negatives lVs inches square which they
had recently taken of buildings in Munich with an exposure of several hours.
Though fixed with ammonia, they were apparently too dense for printing
positives. Four of these pictures are preserved at the Deutsches Museum in
Munich, together with an autograph note of Kobell describing them as

‘Photographic experiments by me and Steinheil, 1839’, which should put all

speculation as to date at rest.

The only process that eventually established itself to some extent as a


rival to the daguerreotype was the Calotype, the improved version of
Photogenic Drawing invented by William Flenry Fox Talbot (III. 17), an
English landowner, scholar and scientist. On hearing of Daguerre’s success
in fixing the images of the camera obscura Talbot hastened to put forward
his priority claim by submitting a paper to the Royal Society, London, on
31st January 1839, entitled: ‘Some account of the Art of Photogenic Draw-
ing, or the process by which natural objects may be made to delineate them-
selves without the aid of the artist’s pencil.’ (III. 18).

28

»
17 W. H. FOX TALBOT. DAGUERREOTYPE
BY A. CLAUDET, 1844 (DETAIL)

SOME ACCOUNT

T II E A II I O V

P II 0T () G ENIC I) It A \\ I N G,

N ATI' HAI. (IIUKCTH MW RK. MAIM? TO HKI.IVKV TV. THK.MSKI.VKN

WITHOUT TIIE VIII OP THE VKTIST’S I'KM II..

HENRY FOX TALBOT. K«q PH.s.

. btmJ tAr M AuMlf II. 1*10.1

18 TITLE-PAGE OF TALBOT’S PRIVATELY


PUBLISHED BROCHURE, CONSTITUTING
THE WORLD’S FIRST SEPARATE PUBLICATION
ON PHOTOGRAPHY. FEBRUARY 1839

19 PORTABLE.CAMERA OBSCURA,
C. THE TYPE USED BY
1810, OF
TALBOT AND DAGUERRE
im
V.V.V.VAV.V/.V.V.V.'.V.V.V

'msmm

20 W. H. FOX TALBOT. PHOTO-


GENIC DRAWING OF FEATHERS
AND LACE, 1839

Like Wedgwood, Niepce, and Daguerre -and unknown,


doubtless other,
users of thecamera obscura - it occurred to Talbot: ‘How charming it would
be were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves
if it

durably and remain fixed upon the paper!’ This idea came to him while
sketching at Bellagio on Lake Como in October 1833 with the aid of a
camera lucida. Finding this optical device difficult to use, he remembered
having previously been more successful with a camera obscura (III. 19).
Talbot began his photographic experiments by making contact copies of
plants, lace, and feathers (III. 20), on silver nitrate and silver chloride
paper, fixed imperfectly with ammonia and sometimes potassium iodide. In
the summer of 1835 he had a number of cameras made, only 2 V 2 inches
square, and took tiny views of his house Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire on silver
chloride paper with an exposure of half an hour. They were fixed with
common salt. The earliest extant paper negative was taken in August 1835
and shows the window of the library at Lacock Abbey. Compared with
Niepce’s 8 X 6 V2 inches view taken nine years earlier, Talbot’s 1 inch square
picture is rather poor. No wonder that Photogenic Drawing completely

30

>
failed to capture the imagination of the public. Pictures taken in the camera
were too slow, too small, and not good enough technically compared with
the brilliant detail of the daguerreotype, and contact copies of botanical
specimens were of interest to comparatively few people. Talbot continued
trying to improve his invention and in September 1840 discovered the pos-
sibility of developing the latent image formed during a much shorter ex-
posure, by using gallo-nitrate of silver -having been informed of the accel-
erating properties of gallic acid, which had been used by the Rev. J. B. Reade.
Talbot patented his improved process, which he called Calotype, on
8th February 1841. Later it also became known as Talbotype.
Good quality writing paper was coated successively with solutions of
silver nitrate and potassium iodide, forming silver iodide, then further sen-
sitized with solutions of gallic acid and silver nitrate. After exposure the
latent image was developed with a further application of gallo-nitrate of
silver solution -which had the same function as the mercury developer in
the daguerreotype -and the picture became visible when the paper was
warmed by the fire for one or two minutes. The negative was fixed with
potassium bromide (later hyposulphite of soda) and then rinsed with water.
The positive print was made on Photogenic Drawing paper (not developed).
Talbot’s process had now (1841) reached the same speed as Daguerre’s
had with chemical acceleration, and offered the great advantage that any
number of positive prints could be made. It is this negative/positive principle
on which modern photography is based, whereas the daguerreotype, which
produced a single picture, was a cul-de-sac in photography.

THE INTRODUCTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY ON GLASS


Niepce had used glass for Heliography as early as 1822. Sir John Herschel
on 9th September 1839 took a photograph of on glass
his father’s telescope

coated with carbonate of silver. This earliest surviving photograph on glass


2 V 2 inches in diameter was considered by Talbot ‘the step of a giant’.

Albumen-on-glass process
The first practicable method of photography on glass was the albumen
process of Abel Niepce de Saint-Victor, a cousin of Nicephore Niepce,
published in June 1848. A glass plate was coated with white of egg sensiti-

zed with potassium iodide, washed with an acid solution of silver nitrate,
developed with gallic acid and fixed in the usual way. Very fine detail was
achieved, and the prepared plates could be kept for a fortnight, and develop-
ment postponed for a week or two. The exposure, however, lasted 5 to 15

31
V
minutes, according to circumstances, which ruled out portraiture, but slow-
ness was no great drawback for landscapes, architecture, and art reproduc-
tions.

Positives printedon albumen glass plates were excellent for magic-lantern


slidesand stereoscopic pictures on account of their perfect transparency.
The former were introduced by William and Frederick Langenheim of
Philadelphia in 1849 under the name Hyalotype; the latter by C. M. Ferrier
of Paris in 1851.

Collodion process
1851 marks the beginning of a new era in photography. The invention
which in a short time supplanted all existing methods was Frederick Scott
Archer’s wet collodion process published in the March issue of The Chemist
that year. Before this, Robert J. Bingham and Gustave LeGray had alluded,
independently, to the possible use of collodion in photography, but neither
published a workable manipulation.
An English sculptor, who learned calotyping in order to have portraits
of his sitters as studies, Archer endeavoured to improve Calotype paper by
spreading various substances on it, including the recently discovered collo-
dion. This led him to the idea of using collodion as a substitute for paper.

21 LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHER, C. 1855


In Archer’s process collodion containing postassium iodide was poured on
to a glass plate, which was carefully tilted until an even coating was formed
all over it. Sensitizing followed immediately by dipping the plate in a bath
of silver nitrate solution. It then had to be exposed while still moist, because
the sensitivity deteriorated rapidly as the collodion dried. Development had
to follow directly after exposure, with either pyrogallic acid or ferrous sul-
phate. The picture was fixed with hyposulphite of soda or potassium cyanide.
The manipulation was much more complicated than with the daguerreotype
or Calotype, and since all the operations had to be done on the spot, the
outdoor photographer was burdened with a complete darkroom outfit
(111.21). These disadvantages were, however, compensated for by the
greatly increased sensitivity. Exposures with the collodion process varied
from 10 seconds to IV 2 minutes for landscapes and architecture on plates
of moderate size. Small portraits (Ambrotypes) could be taken in 2 to 20
seconds. It was the fastest photographic process so far devised, and the first
to be free from patent restrictions in England. Collodion remained in gene-
ral use for over thirty years and is still employed in block-making.

A variation worked out by Archer in collaboration with Peter Wickens


Fry was the direct positive on glass, obtained by bleaching an underexposed
collodion negative and transforming it into a seemingly positive picture

22 AMBROTYPE WITH HALF THE


BACKING REMOVED TO SHOW
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECT,
C. 1858
when viewed by reflected light against a black background. When seen by
transmitted light, or without a dark background, the picture retains its

negative character (III. 22). The name Ambrotype was suggested for collo-
dion positives by Marcus A. Root, a Philadelphia daguerreotypist, and was
also current in England. On the Continent they were usually called Melaino-
types. Backed with dark-coloured velvet, paper or varnish, and contained
in decorative American ‘Union’ cases of moulded plastic material, or some-
times in gilded frames, Ambrotypes bear a superficial resemblance to dagu-
erreotypes (III. 23), and were in the nature of a cheap substitute for them.
The vast nmjority are small portraits, and were very popular with the
cheaper kind of photographer from the early ’fifties until the mid-sixties
when the fashion for the carte-de-visite superseded them.
Collodion direct positives were also sometimes made on dark-coloured
leather oron black paper (Atrographs). Ferrotype or tintype portraits on
enamelled sheet iron originated with Adolphe Alexandre Martin, a French
teacher, in 1853. They enjoyed great popularity in the United States with
the lower grade photographers from c. 1860 onward, but failed to establish
themselves in Europe until the late 1870s when they were introduced as an
American novelty by beach and street photographers. Better class photogra-
phers had little demand for any of these direct positives, and made mostly
^onjtact copies on albumen paper. This positive paper introduced by E. Blan-
quart'-Eyrardvin May 1850 was coated with white of egg (albumen) to give
it a glossy surface, and sensitized with As the process of
silver nitrate.

albumenising was rather troublesome, the paper was later on manufactured


commercially, but the photographer had still to sensitize it before use. The
printed-out picture was usually toned with chloride of gold to improve its
colour and permanence. Albumen paper remained the most popular until the
turn of the century. The consumption of eggs for albumenising was tremen-
dous; the Dresden Albuminpapier Fabrik, the largest producer of albumen
paper in Europe in the 1890s, used 60,000 eggs daily - about 18 million a
year.
The inconvenience of the wet collodion process for the landscape photo-
grapher led to the demand for dry plates. Various methods were devised
for keeping the collodion in a sticky sensitive state for several days or even
weeks, so that the entire chemical manipulation could be carried out in the
photographer’s darkroom at home. All these preservative processes, however,
were many times slower than wet collodion.
In September 1871 Dr Richard Leach Maddox, an English medical doctor
and well-known microscopist, published experiments on gelatine silver bro-
23 AMBROTYPE OF MRS WILLIAM BLAKE, C. 1854

mide emulsion as a substitute for collodion. This turned out to be an epoch-


making invention, though as initially published it was 180 times slower than
wet collodion. Improved and speeded up by John Burgess, Richard Kennett
and Charles Bennett, the rapid gelatine dry plate ushered in the modern era
of factory-produced photographic material, freeing the photographer from
the necessity of preparing his own plates. By April 1878 four British firms
were mass-producing gelatine dry plates, which could be stored for long
periods, and made possible truly instantaneous photographs with exposures
of a fraction of a second. The following year factories in several other coun-
tries started production. With certain improvements, it is still gelatine emul-
sion which is used in modern photography.

35
*s

THE INTRODUCTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY ON FILM


The convenient gelatine dry plates had still the disadvantage of their weight,
and photographers had long been desirous of replacing glass plates by a less
heavy and fragile support. From time to time methods had been devised to
peel off the emulsion from a paper backing. In the 1880s a number of flex-
ible film supports were introduced but proved unreliable. Celluloid, invented
by Alexander Parkes in 1861, provided the answer to the problem after

John Carbutt, an English photographer who had emigrated to America,


persuaded a celluloid manufacturer to produce sufficiently thin sheets in
1888. Coated with gelatine emulsion, it was used in the form of cut film.
The following year The Eastman Co., manufacturers of the Kodak, went
into production with much thinner nitro-cellulose roll-film, and by 1902

were producing 80%-90°/o of the world’s output. The film had been inde-
pendently invented and patent applied for in 1887 by the Rev. Hannibal
Goodwin, whose successors eventually were awarded five million dollars
after a twelve-year lawsuit against the Eastman Kodak Company. The
highly inflammable nitro-cellulose film began to be replaced by non-inflam-
mable cellulose acetate about 1930, and since then the emulsion has been
frequently increased in sensitivity.

THE EVOLUTION OF EQUIPMENT


The pioneers of photography made their first experiments with simple box
camera obscuras often home-made. Niepce’s cameras
,
at the Musee Denon
at Chalon-sur-Saone seem unnecessarily bulky considering that the plate
size was 6V2X8 inches. All but one are wooden, but a camera sent to him

by Daguerre under the 1829 partnership contract is of zinc, and measures


14X14X25V2 inches. One camera has an accordion-like square leather bel-
lows, and two others are fitted with a variable iris diaphragm behind the
lens to sharpen the image - features that had been incorporated in certain
eighteenth-century camera obscuras and telescopes, respectively, but were
used by Niepce for the first time in photography.
The first photographic camera on sale to the public was advertised in

June 1839 by a London optician, Francis West, for Photogenic Drawing.


The daguerreotype cameras put on the market by Alphonse Giroux of
Paris at the time of publication of the process in August 1839 consisted of
two wooden boxes, the rear part with the ground-glass for focussing sliding
within the front part containing the lens (III. 24). The complete outfit

with plate box, iodising and mercury boxes, spirit-lamp, bottles of chemicals
and other paraphernalia, weighed 110 lbs. and cost 400 francs (then £16 -by

36

>
24 DAGUERREOTYPE CAMERA
WITH THE SEAL OF THE
MANUFACTURER GIROUX AND
Daguerre’s signature, 1839

today’s value about £120) (III. 25). Soon smaller models and folding
cameras were designed for travelling. In December Baron Seguier introduced
a light-weight bellows camera, and with it three ‘firsts’ in photographic
equipment: the darkroom tent, the photographic tripod and the ball-and-
socket head. Previously, the camera was simply placed on a table or
other solid stand.
The same month, Carl August von Steinheil constructed a pocket camera
taking 8X11 mm daguerreotypes, which had to be viewed through a
magnifying glass. This proved a stumbling-block to the introduction of the
miniature camera - an invention that had come long before its time.

25 COMPLETE DAGUERREOTYPE OUTFIT


*1

26 woixott’s mirror
CAMERA, 1840

27 ‘the photographer
DEPRIVES THE ARTIST OF HIS
LIVELIHOOD’. CARICATURE BY
TH. HOSEMANN SHOWING THE
VOIGTLANDER CAMERA, 1843

The lenses made by Lerebours and Chevalier for the early French appa-
ratus were of poor quality, the effective aperture at which a sharp image
was obtained being F 14 or even F 16, with the result that the necessary
long exposure ruled out portraiture. To overcome this grave disadvantage
Alexander S. Wolcott of New York in May 1840 patented a mirror camera:
awooden box which had instead of a lens an open front through which the
sitter was received on a concave mirror and reflected on to the
image of the
2X2 inch daguerreotype plate (III. 26). By this ingenious arrangement
much more light was received on the plate than if it had passed through
a lens.
The need for a rapid portrait lens prompted the Viennese mathematician
Josef Max Petzval to calculate one for Friedrich Voigtlander, who designed
an original conical-shaped brass camera for it (III. 27). The apparatus put
on the market on 1st January 1841 took circular pictures 3V2 inches in dia-
meter in IV 2 to 2 minutes on a sunny day in the shade. It made portraiture
possible even before the introduction of chemical acceleration of the daguer-

38

>
reotype plate, for Petzval’s double combination lens gave excellent definition
even at full aperture F 3.5, and was thirty times faster than any other lens
of the period. Indeed this lens -the first designed specifically for photo-
graphic portraits - remained the most widely used lens-design for portrai-
ture all over the world until the introduction of Paul Rudolph’s anastigmat
by Carl Zeiss in 1889.
Wolcott’s and Voigtlander’s cameras were, however, exceptions and only
used for a short period until chemical acceleration made possible the taking
of larger pictures with ordinary cameras.
Cameras for taking Calotypes were similar to those for daguerreotypes.
In 1850 Marcus Sparling, Roger Fenton’s assistant during the Crimean
War, designed the first magazine camera for the travelling photographer.
Ten sheets of Calotype paper were stored in separate holders inside the
camera, each sheet being dropped after exposure into a receptacle beneath
the instrument.
Pride of place for ingenuity must go to A. J. Melhuish and J. B. Spencer
for the first ‘roll-film’ arrangement in May 1854. Sensitized waxed paper
was rolled up on a spool and the exposed part rewound on to a receiving
spool. The roll-holder was made in several sizes suitable for attachment
to any camera.
The landscape photographer using wet collodion had to take with him
an enormous amount of equipment as the plates had to be prepared, exposed
and developed while the collodion was still moist. In addition to camera

28 DARK-ROOM TENT IN WET COLLODION PERIOD, C. 1875


V
and tripod, and a choice of several lenses, he needed a chest full of bottles

containing chemicals for coating, sensitizing, developing and fixing the


negatives, a supply of glass plates, a number of dishes, scales and weights,
glass measures and funnels, a pail to fetch rinsing water (and where none
was likely to be found, the water itself), and a portable dark-tent in
which the chemical operations took place (III. 28). An amateur’s equip-
ment for a day’s outing weighed 100-120 lbs. Since it was both undignified
and uncomfortable to stagger along bent double beneath the weight of
cumbersome apparatus (III. 29), many photographers employed a porter.
The less affluent pushed a wheelbarrow or small hand-cart containing all
the equipment. The more successful could afford a carriage, which in some
cases simply served to convey the photographer and his equipment to the
scene; in others was fitted up as a travelling darkroom. Roger Fenton took
with him to the Crimean War a horse-drawn van rigged up as a darkroom
and sleeping quarters (III. 30).
Many inventive minds worked towards methods of avoiding the need
for a dark-tent. This could be effected either by chemical methods allowing
preparation of the plate in advance, and delayed development, or by con-
structing cameras fitted with a compartment in which the chemical mani-
pulation could be performed. Neither of these two methods was, however,

29 TITLE-PAGE OF ‘PHOTOGRAPHIC PLEASURES* BY CUTHBERT BEDE, 1855. THE FIRST


BOOK CARICATURING PHOTOGRAPHY
30 roger fenton’s photographic van in the Crimean war, 1855

PHOTOGRAPHIC

POPULARLY PORTRAYED WITH PEN A PENCIL.


B If CUTHBERT BEDE. 9. A.
author Of ' VtROAj/T GRUff.’
A I EXPOSITION III' DOUI KVARD HI S ITAI.IKNS.
31 DISDERl’s LIFE-SIZE
— Mi! mon Dicu ! c'cst iaphotographic mon petit hebe?
tie
PORTRAITS. CARICATURE BY
‘cham\ 1861
— Jc puis lc la ire encore plus graml. si mmlame le ilosire.

really satisfactory in practice. The so-called dry collodion plates were far
too slow, and manipulating chemicals inside the camera was a messy business.
Paradoxically, during the collodion period (1851— c. 1880) the camera
became both larger and smaller - according to the purpose for which it was
intended. Realizing the possibilities of photography as an independent art
medium - a feeling which had hardly existed in the 1840s when photo-
graphy was largely in the hands of professional portraitists - many amateurs
took up the art and competed with each other and with professionals in
exhibitions. Naturally, the bigger pictures were the more imposing ( 111 . 31 ),
and was not yet practicable on account of the extreme slowness
as enlarging
of the positive printing-out paper, the photographer had to use big plates
from which he made contact prints. 10X12 inch and 12X16 inch were
quite ordinary plate sizes, and some hardy spirits felt that nothing smaller
than a 20X16 inch plate would do justice to their subject. Keen photogra-
phers laboured under the most trying conditions with their huge equipment,
but these difficulties caused them to be particularly careful in the choice
of viewpoint and lighting in order to ensure success at the first exposure.

41
32 STEREOSCOPIC DAGUERREOTYPE INCLUDING STEREOSCOPIC VIEWER, C. 1852

The largest camera made during the nineteenth century was constructed
in 1860 for John Kibble, a Glasgow amateur. It was so big that it had to be

mounted on wheels and drawn by a horse. The glass plates measured 44X36
inches and each one weighed about 44 lbs. Fortunately Kibble was used to
handling large panes of glass, being by trade a builder of conservatories
and greenhouses.
In contrast to this monster camera were the stereoscopic cameras intro-
duced in the 'fifties when a great demand arose for photographs to be viewed

42
in Sir David Brewster’s lenticular stereoscope, commercially introduced by
Louis Jules Duboscq in 1851. To enable two pictures of the same object to
be taken from slightly different viewpoints, giving an impression of relief

and astonishing reality when viewed cameras were


in the stereoscope, special

constructed. In the single-lens type, after the had been taken


first picture
on one half of the plate, the whole camera was moved along a rail on the
carrying-box on which it stood, and the other half of the plate was then
exposed. Of course only still objects could be photographed in this way
(III. 32). The binocular or twin-lens type proposed by Brewster in 1849

and constructed in 1853 by John Benjamin Dancer of Manchester (111.33)


and A. Quinet of Paris, took both pictures simultaneously, and soon super-
seded the slow single-lens type. Owing to the small size of each picture

(3X3 1 /4 inches) and the short focal length of the lenses (5 inches) it was
possible with binocular stereoscopic cameras to obtain lively instantaneous
pictures of moving objects in a fraction of a second: street scenes with traffic
(III. 34), seascapes with rolling waves, public ceremonies. The extreme
popularity of stereoscopic pictures began in the mid-’fifties and affected the
whole of the so-called civilized world for about fifteen years. It was claimed
1
there was ‘no home without a stereoscope .

Realization of the new possibilities opened up by the binocular camera


led to the construction of small cameras for taking single pictures. Thomas
Skaife’s metal ‘Pistolgraph’ (1858) had a spring shutter worked by rubber
bands released by a trigger, hence ‘pistol’. It was fitted with one of the
fastest lenses ever made, a Dallmeyer combination with effective aperture

F 1.1, taking snapshots about IV 2 inches in diameter. Rather incongruously


Skaife particularly recommended his pistol camera for photographing pet
animals and babies. He once aimed his ‘Pistolgraph’ at Queen Victoria and
was nearly arrested for an attempt on her life. Unfortunately this interesting
photograph was lost for ever when Skaife had to open his ‘pistol’ to convince

33 j. b. dancer’s binocular

STEREOSCOPIC CAMERA (IMPROVED


MODEL), SEPTEMBER 1856
34 ADOLPHE BRAUN. THE BOULEVARD POIS^ONNIER, PARIS, C. 1860. THE DARK
PATTERN IN THE ROAD IS DUE TO WATER-SPRINKLING
the police that his ‘shots’ were harmless snapshots. It may well have been
the ‘Pistolgraph’ that led Sir John Herschel to write in 1860 of ‘the possi-
bility of taking a photograph as it were by a snap shot’ -the first use of
this term.

Probably the smallest nineteenth-century camera was introduced by


T. Morris of Birmingham in 1859. It measured only IV2XIV2X2 inches,
took 3 inch square pictures suitable for locket portraits or for enlargement,
/4

and was called a miniature camera.


The best known of these small cameras was Adolphe Bertsch’s ‘automatic
camera’ (1860). The 4 inch square metal box camera had a fixed-focus lens
(hence automatic) rendering sharp all objects beyond a distance of 40 feet.
Instead of the usual ground-glass it was provided with a frame viewfinder
and spirit-level. Whilst the comparatively long exposures with the large
cameras of the period rendered a shutter mechanism unnecessary, it is sur-
prising that in Bertsch’s camera the short exposures were made simply by
removing the lens cap by hand. The ‘chambre noire automatique’ was an
early example of the modern system of a miniature camera producing nega-
tives for enlargement. Tenfold magnification could be achieved from the
2V4X2V4 inch negatives with Bertsch’s improved solar enlarger with double
condensor. The best known enlarger was D. A. Woodward’s ‘solar camera’
of 1857 (111.35), but enlarging was little practised because it depended
on hours of sunshine with the slow printing-out paper.
The cameras just described, and a number of other pocket cameras intro-
duced in the 1860s were, therefore, exceptions. Most serious photographers
worked, as already mentioned, with big plate cameras.
Carte-de-visite photographers used a camera fitted with four identical
lenses of short focus; the interior was divided into four compartments, one
for each lens. By exposing first one half of the plate and then the other

35 DAVID A. WOODWARD’S ‘SOLAR CAMERA’ ENLARGER, 1857


36 DISDERI. UNCUT SHEET OF CARTE DE VISITE PORTRAITS OF PRINCESS BUONAPARTE-
GABRIELLE, C. 1862

by means of a sliding plate-holder, eight small portraits could be taken on


a plate 10X8 inches. For a variety of poses the lenses could be uncapped
separately and a new pose taken each time (III. 36). The advantage of this

method, patented by Disderi in November 1854, was that eight photo-


graphs were obtained on one negative, the resulting contact print somewhat
resembling a set of Polyphotos was then cut up and each portrait, trimmed
to 2 1 AX3 1
/2 inches, mounted on a card 2V2X4 inches -the usual visiting-
card size. This was naturally much cheaper than taking eight separate photo-
graphs. An additional saving was achieved because in these tiny full-length
portraits the sitter’s head was so small that retouching was unnecessary.

46
The rapid gelatine dry plate which began to come into general use in
1879-80 not only greatly simplified photographic technique but also revo-
lutionized equipment. Cameras for outdoor work were now small, and pro-
vided with an instantaneous shutter. Quarter-plate and 4X5 inch hand
cameras established themselves as the most popular sizes for amateurs in the
Anglo-Saxon countries, the Continental equivalent being 9X 12 cm.
During the 1880s and 90s a variety of cameras were produced for use
with dry plates, cut film, and roll-film. They fall into four main categories:
(1) Change-box cameras with a plate-changing box attached, similar to a
modern film-pack casette. They usually held a dozen plates (sometimes cut
film), each in a separate plate-holder, permitting daylight changing. In most
cases an automatic counter indicated the number of exposures made.
(2) Magazine cameras with twelve plates or forty sheets of cut film stored
in a magazine or chamber inside the camera body, the plate being changed
after each exposure by various mechanisms. In the simplest form the ex-
posed plate was dropped into the bottom of the camera and the next plate
pushed forward by a spring (III. 37). An automatic counter was provided.
(3) Reflex cameras. Single and twin-lens reflex cameras are classed as a
separate group, for although they were variously made with change-box,
magazine, or roll-film attachment, they are basically of different construc-
tion, incorporating a mirror fixed at 45° to the lens, reflecting the image

on to a ground-glass in the top of the camera, allowing observation of the


subject up to the moment of taking the picture.
The first to apply this centuries-old camera obscura principle to photo-
graphy was Thomas Sutton, editor of Photographic Notes ,
who patented

37 MAGAZINE CAMERA, C. 1885


5
38 ROSS & co.’s ‘divided twin-lens reflex camera with plate-changing bag
(improved model), 1895
his single-lens reflex camera in August 1861. However, like the roll-holder

of Melhuish and Spencer (1854), the focal-plane shutter of William England


(1861), miniature cameras, and other inventions in advance of their time,
there was no demand for the reflex camera until the mid-’eighties, when
photography for the first time became the hobby of millions. The first of the
twin-lens reflex cameras, a quarter-plate with a roller-blind shutter attached
to the taking lens, was made by R. & J. Beck, London, in February 1880.
Perhaps the most advanced in design was Ross & Co.’s ‘Divided’ (1891)
(111.38), of which the smallest model, for 3V4X3V4 inch negatives on
48-exposure Eastman roll-film, measured only 6X4 A X7 U
1 1
inches.

(4) Roller-slides and roll-film cameras which eventually superseded change-


,

box and magazine cameras, used flexible films instead of glass plates or cut
films, the film being wound on two spools. At first the film was in a separate

box or roller-slide, made in many sizes for attachment to almost any camera.
The first camera incorporating a roll-film was the Kodak introduced by
George Eastman in August 1888. The apparatus was the embodiment of
simplicity, being a wooden box 6 1 /2X3 1 /2X 3V2 inches with a rectilinear
fixed-focus lens giving sharp definition of everything beyond 8 feet, and
having only one speed and a fixed stop. With the Kodak anybody could
photograph who could Tull the string -turn the key -press the button’. Its
appeal to the unskilled amateur was further enhanced by Eastman’s recom-
mendation to return the camera to the factory for developing and printing
of the film, according to his famous slogan ‘You press the button -we do
the rest’.

The rapid growth of the amateur movement after 1880 had made the
mass-production of photographic equipment and materials feasible for the
first time, and the Eastman Company in Rochester, N.Y., was the first of

39 ‘ticka’ detective
CAMERA TAKING 25 PICTURES
ON 16 MM FILM, 1906
40 SHEET OF ‘POSTAGE STAMP* PHOTOGRAPHS WITH PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
WILSON, 1888. WITHDRAWN FOR LESE-MAJESTE

the great photographic manufacturing companies to cater for their needs


and stimulate their demand with brilliant psychology applied to advertising.
‘A collection of these pictures,’ prospective buyers of the Kodak were in-

formed, "may be made to furnish a pictorial history of life as it is lived by


the owner, that will grow more valuable every day that passes.’ This was,
and still is, all that the average camera user wants to get out of photography.

While other manufacturers were discouraged from producing roll-film


cameras by Eastman’s virtual monopoly of nitro-cellulose roll-film, intro-
duced in 1889, a large variety of hand-cameras for plates or cut film appeared.
In the ’80s and ’90s some very small and compact cameras were designed,
which were in the true sense pocket cameras. It was a status symbol for
amateurs of both sexes to carry a camera about, and the market was inundated
with small cheap models, which degenerated into toys of little practical
value, rather like some transistor radios of today. A craze started for so-
called detective cameras got up in the form of field-glasses, revolvers, books,

watches (III. 39), parcels, concealed in purses, walking-sticks, hats, cravats,


or beneath the waistcoat. The lenses of these cheap cameras were poor, the
pictures too minute to be of any use. Only in one respect are they of in-
terest, in that they show a steady trend towards the miniature camera which,
as a scientific precision instrument, did not arrive until 1924.
Space does not permit more than a passing reference to the many cameras
designed for special purposes, such as panoramic views, stereoscopy, ‘postage-
stamp’ photographs (III. 40), chronophotography, and for various medical
and other scientific purposes.

49
New cameras constantly appeared on the market, for the ranks of photo-
graphers swelled from week to week. By 1900 every tenth person in Britain
-four million people -was reckoned to own a camera. The proportion was
probably about the same in the U.S.A., but considerably lower on the
Continent. Today the U.S.A. with over forty million amateur photographers
is the largest camera-owning country, followed
by Britain and Japan.
The vast majority of the small cameras were of the folding type and
made of light-weight metal. Gaumont of Paris introduced in 1903 a well-
designed vest pocket camera, as the 4 V 2 X 6 cm plate size was generally
called. This was the smallest size from which a contact print was considered
acceptable for pasting in an amateur’s album.
An interesting pointer to future development and a precursor of the
Leica was designed and constructed by George P. Smith of Missouri in 1912.
His 35 mm camera took IXIV 2 inch pictures on cine-film. The mass-pro-
duction of 35mm film for the new cinema industry made it economical for
photography and it is natural that this idea should have occurred to
still

more than one camera designer about the same time. The Minnograph intro-
duced in 1914 by Levy-Roth of Berlin took 50 pictures 18X24 mm on
35 mm The external dimensions of the Minnograph, 5X6X13 cm,
cine-film.
The prototype of the Leica was constructed
are very similar to the Leica’s.
in the same year by Oskar Barnack, a microscope designer at Leitz in

Wetzlar. Owing to the first World War and the subsequent inflation in
Germany it was ten years before the Leica went into production. The
significance of the Leica lay in the fact that various features such as a
range-finder coupled with the excellent Elmar lens designed by Dr Max
Berek to give first-rate definition at the full aperture of F 3.5, raised the

miniature camera to a precision instrument.


With the Leica the era of the true miniature camera began, and enlarging
on fast, developed gelatine bromide paper at last became standard practice.
Nevertheless, the advantages of the Leica were not fully appreciated immedi-
ately. In particular, the high resolving Elmar lens was far in
power of the
advance of the resolving power of the and until about 1931
films of that day,
when fine-grain developers reduced the graininess of fast films, and conse-
quently ensured good enlargements, the small plate camera retained un-
doubted advantages over the miniature camera. It was in fact a plate camera,
the Ermanox (III. 41) made by the Ernemann Works, Dresden, and put on
the market in 1924, one year before the Leica, that for a few years proved
a more useful tool for photographers needing a fast instrument. Indeed the
powerful F 1.8 and F 2 Ernostar lenses made snapshots possible by available

50

*
41 ERMANOX CAMERA WITH
ERNOSTAR LENS F 2, 1924

light at political meetings, indoor social functions, the theatre, and so on. In
conjunction with fast panchromatic plates 4 V 2 X 6 cm, the Ermanox was the
camera used by the pioneers of photo-journalism, Dr Erich Salomon, Felix
H. Man, and others who had to work in poor lighting conditions.
The Rolleiflex put on the market in 1929 by Franke & Heidecke, Braun-
schweig, was the precursor of numerous similar twin-lens reflex roll-film
cameras, of which it still remains the most popular. Like the Leica and the
Contax, the Rolleiflex has undergone many revisions since its first appearance,
and its former disadvantage of being restricted to one focal length has been
overcome by a modification of the construction to permit interchangeability
of lenses, as with other cameras.
The best-known of the pre-war single-lens reflex cameras in the 6X6 cm
format, the Reflex Korrelle, was also of German make.
After World War II the 6X6 cm single-lens reflex camera of the Swedish
manufacturer Hasselblad in Gothenburg, incorporating an interchangeable
film back, came into prominence. It is popular among advertising, fashion
and portrait photographers.
In recent years the Japanese camera industry has produced precision
instruments in the 35 mm and 6X6 cm sizes now almost universally fav-

51
oured, with a range of excellent lenses, challenging for the first time the
previous hegemony of the German camera and photographic optical industry.
This had begun in 1889 with the introduction of Dr Paul Rudolph’s an-
astigmat, and was firmly established with his Tessar lens (1902), and other
world-famous lenses and camera features such as Friedrich Deckel’s Compur
shutter (1912), and above all the Leica and the Rolleiflex.
The need for several lenses of different focal length will before long be
superseded by the Zoom lens system giving variable focal length, introduced
by Voigtlander, Braunschweig, in 1959.
With the latest fully automatic cameras, of which the prototype was the
Optima of Agfa, the amateur has no longer to worry about diaphragm open-
ing and length of exposure, which are controlled by built-in photocells.
The Polaroid camera invented by Edwin H. Land in 1947, with which a
positive could be obtained in 60 seconds (now reduced to 10 seconds) after
exposure, the paper negative and positive being developed in the camera,
is by many people considered the ideal instrument for the amateur. Ex-

tremely simple in operation, it has the disadvantage of producing only one


print, for the negative cannot be re-used.
These refinements free the amateur from the need for any technical know-
ledge whatsoever, but
‘Of what use are lens and light
To those who lack in mind and sight?’

THE EVOLUTION OF COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHY


From the first announcement of the daguerreotype on 7th January 1839 a
certain disappointment was felt at its inability to record colours, which were
instead translated into varying shades of monochrome. Yet having achieved
the exact representation of Nature with all its details, it was realized that

the attainment of colour was only a matter of time -though its advent came
much later than expected.
Lack of colour was at first particularly felt in portraiture, for the public,
accustomed to miniatures, preferred ‘twopence coloured’ to ‘penny plain’.
Miniature painters, finding themselves out of work through the popularity
of the daguerreotype, soon fulfilled the demand by tinting daguerreotypes
and occasionally painting over paper photographs.
(Sir) James Clerk-Maxwell in a lecture on the Young/Helmholtz theory

of colour vision at the Royal Institution, London, in May 1861 demonstrated


that every possible shade of colour could be made up from the three primary
colours red, blue and green. Thomas Sutton took for him three photographs

52
42 LOUIS DUCOS DU HAURON. VIEW OF ANGOULfeME, 1877

of striped coloured ribbon through glass cells containing red, blue and green
solutions of metallic salts (acting as filters). Diapositives of these were
projected from three optical lanterns behind three identical coloured filters,

and when superimposed on the screen, combined into a colour photograph.


Though the result was far from perfect, Clerk-Maxwell indicated the
correct primary colours for three-colour photography by the additive pro-
cess, whereas the suggestions put forward by Henry Collen in 1865 were

not only impracticable but were moreover based on Sir David Brewster’s
theory of red, blue and yellow as primary colours, which is erroneous for
light, though valid for pigments.
Louis Ducos du Hauron made the greatest contribution to the evolution
of colour photography in the nineteenth century. He proposed the subtractive
method of colour photography in his book Les Couleurs en Photographie ,

Solution du Probleme (1869), i.e. the pigments absorb or subtract from


light all colours except their own, which they reflect. Ducos du Hauron

53
took three separation negatives behind green, orange and violet filters, and
made positives on thin sheets of bichromated gelatine incorporating carbon
pigments of red, blue and yellow colour respectively, i.e. the complementary
colours to those by which the negatives were taken. When the red, blue and
yellow carbon prints were mounted superimposed, a Heliochrome or colour
photograph was the result. Either colour transparencies or colour prints
could be made, depending on whether the carbon prints were mounted on
paper or on glass.

Charles Cros independently published the correct principle of the sub-


tractive colour method two days after the granting of a patent to Ducos du
Hauron on 23rd February 1869.
In his book Ducos du Hauron also made a correct forecast of the additive
colour process by the line screen system, which was elaborated by the
Dublin physicist Charles Jasper Joly in 1896, using a screen plate with
230 lines per inch.
Like all other experimenters trying to solve the problem of colour photo-
graphy Ducos du Hauron was seriously impeded by the comparative in-
sensitivity of photographic negative materials to colours other than blue
and violet. Even was bound to lead to unbalanced
the most correct theory
colour pictures until good orthochromatic material was available. Ducos du
Hauron’s earliest surviving colour photograph, a view of Angouleme (III. 42)
dates from 1877, and though taken after the introduction of certain dyestuffs
which had the effect of increasing the sensitivity to other colours, the carbon
print is far from perfect.
The discovery of the power of particular dyes to render the photographic
emulsion sensitive to all colours was the one step needed to turn the theory
of three colour photography into practice. In December 1873 Hermann
Wilhelm Vogel, professor of photochemistry at the Technische Hochschule,
Berlin, discovered that by bathing the collodion plate in particular aniline
dyes its sensitivity to green was increased to some extent. Vogel’s pioneer
work in orthochromatism led a number of other investigators to experiment
on similar lines, with the result that through new and better colour sensi-
tizers the photographic plate was by dtgrees made more sensitive to green,

yellow, and orange. Orthochromatic plates were, however, still compara-


tively insensitive to red and over-sensitive to blue. It was not until 1906
that the first truly panchromatic plates (i.e. sensitive to all colours of the
spectrum) were commercially introduced by Wratten & Wainwright of
London, after new I. G. Farben dyestuffs had extended the sensitivity of
the photographic emulsion to red.

54

*
A pioneer in inventing equipment for three colour photography was
Frederick Eugene Ives of Philadelphia, whose various apparatus first made
the realization of colour photographs a commercial proposition. In Ives’s
Photochromoscope camera (1891) three separation negatives were taken in
rapid succession on one plate by means of a repeating back containing red,
green and blue-violet filters. From these, black and white diapositives were
made by contact printing. When laid on the Kromskop viewing instrument
(1892), containing filters in the same colours, the Kromograms appear in
perfect colour.
Ives also brought out stereo versions of these instruments, in which the
colour pictures are seen in relief, and in 1895 introduced the Projection
Kromskop for use with a magic lantern, which was followed a few years
laterby a one-shot colour camera.
Prof. Gabriel Lippmann’s interference process (1891), based on the theory
of Wilhelm Zenker, aroused much scientific speculation, for it produced a
direct natural colour picture without the intervention of filters or dyes,
which can only give close approximations. The phenomenon of colours pro-
duced by interference was described by Sir Isaac Newton, and can be seen
in, for instance, soap bubbles, mother-of-pearl or oil on a wet road, which
appear coloured though consisting of colourless substances. A thin photo-
graphic plate coated with fine-grain silver bromide was placed with the emul-
sion side in contact with mercury. This formed a mirror-like deposit, decom-
posing the white light into the spectrum colours by the interference of light
rays reflected by this thin film of mercury, the colours being caused by the
phenomenon of interference due to the structure which the mercury deposit
has acquired. From the practical point of view Lippmann’s process was too
complicated, the exposure extremely long, the picture difficult to see, and
impossible to reproduce.
A turning point in practical colour photography was the colour screen
process patented in 1904 by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere. The
Autochrome plates at their factory at Lyons were not com-
manufactured
mercially introduced until 1907, after good panchromatic emulsion was
available. The glass plates were coated with microscopically small grains of
starch dyed green, red and blue. Over them a thin film of panchromatic
emulsion was applied. The exposure was made through the glass side of the
plate, i.e. through the dyed starch grains acting as colour filters. After de-
velopment the plate was re-exposed to light and re-developed (reversal
process), resulting in a transparency composed of small specks of primary
colours giving the effect of mixed colours, as in a pointilliste painting.

55
Although the Autochrome was the first colour process to enjoy consider-
able popularity, particularly among it had the disadvantages that
amateurs,
the exposure was about forty times longer than with black and white, and
that the transparencies were rather dense.
In this resume only brief mention can be made of the best-known of
the other colour processes invented before 1935. Though improvements on
previous additive or subtractive processes, all were too complicated and
expensive to find widespread application. Additive processes: Dufay (1908),
Agfa colour plate (1916) introduced in film form as Agfacolor (1932),
Finlay Screen process (1929). Subtractive processes: Sanger-Shephard (1900),
Pinatype (1904), Uvachrom invented by Arthur Traube (1916), Duxochrom
invented by Herzog (1929), Autotype carbro process (1930), Vivex colour
prints (1932), Kodak wash-off relief (1934).

Modern methods of colour photography are based on multiple-layer film


and coupling components. This principle was almost simultaneously intro-
duced by Kodak and Agfa.
In Kodachrome film (1935), devised by two American amateurs Leopold
Godowsky and Leopold Mannes, three layers of emulsion are coated on
film support, the total thickness amounting to no more than an ordinary
black and white film. The top layer is sensitive only to blue light, the
middle layer to green and the bottom layer to red. (The idea of using
substances sensitive to one colour only was first put forward by Henry
Collen in 1865.) After development the residual silver bromide in each
layer is re-exposed and independently developed in coupler developers
which deposit dye of pre-determined colours wherever they develop silver
bromide to silver. Different coupler developers are therefore used for each
layer, and after dissolving away the positive silver image a subtractive
colour photograph of yellow, magenta and cyan (blue-green) dyes remains.
The Agfacolor film introduced in 1936 was based on a similar principle,
and is not to be confused with the additive film of the same name intro-
duced four years earlier. The chief difference between this new Agfacolor
film and Kodachrome was that the three coupling components were in-
corporated in the three emulsion layers during manufacture. After develop-
ing to a negative and bleaching out the silver image, the reversal positive
image was produced by a single colour-forming developer in the required
subtractive colours. In America, this process was introduced as Anscocolor
in 1941.

With both Kodachrome and Agfacolor, film transparencies were obtained,


and for reproduction. The natural desire, especially
suitable for projection,

56

>
of the amateur, was to have colour prints. Though the Agfacolor negative/
positive process was published in 1937, development of the system for prac-
tical use was stopped by the war and the film did not become available until

1950. Meanwhile Kodak had brought out in 1942 the Kodacolor negative/
positive film in which the first part of the process (the making of the trans-
parency) is analogous to the procedure described above under Agfacolor.
Instead, however, of converting the negative into a positive transparency,
a negative dye image in the complementary colours was left; this negative
was then printed on to paper coated with a similar set of emulsions to those
on the original negative, and after similar processing a positive print in the
primary colours was obtained.
The processing of all modern colour films is complicated and requires
controlled laboratory conditions and for this reason is performed by the
manufacturers or their authorized agents properly equipped for the work.
Since about 1950 leading manufacturers of photographic materials in many
parts of theworld have marketed colour films under their own trade names.
They are all more or less based on the Agfacolor patent which, as an enemy
invention, became available to the allied powers.
An exception is the Polaroid colour film introduced by the Polaroid Cor-
poration of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1963, for use in the Polaroid
Land camera. It produces a direct colour positive in one minute.

57
43 DR J. W. DRAPER. DAGUERREOTYPE OF HIS SISTER DOROTHY CATHERINE DRAPER,
JUNE 1840

»
THE ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS
OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Pictures and their Makers up to 1914

THE DAGUERREOTYPE

America
Probably no other invention ever captured the imagination of the public to
such an extent and conquered the world with such lightning rapidity as the
daguerreotype. Within a month of the manipulation’s being made public,
D. W. Seager, an English resident in New York, on 16th September 1839
took the first successful daguerreotype in the New World -a view of St Paul’s
Church,New York. He was immediately followed by two professors of
New York University, Samuel Morse, portrait painter and inventor of the
electro-magnetic telegraph, and the scientist Dr John William Draper, who
independently of one another experimented with portraiture. Alexander
S. Wolcott, a New York manufacturer of dental supplies, on 7th October
succeeded in taking a profile portrait the size of a signet-ring of his partner
John Johnson. Nine days later Joseph Saxton, an official of the U.S. Mint,
took the American daguerreotype, a view in Philadelphia.
earliest surviving
When, therefore, Francis Gouraud, agent of Daguerre and Giroux, the
manufacturer of his apparatus, arrived in New York on 23rd November
with the intention of introducing the daguerreotype in the New World,
he found he had been forestalled. However, the thirty daguerreotypes
which Gouraud exhibited in aBroadway hotel were vastly superior to the
experimental ones so far made in the United States. According to The
Knickerbocker the French daguerreotypes were
,
‘the most remarkable ob-
jects of curiosity and admiration, in the arts, that we ever beheld. Their
exquisite perfection almost transcends the bounds of sober belief’. Gouraud
gave demonstrations and lessons, sold daguerreotype outfits, and published
an instruction manual in March 1840. Independently from this, there appear-
ed almost simultaneously a brochure by Dr James Chilton, a Broadway
chemist.
During the winter Wolcott, with the assistance of Henry Fitz, who
possessed some knowledge of optics, had devised a novel camera in which

59
a concave mirror was substituted for a lens (III. 26). This shortened the
exposure to 3-5 minutes, and allowed Wolcott and Johnson to open the
world’s first Daguerreian Parlor in New York at the beginning of March
1840. A contributory factor to success in ‘sun-drawn miniatures’ was Wol-
cott’s ingenious lighting system. Two adjustable mirrors outside the window
reflected the sunlight on to the sitter through a plateglass trough filled with
a solution of copper sulphate, the blue colour of which made the light more
actinic as well as protecting the sitter’s eyes from the glare.
The following month Morse and Draper, considering their experiments
sufficiently advanced, opened jointly a portrait studio on the roof of the
University building, where they also gave lessons in daguerreotype mani-
pulation. The earliest good portrait to survive until modern times was taken
by Draper of his sister in June 1840 (III. 43). It measured 3V2X2 3 /4
inches and the exposure was 65 seconds. The first detailed description of the
taking of photographic portraits was communicated by Draper to The Lon-
don & Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and published in September 1840.
By the early ’forties portrait studios abounded in American cities, and
itinerant daguerreotypists appeared in every small town.
Prominent early American daguerreotypists include Charles R. Meade,
M. M. Lawrence, Jeremiah Gurney and Mathew B. Brady, all in New
York. The latter from 1844 onward photographed every American of
distinction with the intention of forming a National Historical Portrait
Gallery. Edward Anthony in partnership with J. M. Edwards opened a
portrait studio in in 1842 and photographed all the Mem-
Washington D. C.
bers of Congress. Marcus A. Root of Philadelphia was from 1842 to 1846
in partnership with J.E. Mayall, later a leading photographer in London.
John Adams Whipple of Boston is better known for a particularly success-
ful daguerreotype of the moon in 1851 than for his portraits. Excellent
views, as well as portraits, were taken by Albert Sands Southworth and
his partner Josiah John Hawes where John Plumbe, a Welsh
in Boston,

immigrant, became in 1841 probably the first American manufacturer of


daguerreotype apparatus and materials. He also had a photographic studio
there, and during the next few years opened a chain of twelve other branches

across the United States.


Most European daguerreotypes are small portraits, but in the United
States the processwas frequently also used for landscapes. In July 1845 the
brothers William and Frederick Langenheim, portrait photographers in
Philadelphia, made a number of large panoramic pictures of the Niagara
Falls, each made up from five separate views. Charles Fontayne and W. S.

60

>
44 PLATT D. BABBITT. DAGUERREOTYPE OF THE NIAGARA FALLS, C. 1853

Porter three years later produced a fine panorama of Cincinnati waterfront


no less than 8 feet long, made up from eight daguerreotypes each 12X9
inches. Platt D. Babbitt was granted in 1853 the monopoly for photography
on the American side of the Niagara Falls. When visitors stood at the edge
of the cliff would take them unawares (III. 44) and
to admire the Falls he
of course they were always glad to buy a picture as a souvenir. Babbitt was
probably the first to specialize in this kind of tourist photography. The
bright reflection from the water enabled him to give an almost instan-
taneous exposure showing the spray and clouds. The only European to have
succeeded in photographing clouds by this date was Hippolyte Macaire of
Le Havre.
In November 1850 there appeared in New York the first photographic
journal in the world, The Daguerreian Journal: devoted to the Daguerreian
and Photogenic Arts. On the banks of the Hudson River a town grew up
round a large factory making daguerreotype supplies and was appropriately
named Daguerreville.

61
At the Great Exhibition in London, 1851, American daguerreotypes won
universal praise for their technical brilliance, due to special care in polishing
the silvered plate -frequently by steam-machinery driving cleaning and
buffing wheels.
The daguerreotype attained its greatest popularity in the States in 1853
when three million were estimated to be produced. In New York City alone
there were about a hundred studios. The process remained popular in the
United States until the mid-’sixties, several years longer than in Europe.

Great Britain
England was the only country in which the daguerreotype had been patent-
ed. In February 1840 Daguerre and Isidore Niepce (Nicephore’s son) sent
to England an agent, Elzeard Desire Letault, with the aim of selling the
daguerreotype patent to the British Government or some public institution.
However, Letault returned to Paris two months later without having accom-
plished his object.
About this time Richard Beard, coal-merchant and patent speculator,
acquired from Alexander Wolcott the right to use his mirror camera, which
was vital to Beard’s plan to make photographic portraiture a commercial
success. He engaged John Frederick Goddard, a science lecturer, with the
object of accelerating the daguerreotype process with bromine (which he
learned Wolcott had experimented with) in order to make it fast enough
for portraiture. By 12th December Goddard had succeeded sufficiently
to make an announcement in The Literary Gazette of his ability to take

portraits, and Beard went ahead with his plan for a public studio. This
was opened on 23rd March 1841 on the roof of the Royal Polytechnic
Institution in London. It was the first public photographic portrait studio
in Europe, and the novelty of having one’s likeness taken ‘by the sacred
radiance of the Sun’ caused immense excitement. Crowds flocked to Beard’s
establishment, and ‘in the waiting rooms you would see the nobility and
beauty of England, accommodating each other as well as the limited space
would allow, during hours of tedious delay’. The average daily takings
amounted to £150, the charge being one guinea for a IV 2 X 2 inch portrait
-the size to which the picture was limited by the mirror camera. The ex-
posure varied in summer from 3 seconds to 2 minutes and in winter from
3 to 5 minutes according to the weather. For this reason the head-rest as
employed by Sir Thomas Lawrence and other portrait painters was taken
over by photographers, and remained in use to a certain extent up to the
Great War.

62
! — ; ;

PHOTOGRAPHIC PHENOMENA, OR THE NEW SCHOOL


OF PORTRAIT-PAINTING.
44
Sit, cousin Percy ; sit, good cousin Hotspur !” Henry IV.
44
My lords, be seated.—” Speech from the Throne .

I. —INVITATION TO SIT.

Now sit, if ye have courage, cousins all

ye grandmamas, wives, aunts, and mothers


Sit, all
Daughters and sisters, widows, brides, and nieces
In bonnets, braids, caps, tippets, or pelisses,
45 RICHARD BEARD’S STUDIO. WOODCUT BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, 1842

I
-

“S

Beard’s studio was circular and glazed with blue glass casting a mysterious
light which made people look like spectres. The arrangement was more
convenient than Wolcott’s liquid filters. The posing chair stood on a raised
platform bringing the sitter closer to the light (III. 45). Here

Apollo’s agent on earth, when your attitude’s right,


Your collar adjusted, your locks in their place,
Just seizes one moment of favouring light,
And utters three sentences: ‘Now it’s begun’
‘It’s going on now, sir’ - and ‘Now it is done’.
And lo! as I live, there’s the cut of your face
On a silvery plate
Unerring as fate,

Worked off in celestial and strange mezzotint


A little resembling an elderly print.
‘Well, I neverY all cry: ‘It is cruelly like you!’
But truth is unpleasant
To prince and to peasant.

The realization that the camera revealed the sitter with uncompromising
truth, dispelling cherished illusions of youth and beauty, was disconcerting
at first, particularly to women. The demands of the sitter for a good like-

ness and at the same time a beautiful portrait were -and still are -seldom
compatible. Fashionable artists, especially miniaturists, had encouraged their
sitters’ whims, and traded on deceit. Suspecting, perhaps, that Alfred Cha-
lon had made her quite unrecognizable by excessive flattery, the young
Queen Victoria asked her Court painter one day whether he were not
afraid that photography would ruin his profession. Chalon’s confident
rejoinder, ‘Ah non, Madame! photographic can’t flattere’ was characteris-
tic. Nevertheless, the heyday of miniature painting was past. To all except

the incurably vain the intimacy of the actual image of life was photo-
graphy’s strongest attraction (III. 46). It was this quality that caused
Elizabeth Barrett to write to her friend Mary Russell Mitford in 1843: ‘It

is not merely the likeness which is precious -but the association and the
sense of nearness involved in the thing . . . the fact of the very shadow of
the person lying there fixed for ever! ... I would rather have such a memo-
rial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest artist’s work ever produced.’
The best daguerreotypists took such excellent portraits that even the great
Ingres avowed: ‘It is to this exactitude that I would like to attain. It is

admirable -but one must not say so.’ (III. 47).

64
s
Daguerreotype portraiture proving a lucrative business, in June 1841
Beard bought Daguerre’s patent rights for the daguerreotype in England,
Wales and the Colonies. To overcome a frequent complaint against dagu-
erreotypes by people used to miniatures, Beard in March of the following
year patented a method of colouring daguerreotypes. Further studios were
soon opened by him in London and the provinces, and he also sold licences
for professional studios in certain towns and counties. For amateurs the fee
was five guineas annually. Beard’s quickly-earned fortune was lost, however,
in several protracted lawsuits against infringers of his rights and he was
declared bankrupt in June 1850 -three years before the patent ran out.
The most distinguished daguerreotypist in Britain was Antoine Claudet,
a Frenchman who had settled in London in 1827 as an importer of sheet
glass and glass domes. In August 1839 he learned the daguerreotype process
from the inventor himself and purchased from him a licence to practise it in
Britain.He was also granted sole agency rights for the import and sale of
French daguerreotypes and Daguerre’s apparatus. Claudet’s independent ex-
perimentation with an acceleration process led him to success slightly later
than Goddard. After discovering that a combination of chlorine and iodine
vapour greatly increased the sensitivity of the plate, Claudet began taking
portraits professionally in June 1841 in a glass-house erected on the roof of
the Royal Adelaide Gallery, a popular scientific recreation centre rivalling
the Polytechnic. This was the second photographic portrait studio in Europe.
Claudet was a man of superior calibre to Beard, who was merely a pro-
moter. He belonged to that rare species of being equally distinguished in the
scientific and artistic fields, and an inventor as well. For the first quality
he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; his artistic merits were summed
up by The Athenaeum: ‘What Lawrence did with his brush, Monsieur Clau-
det appears to do with his lens.’ (Ills. 17,48). Claudet introduced the red
dark-room light, the use of painted backgrounds, and several instruments,
especially in the field of stereoscopy. In 1851 he set up a ‘Temple to Photo-
graphy’ in Regent Street-the most elegant establishment of its kind in Brit-
ain, designed by Sir Charles Barry, architect of the Houses of Parliament.
John Jabez Edwin Mayall, a daguerreotypist in Philadelphia from
1842-46, opened his American Daguerreotype Institution in London early
in 1847 under the pseudonym ‘Professor Highschool’. Early daguerreotypists
frequently called themselves ‘Professor’. The technical excellence of Mayall’s
portraits soon brought him into prominence. A 24X20 inch daguerreotype
portrait preserved at the Science Museum, London, was probably taken by
him, for only Americans took daguerreotypes of such large dimensions.

66
48 ANTOINE CLAUDET. DAGUERREOTYPE (TINTED) OF A LADY, C. 1851
Other noted London professional daguerreotypists include William Ed-
ward Kilburn, T. R. Williams and William Telfer.
The Science Museum, London, possesses 158 wholeplate daguerreotypes
of Italian architecture and views taken in 1840 and 1841 (III. 49). Most
of them are by Dr Alexander John Ellis, philologist and mathematician, but
some of the earlier ones were commissioned by him from Achille Morelli and
Lorenzo Suscipi. own pictures bear an exact description of subject,
Ellis’s

date, time of day, and exposure, which varied from 5 to 35 minutes. The
photographs were intended for publication as steel engravings, which, how-
ever, some unknown reason did not materialize. They are the only
for
daguerreotype views known to have been taken by an Englishman, and the
earliest surviving photographs of Italy.
The first professional portraitist in Scotland- where photography was free
from patent restrictions- was a Mr Howie who began taking portraits in

Princes Street, Edinburgh, in autumn 1841. The sitter had to climb three
flights of stairs and a ladder through a skylight on to the roof, where
Howie would push him into a posing chair with the encouraging observa-
tion: ‘There! Now sit as still as death!’
In Ireland the first Daguerreotype Portrait Institution was opened in

Dublin by a Hungarian, ‘Professor’ Gliickman, in 1842.

49 DR A. J. ELLIS. DAGUERREOTYPE OF TEMPLE OF FAUSTINA AND ANTONINUS, ROME, JUNE 1841


50 ‘la patience est la vertue
DES ANES\ CARICATURE BY DAUMIE
FROM ‘le charivari’, 1839

France
With Arago’s revelation of the daguerreotype manipulation, all Paris was
seized with daguerreotypomania. An eye-witness wrote: ‘You could see in
all the squares of Paris three-legged dark-boxes planted in front of churches
and palaces (III. 50). All the physicists, chemists and learned men of the
capital were polishing silvered plates, and even the betterclass grocers found

it impossible to deny themselves the pleasure of sacrificing some of their


means on the altar of progress.’ Edition after edition of Daguerre’s official
instruction booklet was quickly sold out. Altogether no fewer than twenty-
nine editions were published in the next four months, in six languages, not
counting a number of brochures by other people which appeared in that
period.
Considering the tremendous impact the invention made, it is surprising
that only seventeen daguerreotypes by the inventor himself, many of
which he presented to heads of State, have survived. They are of still-lifes

69
•N

51 L. J. M. DAGUERRE. DAGUERREOTYPE OF STILL-LIFE IN HIS STUDIO, 1837

52 L. J. M. DAGUERRE. DAGUERREOTYPE OF NOTRE DAME AND THE ll.E DE LA CITE, PARIS, 1838
115 e PUS BOUfffO/S
» 49

53 caricature by Position repute? la plus comode pour iroir onjoh portrait iu fyucrrcotjpe
DAUMIER, 1844

in his studio (III. 51), buildings and views in Paris (111.52), and a few
portraits taken in the mid-’forties at his country house at Bry-sur-Marne
to which he retired in 1840.
In France, as elsewhere, attempts at portraiture were immediately made,
by Dr Alfred Donne, head of the Charite clinic; Abel Rendu, a civil serv-
ant; Susse Freres; E. T. and E. Montmiret; and others. As people had to
sit imprisoned in a posing chair in direct sunshine for about a quarter of
an hour they looked more dead than alive (III. 53). The only people who
could stand the ordeal with a reasonable measure of success were artists’

models, but it was not until July 1840 that portraits of this kind were
mentioned for the first time as being on view.

71
v
As architecture, sculpture and landscapes do not depend for success on
a short exposure, N. P. Lerebours, an enterprising Parisian optical instru-
ment maker, equipped a number of artists and writers with daguerreotype
outfits of his own manufacture and commissioned them to take views in

many countries. Early in November 1839 Horace Vernet, painter of histo-


rical battle scenes, who travelled to Egypt with Frederic Goupil Fesquet,

reported from Alexandria: ‘We keep daguerreotyping away like lions/


Under the title Excursions Daguerriennes (1841-42) Lerebours published
fewer than one-tenth of the 1,200 daguerreotypes taken, copied as copper-
plate engravings and enlivened in many cases by the addition of figures.
Nearly as many fine architectural and landscape daguerreotypes were
taken by a single French amateur, Joseph Philibert Girault de Prangey,
during his travels through Italy (111.54), Greece and the Near East in
1842-44. Some of his the earliest taken -formed the
close-ups -possibly
basis of the illustrations in his book Monuments arabes d’Egypte, de Syrie
et d’Asie Mineur (1846).
The daguerreotype was a veritable mirror of nature. Its marvellously
clear rendering of detail and texture never ceased to arouse admiration. John
Ruskin, comparing his daguerreotype of a Venetian palace with a painting
by Canaletto of the same building, declared himself in favour of the photo-
graph ‘in which every figure, crack and stain is given on the scale of an
inch to Canaletto’s three feet’. In 1843 he wrote enthusiastically to his
father: ‘Photography is a noble invention, say what they will of it. Anyone
who has worked, blundered and stammered as I have done [for] four days,
and then sees the thing he has been trying to do so long in vain, done per-
fectly and faultlessly in half a minute, won’t abuse it afterwards.’
John Lloyd Stephens, an American traveller, and Frederick Catherwood,
an English artist, in 1841 revisited the lost cities of Yucatan where they had
been two years earlier. The daguerreotypes which they took of ruined
Mayan architecture, supplemented by camera lucida drawings, were pub-
lished as engravings in Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843).
According to La Lumiere some unusual daguerreotypes were taken by a
Frenchman named Tiffereau in Mexico in 1842-47. They included docu-
mentary pictures such as a Colima family preparing a meal outside their

hut, and the extraction of silver ore.


Some beautiful panoramic views of Paris measuring 15X4 3 /4 inches were
taken by Friedrich Martens, a German residing in Paris, with a panoramic
camera of his own invention (1845). Other prominent amateurs who did
excellent landscape work were the diplomat Baron Gros, and Hippolyte

72

>
54 J. P. GIRAULT DE PRANGEY.
DAGUERREOTYPE OF STATUE AT PORTAL
OF GENOA CATHEDRAL, 1842
N

55 ANTOINE CLAUDET. ‘THE GEOGRAPHY LESSON*. STEREOSCOPIC


DAGUERREOTYPE, 1851

Bayard, who had apparently lost confidence in photography on paper, of


which he was one of the independent inventors.
Portraiture became possible in France only after Claudet’s communication
to theAcademie des Sciences on 7th June 1841 of his accelerating process
(details ofGoddard’s having been kept secret by Beard). Lerebours was
probably the first person in France to open a public portrait studio; at any
rate, during the second half of that year he is stated to have taken about
1,500 portraits. Fie was also one of the earliest to take ‘Academies’ -nude

74

*
studies for which there was always a demand in Paris from artists and
tourists.

Louis Bisson also opened a studio in Paris some time in 1841. About 1848
he was joined in business by his younger brother Auguste, and with the
support of a financial backer they were established in the fashionable quarter
of the Madeleine. Henceforth until their retirement from photography in
the early 1860s their work was usually signed ‘Bisson Freres’.
Other well-known French professional portraitists in the 1840s include

Richebourg, Derussy and Victor Plumier in Paris, and I. Thierry and Vaillat
in Lyons, all of whom took up to 3000 portraits a year at prices varying
from 10 to 20 francs according to size, whether tinted, and style of frame.
On the Continent white passepartout frames were usual; in England and
America daguerreotypes were framed like miniatures in attractive velvet-
lined red morocco or moulded plastic cases, or occasionally in hanging-
frames of the kind used for silhouettes.
People could hardly believe that the photographer could depict a large
group (III. 55) just as quickly as a single portrait, and some early adver-
tisements drew special attention to the fact that there was no extra charge
for additional sitters in the picture. Many photographers, however, charged
more for children on account of the likelihood of their spoiling several
plates by fidgetting. Incidentally, it was a Parisian daguerreotypist, Marc
Antoine Gaudin, who in 1843 first used the famous stock phrase to children:
‘Now look in the box and watch the dicky-bird!’

German-speaking countries
The keen interest of the Germans in the daguerreotype is evinced by the
surprisingly large number of ten publications on the process which appeared
there during 1839. In Berlin, daguerreotypes were taken within a month
of publication of the manipulation, by Louis Sachse, Theodor Dorffel and
Eduard Petitpierre, a Swiss. The first professional studio in Berlin was
opened by J. C. Schall, a portrait painter whose earliest traceable daguerreo-
type advertisement appeared on 16th August 1842. Within three weeks
competition arose from another portrait painter, Julius Stiba. These Berlin
daguerreotypists had, however, been preceded by another artist, Hermann
Biow, whose Heliographic Studio at Altona near Hamburg opened on
15th September 1841. Between 1846 and his early death in 1850 Biow dagu-
erreotyped royalties and celebrities in Dresden, Frankfurt, and Berlin,
where a studio was set up for him in the Royal Palace. Here he photogra-
phed King Frederick William IV of Prussia, many princes, politicians, and

75
56 C. F. STELZNER.
DAGUERREOTYPE GROUP,
C. 1842

men famous in art and science. Like Brady in America, Biow planned a
National Gallery of Photographic Portraits, of which 126 were copied as

lithographs and published in 1849.


For seven months from September 1842 onward Biow had as partner in
Hamburg Carl Ferdinand Stelzner, originally a miniature painter who had
studied under Isabey in Paris. Stelzner’s art training comes out unmis-
takably in his daguerreotype portraits (III. 56), sometimes with painted
backgrounds, and frequently tinted by his wife, herself a professional minia-
turist. Stelzner and Biow both took the most artistic daguerreotype por-
traits inGermany, and indeed some of the finest of all.
They also recorded the ruins of Hamburg following a devastating fire
on 5th-8th May 1842. Only one daguerreotype in this series survives, and
is the earliest photograph of an historic event (III. 57). Unaware of these

authentic pictures, The Illustrated London News published in its first issue
on 14th May 1842 an imaginary view of the fire based on an old print of
Hamburg in the British Museum, suitably embellished with flames and
smoke!

76 -^ -

*
The important advance in the optics of the daguerreotype made by Petz-
val and Voigtlander has already been referred to. Chemical acceleration by
the combined vapours of chlorine and bromine is due to Franz Kratochwila,
a Viennese civil servant, who published the process in the Wiener Zeitung
on 19th January 1841. Early in March the brothers Joseph and Johann
Natterer of Vienna were reported to have taken portraits experimentally
with the Voigtlander camera on plates prepared according to Kratochwila’s
method, which they found increased the sensitivity five times. The exposure

was 5 to 6 seconds in clear weather or 10 seconds on dull days, reinforced


by the light of an oil lamp. Chemical acceleration in conjunction with the
Voigtlander camera reduced the exposure to a fraction of a second out of
doors in bright weather, enabling the Natterer brothers to take instantane-
ous street views with people and traffic. Whether the Natterers were the
first to open a professional portrait studio in Austria, or Karl Schuh, who
came from Berlin and opened a studio in the Furstenhof, Vienna, cannot
be ascertained, but the date in either case would certainly be 1841.

57 C. F. STELZNER. DAGUERREOTYPE OF RUINS AROUND THE ALSTER AFTER THE GREAT


FIRE OF HAMBURG, MAY 1842. THE EARLIEST NEWS PHOTOGRAPH
Johann Baptist Isenring, a carpenter and engraver in St Gallen, Switzer-
land, deserves to be remembered as the first person to hold a public ex-
hibition of photographic portraits, to retouch photographs, and to attempt
to give daguerreotypes a painterly appearance by colouring them. Isenring’s
four-page catalogue listing 39 portraits, in addition to still-lifes, architecture,
and so on, published in St Gallen in August 1840, is the first of its kind. The
quality of his coarse over-painted daguerreotype portraits, in which the
pupils of the eyes were scratched in, can only be imagined, for none seems
to have survived. It is rather doubtful that they were worth preserving.
Isenring himself cannot have been very satisfied, for it was only after learn-

ing of Kratochwila’s chemical acceleration that he accepted orders for


portraits from the public. Until then, he had only photographed relations
and friends. The novelty of having one’s portrait taken proved a great
success in Munich, where Isenring operated a portrait booth at a fair in the
summer of 1841. The following year this itinerant photographer began
travelling around the countryside in his Sonnenwagen the ,
earliest photo-
graphic carriage with darkroom, living and sleeping quarters. Altogether,
Isenring has the dubious distinction of being the first low-class photographer.
Enough has been said to show that by 1842-43 probably all European
capitals and large towns (III. 58) had one or more portrait studios, and
smaller places were visited by itinerant photographers.
The daguerreotype was a cul-de-sac in photography. Each picture was a
unique image, and although various etching processes were devised to con-
vert the picture into a printing plate, they proved too complicated and
expensive for widespread use. Moreover, the daguerreotype had other in-
superable disadvantages: the mirror-like sheen of the silvered plate made
it and unless the photograph were taken through
difficult to see the picture,

a prism -which lengthened the exposure -the image, being a direct positive,
was laterally reversed.

PHOTOGRAPHS ON PAPER

Great Britain
Talbot’s first was the miniature painter Henry Collen, who opened
licensee
a Calotypc studio in London in August 1841. He took small portraits in
about a minute, using them merely as a base for drawing or painting over.
The Calotype never became really popular, partly on account of the
stringent conditions imposed by Talbot under his patent, partly because the
soft grainy effect of the paper was generally considered a disadvantage

79

58 DAGUERREOTYPE OF A MILANESE LADY, C. 1845


59 w. h. fox talbot’s reading establishment, calotype, 1844

compared with the brilliantly sharp daguerreotype, and partly because of


its liability to fade. In the early and mid-’forties there were only about a
dozen practitioners of the Calotype, despite its inventor’s efforts to popularize
it by selling ‘Sun Pictures’ through printsellers and stationers. Talbot hoped
to recoup his family fortunes with his invention, and this accounts for his
strict enforcement of patent rights and his interests in various commercial
ventures, considered hardly suitable in those days for a gentleman and a man
of learning.
To demonstrate the chief advantage of his process over the daguerreotype,
which did not lend itself to publication, Talbot brought out two books
illustrated with original Calotypes. The prints were made at his photo-
graphic establishment atReading (III. 59 ), started in 1843 under the
management of his former valet and photographic collaborator, Dutch-born
Nicolaas Henneman.

80
The Pencil of Nature (III. 60), the first photographically-illustrated
book in the world, came out in six parts during 1844-46, and only about
a dozen complete copies containing all the 24 photographs are known. Sun
Pictures in Scotland , with 23 photographs, was published in 1845. An ex-
planatory ‘Notice to the Reader’ in both books stressed the novelty of
photographic illustrations: ‘The plates in the present work are impressed by
the agency of light alone, without any aid whatever from the artist’s pencil.

They are the sun pictures themselves, and not, as some persons have imagined,
engravings in imitation.’
The majority of Talbot’s photographs are rather matter-of-fact records,
though his work does include a number of highly artistic compositions

(III. 61), in some of which he may have had the collaboration of Henry

Collen. At any rate, it is known that Collen’s opinion prevailed when


photographing ‘The Ladder’, and he may well have advised Talbot on other
occasions. Moreover, it has been stated that some of the pictures in The

60 W. H. FOX TALBOT. COVER OF


‘the pencil of nature’, 1844.
THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPHICALLY
ILLUSTRATED BOOK

LONGMAN, BROWN, GRflN AND LONGMANS

LONDON. I»44
Pencil of Nature were taken by Benjamin Bracknell Turner, an artist who
became a well-known Calotypist. However, even if Talbot lacked artistic
talent, he showed aesthetic perception in remarking with regard to one of

the photographs in this book: ‘A painter’s eye will often be arrested where
ordinary people see nothing remarkable. A casual gleam of sunshine, or a
shadow thrown across his path, a time-withered oak, or a moss-covered
stone, may awaken a train of thoughts and feelings, and picturesque imagin-
ings.’

In a further effort at publicity Talbot presented to each of the 7,000 sub-


scribers to The Art Union (journal) a specimen Calotype to illustrate an
article on June 1846 issue. This was the last important
his process in the

work undertaken at the Reading establishment, which was closed the follow-
ing spring when Talbot opened a portrait studio in Regent Street, London,
in Henneman’s name. But like an earlier attempt of Claudet to introduce

Calotype portraits in his daguerreotype studio in 1844, this commercial


venture was not a success, and Henneman later changed over to the col-
lodion process.
Although Talbot’s patent did not cover Scotland, there was surprisingly
only one professional Calotype studio north of the Border -that of Hill
and Adamson.
David Octavius Hill, a native of Perth, was a landscape painter well
known in his day. His reputation was established by The Land of Burns
(1840) illustrated with 61 steel engravings copied from his paintings of
scenes associated with the life and works of the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
During his lifetime Hill exhibited nearly 300 pictures at the Royal Scottish
Academy (of which he was a founder-member, and secretary for forty
years) and elsewhere. His romantic landscapes were much admired at the
time, and indeed judging from the half-dozen or so which survive, are
superior to most Victorian paintings. There is more than a touch of both
Turner and Samuel Palmer in the mountainous landscape bathed in the
golden light of the setting sun, in a painting possessed by the authors.
What caused this successful landscape painter to take up photographic
portraiture? Wishing to commemorate the disruption of the Church of
Scotland in May 1843 by a monumental painting including portraits of
474 ministers and prominent lay members, Hill soon realized the difficulty
of his self-imposed task. Sir David Brewster, a member of Church
the Free
Committee and a friend of Talbot, suggested taking Calotype portraits of
the resigning ministers to serve as studies for the painting, and put Hill in
touch with Robert Adamson, who earlier that year had opened a Calotype

82

61 W. H. FOX TALBOT. ‘THE CHESS PLAYERS*. CALOTYPE, 1842


62 DAVID OCTAVIUS HILL AND
ROBERT ADAMSON. JAMES NASMYTH,
INVENTOR OF THE STEAM HAMMER.
CALOTYPE, C. 1845

studio at Rock House, Calton Hill, Edinburgh. The collaboration turned


out to be an ideal association. Adamson’s technical skill was indispensible
to Hill, who brought to photography an artistic conception of an unusually
high order. They started by taking portraits of some of the participants in
the first General Assembly of the newly-formed Free Church of Scotland.
Their fame soon spread and many other distinguished people came to be
photographed (III. 62). Since sunlight was essential, they were posed in
the porch at Rock House (III. 63), and in many pictures an arrangement
of curtains and furniture conveys a convincing impression of an interior.
Most of these photographs are 6X8 inches, and the exposure must have
been about a minute.
Hill and Adamson often took their camera to nearby seaside villages to
photograph old stone cottages, fishing boats, groups of sailors and fisher-

folk in scenes of everyday life. Their joint opus of some 1,500 photographs
also includes architectural views of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where
Greyfriars churchyard with its ivy-clad walls and ancient monuments formed

84
a favourite background for picturesque groups. Curiously enough, though
Hill was a landscape painter, there are comparatively few photographic
landscapes by him and Adamson.
Contemporary critics were full of admiration for these Calotypes, which
look not unlike purple-brown mezzotints. On account of the grain and
thickness of the paper negative, the Calotype gave broad effects (III. 64),
which suited Hill’s style much better than the brilliantly detailed daguerreo-
type would have done. The Hill/Adamson portraits are powerful in charac-
terizationand display a masterly sense of form and a sure instinct for bold
and simple composition. The massing of light and shade and apparent ease
of pose give them great charm.
After the death of Adamson at the age of twenty-seven Hill devoted the
remainder of The enormous canvas Signing of the Deed
his life to painting.

of Demission on which he worked on and off for twenty-three years is no


better than a gigantic ‘mosaic’ group, of interest only because of the com-
parison it affords with some of the Hill/Adamson Calotype portraits. In
this crowded composition Hill portrayed himself with sketchbook and pencil,

whereas Adamson is depicted as the camera-man. However, the artistic


failure of Hill’s later short comeback to photography with another collabo-

63 DAVID OCTAVIUS HILL


AND ROBERT ADAMSON.
‘the birdcage’. CALOTYPE,
c. 1843
64 DAVID OCTAVIUS HILL AND ROBERT ADAMSON. COTTAGE AT NEW-
HAVEN NEAR EDINBURGH. CALOTYPE, C. 1845

65 ROGER FENTON. DOMES OF THE CATHEDRAL OF THE RESURRECTION IN


THE KREMLIN. WAXED PAPER PROCESS, 1852
rator proves that Adamson’s role can hardly have been merely that of
technician, in spite of the fact that Hill used to show their joint produc-
tions in photographic exhibitions and at the Royal Scottish Academy along-
side his paintings as ‘Calotype portraits executed by R. Adamson under the
artistic direction of D. O. Hill’.
In the autumn of 1847 a dozen or so keen amateurs started the Calotype
Club in London. They included Roger Fenton and P. H. Delamotte, who
both later did outstanding work with the waxed paper process, the former
during a visit to Russia (III. 65) in 1852, the latter of the Crystal Palace
in Hyde Park.
In Edinburgh a similar association is said to have existed in the ’forties,

but it probably ceased before the gynaecologist Dr Thomas Keith took


up photography. He took architectural and landscape photographs (III. 66)
on waxed paper in and around the Scottish capital between 1853 and 1856,

66 DR THOMAS KEITH. WILLOW TREES. WAXED PAPER PROCESS, C. 1854


.JLUXU'!]

67 JOHN SHAW SMITH. PILLARS OF THE GREAT HALL OF THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK.
LUXOR. WAXED PAPER PROCESS, 1851

achieving in these fields the same high artistic level as his friend D. O. Hill
had and genre. Another Scottish landscape photographer of
in portraiture
distinctionwas John Forbes-White.
Calotype views and architectural close-ups of unusual artistic merit were
taken by John Shaw Smith, an Irish landowner, during a tour through
southern Europe and the Near and Middle East in 1850-52 (111.67).
Smith and his wife ventured as far as Petra, though he was not the first to
photograph the rose-red city. That distinction belongs to Dr George S. Keith,
brother of Thomas Keith, who in 1841 accompanied his father on a tour
of the Near East and took about 30 daguerreotypes.

France and other countries


The Calotype had been patented in France on 20th August 1841, but the
only person known to use it (as well as the daguerreotype) was Hippolyte
Bayard, whose windmills of Montmartre (III. 68) is one of his most

88

*
68 HIPPOLYTE BAYARD. THE WINDMILLS OF MONTMARTRE. CALOTYPE, 1842
69 W. H. FOX TALBOT. HOUSE IN PARIS OPPOSITE TALBOT’S HOTEL. CALOTYPE, 1843

attractive pictures. In spite of Bayard’s example and Talbot’s public de-


monstrations in Paris in May 1843 (111.69) there was no demand for
photographs on paper until the publication of Blanquart-Evrard’s modifica-
tion in 1847, which reduced the exposure to about a quarter of that pre-
viously needed. His process had, however, the disadvantage of requiring the
final preparation to be carried out immediately before exposure, so that for
outdoor work a dark-tent and chemicals had to be transported to the scene,
as with the daguerreotype and later the collodion process.
In July 1851 Blanquart-Evrard opened a photographic printing firm
at Lille for the production of positives for book illustration, and the print-
ing of amateurs’ negatives on a much larger scale than Talbot’s Reading
establishment. The and best-known book for which Blanquart-
earliest
Evrard’s firm printed the photographs (125 in number) was Maxime Du

90

)
Camp’s Egypte Nubie Palestine et Syrie (III. 70), the first instalment of
, ,

which appeared in September 1851. By his method of developing positive


copies (as is done today) Blanquart-Evrard was able to print 200-300 copies
from each negative per day, whereas with the slow printing-out paper
generally used until the turn of the century the average daily output per
negative was restricted to two or three copies. These developed prints had
a rather cold grey tone far less attractive than the warm purple-brown
colour of Calotypes. At the Lille printing works the photographs were
particularly thoroughly rinsed and gold-toned for permanence.
The waxed-paper process published in December 1851 by Gustave Le
Gray, a painter and photographer, was another variant of the Calotype.
Ordinary Calotype negatives were usually waxed before printing in order
to speed up the copying and to give a clearer positive, but this did not
altogether eliminate the grain of the paper. In Le Gray’s process a thinner
type of paper was preliminarily waxed, rendering it quite transparent and
giving as fine detail as a glass negative. Exposures were on the whole about
the same as with the Calotype, but development took one to three hours.

0 MAXIME DU CAMP. STATUE OF


AMESES II ON THE FACADE OF THE
EMPLE AT ABU SIMBEL, NUBIA.
ALOTYPE, 1849
c-
Kr"' •

71 CHARLES NEGRE. *LES RAMONEURS’. WAXED PAPER PROCESS, 1852

Though occasionally used for portraits by amateurs, the waxed paper proc-
ess was mainly employed for landscapes and architecture, being very

convenient for the travelling photographer because the paper could be


sensitized ten to fourteen days beforehand (instead of the day before as with
the Calotype) and did not need to be developed until several days after the
picturehad been taken (whereas the Calotype had to be developed the
same day).
The convenience of paper negatives, as improved by the French, encour-
aged many people to take up photography, and the Societe Heliographique
was formed in Paris in January 1851 under the presidency of Baron Gros.
Among its founder-members were several artists and authors, above all
Delacroix and Champfleury. During that year Gustave Le Gray, O. Mestral,
Henri Le Secq, Edouard Baldus and others used the paper process for
photographing buildings of historic importance in various districts of France

92
for the Government Commission on Historic Monuments. Charles Negre,
a pupil of Delaroche and Ingres, took up photography early in 1851
primarily in order to make studies for his Salon paintings (III. 71) but he
also took many and in
architectural photographs, of Chartres Cathedral
the south of France. Otherwell-known photographers using the paper proc-
esses include Hippolyte Bayard, Baron Humbert de Molard (III. 72) >

Vicomte Vigier, Charles Marville and Baron Cros. Within a few years all
these photographers changed over to the collodion process.
In Rome Comte Flacheron was the centre of a small photographic circle,
to which belonged Prince Giron des Anglonnes, Eugene Constant and
Giacomo Caneva.
72 BARON HUMBERT DE MOLARD. OLD FARMHOUSE. WAXED PAPER PROCESS, 1852
The first French photographically illustrated book, Italie Monumentale
by Eugene Piot, commenced publication in Paris in May 1851. Later the
same year appeared Henri Le Secq’s Amiens: Recueil de Photographies and ,

L. A. Martin’s Promenades poetiques et daguerriennes. Despite the title,


these two small guidebooks on Bellevue and on Chantilly were illustrated
with paper photographs. Almost simultaneous with Maxime Du Camp’s
Egypte was Blanquart-Evrard’s Album Photographique. His Lille establish-
ment also printed Auguste Salzmann’s two volume work Jerusalem, etude
et reproduction photographique de la Ville Sainte (1856).
In Spain, Charles Clifford, an Englishman domiciled in Madrid, became
Court photographer to Queen Isabella II. He learned the waxed paper
process about 1852 and published four years later Vistas del Capricho an ,

album of fifty views of the charming eighteenth-century summer palace near


Madrid (III. 73). He is, however, best known for his large collodion photo-
graphs of scenery and ancient architecture in Spain issued in 1858 under the
title Voyages en Espagne.
Except in France, photography on paper was comparatively little used
on the Continent. Despite the fact that in Germany two manuals were
published on Calotype portraiture, in Aachen 1841 and Quedlingburg 1842,
the Calotype was still referred to as ‘a hitherto unknown process’ when
taken up by Wilhelm Breuning, a Hamburg daguerreotypist, in July 1846.
Two Calotypists in Munich became prominent. Alois Locherer, a profes-
sional portrait photographer from 1847 onward, is especially noted for his
six pictures of the transport of the gigantic statue Bavaria from the foundry
to its position in front of the Hall of Fame in Munich in 1850 (III. 74).
Franz Hanfstaengl, founder of the still-existing art publishing firm, changed
over from lithographic to photographic reproduction in 1853, opening at
the same time a studio where he calotyped many celebrities.

A Dresden amateur, A. F.Oppenheim, used the waxed paper process on


a tour through Spain in 1852 and the following year in Athens, where a
local photographer, Margarite, sold large Talbotype views to tourists.

The waxed paper photographs of Dr August Jacob Lorent, a German


traveller, were admired at photographic exhibitions in the late 1850s. In
1861 he published in Mannheim a volume of his photographs of Egypt, the
Alhambra, Algiers, and so on. This was followed by similar works on Sicily
and Jerusalem, where as late as 1864 he was still using waxed paper.
In Switzerland Carl Durheim of Berne, formerly a daguerreotypist, in
1849 changed over to the paper process, as apparently also did J. B. Isenring,
previously referred to.

94
73 CHARLES CLIFFORD. FOUNTAIN AND STAIRCASE AT
CAP&ICHO PALACE NEAR GUADALAJARA, SPAIN, C. 1855
A Calotype studio was opened in Vienna in October 1847 by the portrait
painters R. Gaupmann and G. Fischer.

The only professional Calotypist in Scandinavia was a Danish-born


lawyer, Hans Thoger Winther, who had a portrait studio in Stockholm for
a few months in 1842 before settling in Oslo.

The brothers William and Frederick Langenheim, leading daguerreotypists


in Philadelphia, bought Talbot’s U.S. patent in 1848 but were unable to
create a demand for paper photographs in spite of their own excellent
examples.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE COLLODION AND GELATINE PROCESSES


It is impossible to judge whether a photograph has been taken on albumen,
collodion, gelatine dry plate or film negative, by looking at the print, which
is in most cases a contact copy on sepia-toned albumen paper lacking the
visible distinctions that characterize the daguerreotype, the Calotype, and
the Ambrotype. In any case, such information would be of interest only
from the purely technical point of view and has no bearing on the quality
of the picture. A rough division occurs around 1880 with the change-over
to gelatine dry plates, though many photographers continued using collodion
for another decade or so.
On its introduction in 1851 the collodion process was received with
delight, for Archer -who died in poverty six years later aged forty-four -
did not try to make money out of his invention like Daguerre and Talbot.
The latter even put forward the extraordinary claim that collodion was
covered by his Calotype patent, and issued injunctions against a number
of English photographers. Eventually, a test case against Silvester Laroche
settled the matter,and on 20th December 1854 after an exciting three-day
trial was thrown open to the world ‘amidst loud and
the collodion process
continued cheering’ in court. Talbot dropped his application for renewal
of the Calotype patent, knowing that it would not bring him any financial
advantage now that the faster collodion process had been judged free. The
daguerreotype patent had already run its term in 1853, so from the be-
ginning of 1855 photography in England was at last on an equal footing
with the rest of the world.
Strange as it may seem -in view of the manipulation being more difficult

than previous methods- Archer’s process started the first great wave of
popularization of photography. Not only were there thousands of new-
comers to the art, but there soon arose an insatiable demand from the
public for photographs of all kinds of subjects, now that one could collect

96
[74 ALOIS LOCHERER.
TRANSPORT OF THE COLOSSAL
(STATUE OF ‘BAVARIA’ FROM
THE FOUNDRY TO ITS PRESENT
[SITE IN MUNICH. CALOTYPE,
1850

prints that promised greater permanence than Talbotypes. In any case, as

we have seen, the majority of people were hitherto only acquainted with
daguerreotypes.

Exploration and Topographical


Photography brought the four corners of the world to the family circle. It
showed them scenes so far known only through the inaccurate descriptions
of travellers or exaggerated engravings, which were now regarded with
suspicion since photography revealed the truth. How wildly far from reality
some of the older topographical representations were is shown in III. 75,
which was published in Bankes New and Complete System of Geography
5

(1790?). The period of photographic realism now replaced philosophising and


romanticism. The whole world was seen afresh through the eyes of the
photographer, who recorded factually, and frequently also artistically, the

97
75 THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS. ENGRAVING FROM BANKES’S ‘NEW AND COMPLETE SYSTEM
5
OF GEOGRAPHY (1790?). IT WAS COPIED, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS, FROM o. dapper’s
‘BESCHREIBUNG AFRIKAS’ (DESCRIPTION OF AFRICA), 1670

relics of ancient civilizations, familiarizing people with the scenic and


architectural beauty of their own and other countries, domestic life, customs
and costumes of other nations. ‘By our fireside we have the advantage of
examining them,’ wrote Claudet in 1860, ‘without being exposed to the
fatigue, privation and risks of the daring and enterprising artists who, for
our gratification and instruction, have traversed lands and seas, crossed
riversand valleys, ascended rocks and mountains with their heavy and
cumbrous photographic baggage.’
John Lloyd Stephens’ illustrated volumes on Yucatan (1843) inspired
Desire Charnay, a French school teacher in New Orleans, to photograph in
the same area of Mexico in 1857-58 the almost inaccessible ruined sites of
the ancient Mayan civilization destroyed by the Spanish conquerers c. 1500.
Dense tropical jungle and a civil war are trying enough conditions for
photography, but probably less terrifying than the nocturnal visit of a
jaguar in the dark-tent just as Charnay started developing! His Album
fotografico Mexicano ,
which appeared in Mexico in 1860, contained
25 photographs 13X17 inches in size.
Concurrently with Charnay, Paul de Rosti, a Hungarian political exile
after 1848, took excellent photographs in the same district, which he pub-
lished on his return to Budapest in 1861.
Francis Frith’s finest pictures were taken during three journeys to Egypt,
Palestine and Syria between 1856 and 1860. On his third expedition this

English traveller went further up the Nile than any photographer had been
before, proceeding by horse and dromedary beyond the Fifth Cataract about
1,500 miles from the Nile Delta. Producing these photographs, some as large

98
as 16X20 inches, was a feat of endurance with temperatures in the dark-
tent sometimes reaching 130° F., flies and sand adding to the difficulty.
Frith’s photographs are both and technically superior to Maxime
artistically

Du Camp’s (III. 76), and were exploited by him in a large number of


publications. Ffe later travelled extensively through Britain and the Con-
tinent and became Europe’s largest publisher of topographical views.
Francis Bedford is best known for the photographs he took in 1862 during
a tour of the Near East on which he was commanded by Queen Victoria to
accompany the young Prince of Wales.
As chief photographer of the London Stereoscopic Company, William
England in the 1850s took thousands of pictures in many lands (111.77)
for the stereoscope -the television of the Victorian family. After making
himself independent in 1863, England specialized in Alpine views for the
rest of his life.

The Alps naturally attracted many photographers, including Ruskin,


who daguerreotyped the Matterhorn in 1849. Many of them produced
mainly views for the stereoscope, which were bought by tourists as postcards
are today. Whilst the French photographers J. A. and C. M. Ferrier and
Adolphe Braun did excellent work in this format, Louis and Auguste Bisson

76 FRANCIS FRITH. PYRAMIDS OF DAHSHOOR, EGYPT, 1858


77 WILLIAM ENGLAND. BLONDIN CROSSING THE NIAGARA RIVER, 1859
78 LOUIS AND AUGUSTE BISSON. MONT BLANC AND THE MER DE GLACE, 1860

became justly famous for their superb large views of the high Alps, as well
as architecture in France and Italy. In 1860 the Bisson brothers were com-
manded accompany Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie on a climbing
to
expedition at Chamonix in the Savoy Alps (III. 78). In July the following
year Auguste Bisson became the first to photograph from the top of Mont
Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe (15,780 feet). Twenty-five porters
were needed to carry his equipment, and owing to adverse weather condi-
tions the climb lasted three days. For rinsing the plates, snow had to be
melted over the feeble heat of oil lamps, which would hardly burn at that
altitude. Bisson succeeded in taking three negatives on the summit, and
the return of the party was celebrated in Chamonix with fireworks and a
salute of guns.
Aime Civiale had different aims. From 1859 onward for ten years he
made with great exactness a record of the entire range of the Alps from
the geological point of view, which he published in forty-one panoramas
in 1882.

101
Whereas Alpine photographers were seldom more than two days from
and could usually find shelter in a mountain hut at
their headquarters,
night, those who photographed in remoter regions had naturally still greater
difficulties to contend with.
Philip H. Egerton, Deputy Commissioner of Kangra, in his Journal of
a Tour through Spiti to the Frontier of Chinese Thibet (1864) describes an
arduous three-months’ journey in the summer of the previous year to in-
vestigate an alternative route for the shawl-wool trade, during which he
took the first photographs of the Shigri Glacier, and the life of the natives
of Spiti. The same year Samuel Bourne, an English professional photo-
grapher in Simla, made a ten-weeks’ tour in the Himalayas. It was followed

by months and requir-


several other expeditions, one lasting as long as nine
ing sixty coolies to carry the equipment and other baggage. In 1868 Bourne
made three exposures on the Manirung Pass 18,600 feet up, the greatest
altitude at which photographs were ever taken by the wet collodion process.
In thousands of fine photographs, Bourne made known the beauties of India
to the European public for the first time (III. 79).

79 SAMUEL BOURNE. THE SCINDE RIVER, 1864


80 CARLETON E. WATKINS. WASHINGTON COLUMN, YOSEMITE, 1867

Important topographical and ethnographical works on China, Siam and


Cambodia were published in the 1860s and early ’7 Os by John Thomson,
and photographer who spent ten years in the Far East.
a Scottish explorer
In America outstanding work was produced by the San Francisco photo-
grapher Carleton E. Watkins, whose beautiful 21X16 inch views of the
Yosemite Valley (III. 80) made a considerable stir at the Paris Interna-
tional Exhibition of 1867. In the same year Eadweard Muybridge’s photo-
graphic activity was first mentioned in connection with his large views in

103
V
the same region. They may well have been undertaken for Watkins, from
whom Muybridge learned photography and with whom he was for a time
in partnership. In 1868 he worked in Alaska on an official survey which
led to his appointment as chief photographer to the U.S. Government.
During the 1870s Muybridge took hundreds of views for the Central & South
PacificRailway and for the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., but gave up land-
scape photography when he embarked on the thorough investigation of
animal locomotion for which he is chiefly remembered today.
One of the most famous photographers of the American West was William
Henry Jackson. Between 1870 and 1877 Jackson accompanied eight Govern-
ment geological surveys and had a canyon and a lake named after him. Some
of his photographs of the Yellowstone region, which were handed to every
member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, were instrumental
in the passing of the Act of Congress (1872) declaring this area the first
National Park.
Timothy H. O’Sullivan, a prominent photographer during the American
Civil War (nearly half the photographs in Gardner's Photographic Sketch-
book of the War are by him) took part in a Government survey of the
40th Parallel 1867-69, and in 1870 in an expedition to survey a possible
ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama. In further expeditions O’Sullivan
photographed the canyons of the Colorado River, and in Arizona, where
he produced one of his finest pictures, the Canyon de Chelle (III. 81).
Vittorio Sella combined photography with Alpinism, like his father
Giuseppe Sella, who wrote the first general handbook on photography
published in Italy. From 1880 onward his exploits in the Alps, the Caucasus,
Alaska (1897), Equatorial Africa (the ‘Mountains of the Moon’) (1906) and
the Himalayas (1909), mostly as official photographer on the Duke of
Abbruzzi’s expeditions, made Sella’s photographs world-famous. Many of
these climbs established altitude records. Sella did not, of course, at that
late date have to contend with the great difficulties of wet collodion.
Herbert Ponting as official photographer to Captain Scott’s second and
last South Pole exploration (1910-12) brought back a superb record of the
expedition and the Antarctic landscape (III. 82). Similar splendid docu-
mentations made by Captain Frank Hurley, an Australian, on no fewer
than five Antarctic expeditions, demanded great resourcefulness. The crush-
ing of the Endurance by ice and the rescue of the party six months later
was recorded by Hurley in highly dramatic pictures on Sir Ernest Shackle-
ton’s second Antarctic expedition of 1914-16. They express better than
words the hardships endured.

104

81 TIMOTHY H. O’SULLIVAN. THE CANYON DE CHELLE, 1873


>
83 ROBERT MACPHERSON.
GARDEN OF THE VILLA d’eSTE,
TIVOLI, C. 1857

Landscape
Landscape photography was a which the British particularly ex-
field in

celled (as they had and Roger Fenton, P. H. Dela-


in watercolour views)
motte, Charles Clifford and Robert MacPherson ( III. 83 ), whose work in
different fields is discussed elsewhere in this book, must be referred to in
this connection.

Henry White, partner in a London firm of solicitors, was one of the


earliest artistic landscape photographers and considered the best by many
of his English and French contemporaries. Like many gifted amateurs of
the early period, White’s work was chiefly confined to the 1850s. His close-
up of bramble and ivy (III. 84), and some of the nature studies taken by
the photographic school of the Royal Engineers, in their objective and
realistic representation bear the characteristics that were to be associated

with the Neue Sachlichkeit movement seventy years later.

107

82 HERBERT PONTING. THE ‘TERRA NOVA* IN THE ANTARCTIC, 1912


r* Irnj

v~ tV~

84 HENRY WHITE. BRAMBLE


AND IVY, 1857

In advance of their time, too, though purely for a technical reason, were
the seascapes of Gustave Le Gray, who instead of the usual blank sky of
the time, succeeded in 1856 in depicting clouds and the moving waves of
the sea in large exhibition photographs (III. 85). The extreme difficulty
of depicting the bright sky in the same length exposure as the darker land-
scape was a great vexation to early photographers and led to the use of
separate cloud negatives which were printed in -a technique devised by
Hippolyte Bayard in summer 1852, and widely practised from the 1860s on.
James Mudd, a Manchester portrait photographer, in a beautiful set of
pictures caught the fantastic scene after a disastrous dam-burst near Sheffield
in 1864 (III. 86).
Francis Bedford’s views, highly praised by his contemporaries, seem today
topographical rather than artistic. The same criticism applies to a certain
extent to the work of Francis Frith, George Washington Wilson of Aberdeen,
and James Valentine of Dundee, all of whom were publishers of views on
such a mass-production scale that only a small proportion of the photo-
graphs bearing their names were actually taken by them.

108

>
85 GUSTAVE LE GRAY. ‘BRIG UPON THE WATER’, 1856

86 JAMES MUDD. DAM-BURST AT SHEFFIELD, 1864


87 P. H. DELAMOTTE. OPENING CEREMONY BY QUEEN VICTORIA OF THE REBUILT

CRYSTAL PALACE, SYDENHAM, 10 JUNE 1854


The importance of Hermann Krone of Dresden lies in the technical and
educational fields. His portraits, and in particular his views of ‘Saxon

Switzerland’ (1853) and towns in Saxony, have been made much of in


Germany, but are of no more than average merit when compared with
French and English photographs. Even in these countries, the artistic inter-
pretative landscape work of the 1850s and 60s gradually degenerated into
topographical depiction. In fact, there was a dearth of artistic work after

many of the first generation photographers gave up in the ’sixties in disgust

at the steadily growing commercialization of photography.

Architecture
Philip Henry Delamotte, a designer and artist, during 1853-54 took a
unique series of photographs of the rebuilding of the enlarged Crystal Palace
at Sydenham, from the levelling of the site to the opening ceremony by
Queen Victoria on 10th June 1854 (III. 87). The latter is one of the earliest
instantaneous photographs of an historic occasion. Delamotte’s two volumes
published in 1855 contain a total of 160 photographs forming a documenta-
tion of great architectural interest as well as unusual aesthetic merit (III. 88).
In the following years he continued publishing brilliant pictures of the ex-
terior and interior of this great Victorian glass palace and its exhibitions.

88 P. H. DELAMOTTE. UPPER GALLERY OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE, SYDENHAM, 1854

!
89 ROBERT MACPHERSON. RELIEF ON ARCH OF TITUS, RGME, C. 1857
90 JAMES ANDERSON. BASE OF TRAJAN’S COLUMN, ROME, C. 1860

One of the leading architectural photographers of the nineteenth century


was a former Edinburgh surgeon, resident in Rome. Robert MacPherson took
up photography in 1851 and quickly won a high reputation with his fine
photographs of antiquities. He emphasized in a striking way the moulder-
ing grandeur of these Roman subjects, and many of his pictures are poetic
descriptions, not mere transcriptions of the Classical scene (III. 89). Mac-
Pherson first used the albumen on glass process, and after 1856 the collodio-
albumen, a modification of the wet collodion process published by Dr
Taupenot in September 1855. This slow ‘dry’ preservative process was most
suitable for interiors requiring long exposures, for ordinary wet collodion
would have dried up in ten to fifteen minutes. MacPherson explained that
in some of the Vatican sculpture galleries where the light was poor two
hours were often required, and in one or two cases even an exposure of two
days was necessary to produce a good negative.
MacPherson’s only rival was an English watercolour artist, James Anderson,
who in 1853 began taking photographs of antique sculpture in the Roman
museums, to which he later added reproductions of paintings, and views of
the Eternal City (III. 90), in great demand by tourists. Anderson’s firm

112

*
remained in the hands of his descendents until quite recently when the large
stock of negatives was acquired by Count Vittorio Cini and united with
those of the Alinari brothers, Brogi, etc., in an art archive in Florence.

Leopoldo Alinari and his brother Giuseppe, originally craftsmen in

intarsia , were encouraged to take up photography by the Florentine print-


seller Luigi Bardi, who for some years acted as their agent. All their earliest
fine photographs of 1854-55, such as the Cathedrals of Florence and Pisa
and the famous bronze doors of the Baptistry in Florence, bear Bardi’s
stamp, which naturally led to their attribution to him. Later, the Alinari
brothers carried out surveys of the paintings and sculpture in the Uffizi and
other Italian art galleries.
Carlo Ponti, optician to King Victor Emmanuel II, specialized in views
of Venice, Padua and Verona, and published in the 1860s a number of
albums under the title Ricordo di Venezia, each containing twenty large
views (III. 91), some by other local photographers such as Antonio Perini
and Naya.
V

92 EDOUARD BALDUS. THE PONT DU GARD NEAR nImES, C. 1855

In England, Roger Fenton’s fine series of cathedrals, and classical sculp-


ture in the British Museum, taken shortly after his Crimean War reportage,
were as much admired as his landscapes. Indeed Fenton’s art training under
Paul Delaroche proved a great asset in the eleven years of his photographic
career, after which he returned to his legal profession in 1862.
In the ’fifties the painter-photographer Edouard Baldus (III. 92) and the
Bisson brothers were particularly noted for their excellent architectural
work. Baldus made for the French Government in 1854 a complete survey
of the new wing of the Louvre in 1,500 detail photographs -a very modern
approach compared with the general views usually taken in those days.
Some of these photographs were of exceptional size, 39V2X30 inches. At
the same period Charles Marville made a unique documentation of those
Parisian districts that were shortly to be swept away by Haussmann.

114

I
work was undertaken for the Society for Photographing the
Similar
Relics of Old London by Henry Dixon and A. & J. Boole between 1874
and 1885 (III. 93). In Glasgow Thomas Annan took an interesting series
of slums for the Glasgow City Improvement Trust during the period 1 868—
1877. Some of his work goes deeper than the recording of a picturesque
close or alley that was due for demolition, by the inclusion of the poverty-
stricken people standing outside their ramshackle houses (III. 94).
Unaware of Baldus’ great unpublished survey of the Louvre, Ferdinand
Ongania believed his monumental work on the Basilica di San Marco
(1878-86) to be the first photographic survey ever to be made of a build-
ing.In over 500 photographs printed by the heliotype process every note-
worthy feature of the brilliant exterior and gloomy interior of St Mark’s
can be studied without neck-twisting or the need for binoculars.

93 HENRY DIXON. THE OFFICE OF THE ‘DAILY NEWS’, FOUNDED BY CHARLES DICKENS,
IN FLEET STREET, SHORTLY BEFORE DEMOLITION, 1884

94 THOMAS ANNAN. GLASGOW SLUM, 1868


95 CARTOON IN ART-PROGRESS.
‘punch’, may 1857 .Mill (!)
" Now.
Mum! Tau om r*» ’ead tot SncrasoF. oi n» ’out iody ro» a Shillin' !
M

Portraiture and genre


With few exceptions, the majority of the professional portrait photographers
of the 1850s took either daguerreotypes or, after about 1854, Ambrotypes.
The latter gave the poorer clientele the possibility of having cheap portraits
at last. Under the title ‘Art Progress’ Punch (London) published in May 1857
a delightful cartoon (III. 95) showing two rival photographic portrait shops
side by side and four photographers touting for sitters, seizing a passing
woman: ‘Now, Mum! Take ’ole body for
off yer ’ead for sixpence, or yer
was no exaggeration.
a shillin’!’ This
People wanting larger portraits and more than one copy could have
8V2X6V2 inch or 10X8 inch prints made from collodion negatives, but the
demand for these arose only in the best studios, for the price varied between
£2 and £4, depending on size and whether the picture were handcoloured
or not.
Realizing the latent demand for a large number of prints cheap enough
to give away to friends and relations, Andre Adolphe Disderi, a well-known
Parisian photographer, devised a practical way of reducing production
costs by taking eight portraits and introduced the carte-de-
on one plate,
visite (III. 36). As early as August 1851 Louis Dodero, a Marseilles photo-
grapher, had put his portrait on his visiting cards, and at the same time
suggested small portraits for passports, permits and so on. Though the idea
of photographic visiting cards was again put forward by two Parisian ama-
teurs, Edouard Delessert and Comte Aguado, a month before Disderi’s

patent was taken out in November 1854, the carte de visite photograph did
not win much favour at first. The craze for these portraits dates only from

116
May 1859, when Napoleon III at the head of his army departing for Italy
halted his troops in the Boulevard des Italiens while he went into Disderi’s
studio to have his photograph taken. This rather ludicrous incidentwas of
course excellent publicity for Disderi,who became famous overnight. All
fashionable Paris followed the Emperor’s example, and by 1861 Disderi was
reputed to be the richest photographer in Europe, taking £48,000 a year
in his Paris establishment alone -and he also opened branches in Toulon,

Madrid and London.


In England, too, popularization of the carte portraits introduced in 1857
began after royal approval. In May 1860 J. E. Mayall took carte portraits
of Queen Victoria, the Prince Consort and their children. These were
published three months later in the Royal Album, and this set the fashion
for collecting cartes of celebrities, as well as of one’s friends, and putting
them in albums. Mayall frequently photographed the royal family (III. 96).

96 J. E. MAYALL.
QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE
PRINCE CONSORT, 1861
He had a turnover of half a million cartes a year, and an estimated gross
annual income of £12,000. Even provincial studios did excellent business,
and altogether 300 to 400 million cartes were sold annually in England. No
wonder more than one Chancellor of the Exchequer seriously considered
following the example of the United States by imposing a small tax on
these pictures.
‘Cartomania’ was truly international. Ludwig Angerer, who introduced
the carte de visite in Vienna in 1857, sold enormous quantities of cartes of
the Imperial family; so did Rabending &
Monckhoven. L. Haase & Co. in
Berlin could not print their carte portraits of the Royal family and other
Prussian celebrities quickly enough. The same can be said of Sergej L.
Lewitzky in St Petersburg and Georg Hansen in Copenhagen. In the United
States, during the Civil War, the popularity of cartes was just as great as in
Europe. In Paris an army of photographers sprang up to exploit the boom;
no fewer than 33,000 people were stated to be making their living from the
production of photographs and photographic materials in 1861. In this year
the number of portrait studios in London had risen from sixty-six in 1855
to over two hundred; in 1866 when the carte de visite craze had already
passed its peak there were 284.
Photographs of celebrities were sold at stationers’ shops as picture post-
cards are today. The price of a carte was 1/- to l/6d according to the fame
and popularity of the sitter.

Some of the finest carte portraits were taken by Disd^ri and by another
Frenchman, Camille Silvy, who exchanged a diplomatic career for the
lucrative business of portrait photography. In 1859 Silvy opened a sump-
tuous studio in London giving employment to forty assistants. Gifted with
exquisite taste, Silvy posed his sitters gracefully in elegant interiors or
against charming painted landscape backgrounds, which earned him the
appellation of ‘the Winterhalter of photography’ (111.97). They are rather
in the nature of fashion-plates. With the Frenchman’s intuitive under-
standing of the fair sex, he published a series entitled ‘The Beauties of
England’ -a brilliant idea, for not to be included implied that a woman was
either not pretty enough, or was not in society.
Swamped with orders, some inferior photographers were tempted to
serve mammon rather than art. One boasted of taking 97 negatives in eight
hours! -and it is not to be wondered at if all attempt at characterization
is lacking and the poses stereotyped. In the degree to which the portrait
was reduced in size, its setting increased in importance, and the photo-
grapher’s studio became a stage with elaborate ‘properties’and pictorial

118

*
backgrounds. A glamorous effect was what people demanded, and the
humbler their home the greater their desire for splendour;and the grander
his studio the more business a photographer could expect.
No longer was photography an art for the privileged: it had become the
art for the million. Approving this democratic tendency as the first ‘people’s
art’ The Photographic News (London) wrote in 1861:

‘Photographic portraiture is the best feature of the fine arts for the
million that the ingenuity of man has yet devised. It has in this sense
swept away many of the illiberal distinctions of rank and wealth, so that
the poor man who possesses but a few shillings can command as perfect
a lifelike portrait of his wife or child as Sir Thomas Lawrence painted
for the most distinguished sovereigns of Europe.’

When the carte de visite lost its novelty, the larger Cabinet portrait 5V2X4
inches, introduced in England in 1866, proved a popular new format,
remaining in favour until the Great War.

97 CAMILLE SILVY. CARTE DE VISITE


OF AN UNKNOWN LADY, C. 1860
Each decade in the carte and later Cabinet period had its specially charac-
teristic accessories. In the 'sixties they were the balustrade, column and
curtain; in the 'seventies the rustic bridge and stile; in the 'eighties the
hammock, swing and railway-carriage; in the 'nineties palm-trees, cocka-
toos and bicycles; and in the early twentieth century it was the motor-car,
for snobs.
Concurrently with the carte de visite there were a number of photo-

graphers, both professional and amateur, whose work stands out from the
mass of stereotyped portraiture.
Nadar, Carjat, Adam-Salomon, Bertall, Mulnier and Pierre Petit, all

Parisian photographers, are remembered for their splendid portraits of


famous people published in Galerie Contemporaine. Owing to this circum-
stance an opinion can be formed of the high artistic qualities of a number
of photographers who would otherwise be remembered only by their ‘bread-
and-butter’ carte and Cabinet pictures.
The caricaturist’s ability to grasp quickly the essential characteristics of
his sitter was an asset to Nadar, Carjat and Bertall in immortalizing the
famous. Etienne Carjat’s portraits of celebrities are often livelier than
Nadar’s, as comparison of his photographs of Rossini and Baudelaire (III.

99) with Nadar’s proves. Following the tradition of the daguerreotypists,


their portraits are straightforward and realistic, striking in their simplicity.
They allow power of the sitter to speak for itself, without
the intellectual
the intrusion of elaborate ‘properties’ which mar some of the photographs
of Antoine Adam-Salomon, a successful sculptor and part-time photographer
whose portraits in the style of Old Masters occasionally strike a false note.
Adam-Salomon’s tendency to mannerism and ‘Rembrandt’ lighting appealed
to people who failed to appreciate the camera’s necessarily different
approach, which indeed is evident in many of his portraits (III. 98).
Gaspard Felix Tournachon, called Nadar, overshadowed all other French
portrait photographers, partly because he had a flair for showmanship, and
was much in the public eye as a balloonist. His studio in the Boulevard des
Capucines, painted red and with his name spreading in colossal letters across
fifty feet of wall, was the meeting place of intellectual, not aristocratic,
society, for Nadar was an ardent Republican. He was the photographer
par excellence of the intelligentsia of the Second Empire and the Third
Republic, but only the most distinguished men were taken by Nadar himself,
the general run being left to his employees. His finest portraits include those

of Delacroix, Daumier, Baron Taylor, Victor Hugo, and George Sand -one
of his rare portraits of a woman (III. 100).

121

98 ANTOINE ADAM-SALOMON. CHARLES GARNIER, C. 1865


ICO NADAR. GEORGE SAND, 1866
Nadar was a pioneer in many fields: he took the first aerial photograph
(1858) and made a more successful series over Paris four years later, a feat
that afforded Daumier -strangely an opponent of photography -an oppor-
tunity to mock at the idea of raising photography to the height of art
(III. 101). About this time Nadar made the first underground photographs

by electric arc light from a Bunsen battery, in the catacombs and sewers of
Paris. His balloon ‘Le Geant’, three times the size of any other balloon in
Europe, was a sensation in 1863. During the Siege of Paris Nadar com-
manded an observation balloon corps, and provided at his own expense a
balloon postal service to the seat of the Delegate Government at Tours, later
Bordeaux.
When Nadar heard that the artists later known as the Impressionists were
looking for a place to show their first exhibition (1874), with characteristic
generosity he lent them his old studio from which he had just moved, and
welcomed the sensation which the exhibition caused in the art world as good
personal publicity.
Julia Margaret Cameron deplored the shallowness and lack of individ-
uality in the carte de visite portraits of her famous friends, in which there
was no endeavour to record what she called ‘the greatness of the inner as
well as the features of the outer man’. This aim was her resolve when at the
age of forty-eight she took up photography, which to her was a ‘divine art’.

Working for her own satisfaction and not for a living, Mrs Cameron could
afford to go her own way, and became a pioneer in a new kind of portrai-
ture -the close-up. She had the real artist’s gift of piercing through the out-
ward appearance to the soul of the individual. Nowhere is this more striking
than in her photograph of Sir John Herschel, one of the greatest portraits
ever taken (III. 102). Although the impressiveness of J. M. Cameron’s por-
traits in some cases undoubtedly owes much to the strong personality of the
sitter -and this remark applies frequently to portraits of the famous -her
large head studies have a boldness which is startling in its originality of
conception. A comparison of her forceful portraits of great Victorians such
as Tennyson, Carlyle, Browning, Darwin (III. 103) with the paintings of
the same sitters by the leading portrait painters G. F. Watts and Sir John
Millais is rewarding: the photographer scores in every case against the
painter.Roger Fry’s claim that ‘Mrs Cameron’s photographs bid fair to out-
live most of the works of theartists who were her contemporaries’ holds

good for a great many other classic photographic portraits, which give a
truer and more intimate impression of the men and women who left their
mark on this epoch, than do painted portraits.

124
lOi HONORE DAUMIER. ‘NADAR RAISING PHOTOGRAPHY
TO THE HEIGHT OF ART*
LITHOGRAPH, 1862
JULIA MARGARET CAMERON. CHARLES DARWIN, 1869
104 ROBERT HOWLETT. ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL, 1857

Reportage portraits and photo-interviews with celebrities are a common


feature of newspapers and magazines today. Few people are aware that the
first reportage portrait was taken by Robert Howlett as early as 1857. How-

lett, who, the previous year, had taken some lively pictures at the Derby to

serve as studies for William Powell Frith’s well-known painting Derby Day ,

photographed the launching of the ‘Great Eastern’ steamship, and its de-

128
signer I. K. Brunei (III. 104) in a way that is completely modern in con-
ception.
The photo-interview was pioneered in 1886 by Felix Tournachon and
Paul Nadar for Le Journal Illustre. The occasion was the hundredth birth-

day of the great chemist M. E. Chevreul, who greeted them: T was an


enemy of photography until my ninety-seventh year, but three years ago I
capitulated.’ While Nadar senior asked questions, Paul Nadar recorded the
centenarian’s animated expressions and gestures (III. 105) as he explained
his philosophy on ‘the Art of Living a Hundred Years’. Thirteen of the

photographs were published as half-tone blocks in this newspaper on 5th


September 1886, with Chevreul’s lively answers, noted down by a steno-
grapher, serving as captions. The experiment was repeated a few years
later with General Boulanger.
Whereas Paul Nadar took a large series of portraits, At Home photo-
graphy, the precursor of reportage portraiture, was usually limited to three
or four. Melandri in Paris and J. P. Mayall in London were the first in the
field with At Home portraiture of theatrical celebrities and artists in the

’seventies and ’eighties respectively. Sarah Bernhardt with her self-portrait


bust (III. 106) is one of the liveliest and most natural photographs of the
great actress, and was as advanced 1876 as her costume. There
in style for
is no doubt that people feel more at ease in their own surroundings, and it is

105 PAUL NADAR. F. T. NADAR INTERVIEWS THE CENTENARIAN M. E. CHEVREUL,


AUGUST 1886
when the miniature camera
surprising that until comparatively recent times,
few photographers took the trouble to trans-
greatly simplified the task, so
port their equipment to the sitter’s home. The photographer who inter-
viewed Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (III. 107) in his laboratory in 1904 at
the time knighthood was conferred on him, would probably not have
achieved such an intimate and penetrating likeness with the traditional
studio portrait. This is equally true of the series of remarkable At Home
interviews with distinguished men which W. B. Northrop published the
same year in his book With Pen and Camera.
Very original is the self-portrait of Dr G. B. Duchenne, founder of
electro-therapy, which he used as frontispiece to Album de Photographies
Pathologiques (1862), introducing himself, his electrization apparatus and
his patient (III. 108).

Space only permits the mention of a few other memorable portraits by


leading photographers: Napoleon III (1854) by Mayer & Pierson; W. E.

106 (left) m£landri. sarah bernhardt in her studio, 1876

107 (below) ELLIOT & FRY. SIR JOSEPH WILSON SWAN, 1904
110 THOMAS ANNAN.
DR DAVID LIVINGSTONE,
1864

Gladstone and Robert Stephenson (1856) (III. 109) by Maull & Poly-
blank; David Livingstone (1864) (III. 110) by Thomas Annan; Ludwig II
of Bavaria (1867) by Josef Albert; Camille Corot (1871) (III. Ill) by
Eugene Dutilleux; Robert Louis Stevenson (1885) by A. G. Dew Smith;
Cardinal Newman (1887) by Herbert Barraud; William Morris (1889) by
Sir Emery Walker; Oscar Wilde (1890) by W. & D. Downey; Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec (c. 1892) (III. 112) by Paul Sescau, Lautrec’s night-life
companion, for whom he designed a poster Henry Irving
(III. 113); Sir
as Thomas a Becket (1893) by H. H. H. Cameron J. M. Cameron);
(son of
Aubrey Beardsley (c. 1895) by Frederick Hollyer; Mark Twain (1902) and
Auguste Rodin (1903) by E. Walter Barnett; J. P. Morgan (1903) by Ed-
ward Steichen; the Arch-Duchess Stephanie (1905) by Alice Hughes; Alice
Meynell (1908) and John Galsworthy (1912) by E. O. Hoppe.

133
Ill EUGENE DUTILLEUX. CAMILLE COROT AT ARRAS, 1871

]
112 PAUL SESCAU. DOUBLE PORTRAIT OF HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, C. 1892

113 LITHOGRAPHIC POSTER FOR PAUL SESCAU BY TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, C. 1894


114 LEWIS CARROLL. ELLA MONIER-WILLIAMS, 1866

The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll,


author of Alice in Wonderland pursued
,
many a celebrity with his camera,
but his favourite subjects were little girls (III. 114). He summed up his

preference with the cryptic remark T am fond of children, except boys’.


Photography was Lewis Carroll’s chief hobby from 1856 to 1880, and
though in later years he had a glass-house constructed on top of his rooms

136
at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was professor of mathematics, his

best work dates from the ’fifties and ’sixties when he used to take his
cumbersome apparatus to the homes of friends and acquaintances, where
he found full scope for his inventive genius. Sometimes he composed amus-
ing anecdotal or genre scenes. The original and casual-looking poses he
arranged constitute the chief charm of his pictures. Only an amateur could
have taken such an independent course from the usual stilted studio
portraits of children, and that is why Lewis Carroll’s pictures strike us
today as so greatly superior to professional work.
Viscountess Hawarden’s photographs of children, admired and collected
by Lewis Carroll, show a remarkably fresh outlook. She did not restrict
herself to children any more than Lewis Carroll did, and the picture of
her daughter reflected in the looking-glass is one of the most delightful
genre photographs (III. 115) of the Victorian period.

115 LADY HAW ARDEN.


AT THE WINDOW, C. 1863
The same appealing naturalness and individuality which raise Lewis
Lady Hawarden’s and many other English amateurs’ pictures
Carroll’s,
above the mass of conventional professional portraits is also evident some-
times in France, above all in the work of Charles Negre, the first French
photographer of genre subjects. Negre’s chimney-sweep boys (Ill.71) y
though of necessity posed, look as though they had been caught by a modern
miniature camera.
The photograph albums of Charles Victor Hugo and Auguste Vacquerie,
who found an outlet for their creative energy in photography while living
in exile with Victor Hugo in Jersey, contain a remarkable documentation
of their life there: Victor Hugo glowering with frustration, perched on the
Rock of the Exiles, resting in the conservatory under the flowering vines,
studies of his hands, and many other unusual pictures.
Oscar Gustave Rejlander, an English portrait photographer of Swedish
origin, noteworthy for the genre pictures which he made for his own
is

pleasure and as studies for artists. Like a reportage photographer, Rej-


lander aimed at genuine slices of life, but owing to the technical difficulties
at this period had to pose his subjects to give the impression of natural
scenes (III. 116). This he did with great artistry, as one would expect of
a trained painter.
William Morris Grundy’s stereoscopic genre pictures, published post-
humously under the title Rural England, are little gems of photography.
Some of them (as single pictures) illustrate an anthology of poetry called
Sunshine in the Country (1861).

War Reportage
Though scenes in the war between the United States and Mexico, 1846-48,
and the Siege of Rome in 1849 and other historic events at the beginning
of the Risorgimento were recorded by photography in individual pictures,
the first war reportage was Roger Fenton’s and James Robertson’s
extensive
coverage of the Siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean War. The initial
phases of hostilities in the Balkans had been recorded by Karl Baptist de
Szathmari, an amateur in Bucharest, whose photographs have unfortunately
not survived.
Roger Fenton’s 360 photographs of the Crimean War, taken in 1855, are
not very warlike by present-day standards (III. 117), but this is ex-
by the dual purpose of the undertaking: to sell prints to the public,
plained
who would have abhorred gruesome pictures, and to give convincing proof
of the well-being of the troops after the disasters of the preceding winter

139
116 O. G. REJLANDER. THE MILKMAID, C. 1857
117 ROGER FENTON. CRIMEAN WAR, BALACLAVA HARBOUR, 1855

118 ROGER FENTON. CRIMEAN WAR, CANTINIERE AND WOUNDED MAN, 1855
which had caused the downfall of the Government. Despite their lack of
action, the photographs provide a far more convincing picture of life at the
front than the wide views of William Simpson, published as lithographs by
Colnaghi.
The photographic van (III. 30) formed a conspicuous target and on
drew the fire of the Russian batteries. The heat in the
several occasions
Crimea made working in it extremely trying. Exposures were 10-15 seconds,
but Fenton was very skilful in arranging groups naturally to convey the
impression of having been taken instantaneously (III. 118).
Fenton was obliged to leave the seemingly endless Siege of Sebastopol at

the end of June, but James Robertson, chief engraver of the Imperial Mint
at Constantinople, completed the reportage of this senseless campaign with
photographs of the English and French trenches, the wrecked Russian forts
(III. 119), and the ruins of the bombarded city immediately after the
retreat of the Russians on 8th-9th September 1855.

119 JAMES ROBERTSON. CRIMEAN WAR, INTERIOR OF THE REDAN AFTER WITHDRAWAL
OF THE RUSSIANS, SEPTEMBER 1855
N

Two years later Robertson made a valuable documentation of scenes of


the Indian Mutiny with his partner A. Beato, who after-
in collaboration
wards took gruesome photographs of the Opium War in China in 1860.
The Austro-Sardinian which Napoleon III took the
conflict of 1859, in
field as ally of Victor Emmanuel was followed by a number of photo-
II,

graphers including Luigi Sacchi, Berardy and the Ferriers, father and son,
whose stereoscopic pictures showed not only camp life but for the first time
the horrors of war which Fenton had intentionally avoided.
It is as organizer of the photographic documentation of the American

Civil War that Mathew B. Brady is today remembered and honoured. Be-
lieving that ‘the camera is the eye of history’ Brady left his prosperous por-
trait studios in New York and Washington in the care of employees, and

with his staff of nineteen photographers covered almost every theatre of the
war. Many of the finest pictures were taken by Alexander Gardner, Brady’s
former studio manager in Washington, Timothy H. O’Sullivan (III. 120)
and other members of the team, and only a comparatively small number

120 TIMOTHY H. O’SULLIVAN. ‘THE HARVEST OF DEATH*. THE BATTLEFIELD OF


GETTYSBURG, JULY 1863
121 FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, GERMAN TROOP TRAIN BLOWN UP BY THE FRENCH NEAR
m£zieres, august 1870

can be ascribed to Brady himself. Nevertheless, without his farseeing plan


the war might well have remained unrecorded on the Northern side, for the
Federal Government took no interest in the venture either before or after
the event. Today the Civil War photographs belong to America’s most
treasured and most publicized historical documents.
In the attack of Prussia and Austria on Denmark in 1864 excellent
photographs were taken by Friedrich Brandt, a Flensburg photographer,
and by Heinrich Graf and Adolph Halwas of Berlin.
The names of the French and German photographers of the Franco-
Prussian War are not known (III. 121), with the exception of Disderi,
who photographed the ruins of St Cloud. The same applies to the devastation
wrought in Paris during the Siege and the insurrection which began with
the pulling down of the Vendome column and statue of Napoleon I on

143

i
122 PARIS COMMUNE INSURRECTION, THE FALLEN VENDOME COLUMN, 16 MAY 1871.
THE BEARDED MAN IN SECOND ROW IS GUSTAVE COURBET

16th May 1871 (III. 122). As illustrations of man’s inhumanity to man,


‘The Harvest of Death’ after the Battle of Gettysburg (III. 120), and the
unidentified Communards in their coffins, are as unforgettable as the recent

pictures of Sharpeville (III. 277).


During the Siege of Paris mini-photographs were first applied to a
practical purpose. Messages greatly reduced in size were printed photo-
graphically on collodion pellicles, rolled into quills and attached to the
tails of carrier pigeons, which had been brought to the seat of the Delegate

Government by balloon from the capital. After arrival in Paris the messages
were projected by magic lantern (III. 123), copied by clerks, and distrib-
uted. This was a kind of forerunner of the airgraph letter service during
World War II.
Lively stereophotographs were taken during the Boer War (1899-1902)
for Underwood & Underwood, New York publishers of stereoscopic pic-
tures. There were no official photographers attached to the army, but thanks

144
123 COPYING PIGEON POST
DISPATCHES DURING THE
SIEGE OF PARIS, 1870-71

to private enterprise such as The Daily Graphic which sent out its staff

photographer Reinhold Thiele, and others working on the Boer side, the
documentation of the South African War was very extensive (III. 124).
This was the first war covered by cinematographers, whose news-reels were

projected inLondon music-halls as part of the evening’s entertainment.


More peaceful historic events at home and abroad were naturally also
recorded by photography, even though no picture agencies existed before
1899 and photographers’ main recompense for their trouble lay in the sale

124 REINHOLD THIEIE.


BOER WAR, FIRING ‘jOE
CHAMBERLAIN’ AT MAGERS-
FONTEIN, 1899
-

of prints to the public. Photographs were sometimes copied as woodcuts in


newspapers, but photomechanical reproduction in the press only gradually
came into use in the early years of the twentieth century, despite the fact
that practical methods of halftone printing had been devised by Stephen
H. Horgan of New York and Georg Meisenbach of Munich in 1880 and
1882 respectively.

Social Documentation
The first documentary photographs, which unfortunately no longer exist,

were daguerreotypes by Richard Beard of street types to illustrate Henry


Mayhew’s monumental social survey London Labour and the London Poor
(1851) in which they were copied as woodcuts. In the early 1860s Carlo
Ponti issued a series of photographs of Venetian street traders and beggars,
which were, however, merely intended as souvenirs for tourists.

John Thomson produced a kind of small sequel to Mayhew with his


Street Life in London (1877) documenting the life and work of the poorer
classes. In contrast to Beard -as far as one can judge from the woodcuts

Thomson depicted people in their usual surroundings (III. 125 , 126),

125 JOHN THOMSON. ‘HA’PENNY


ices’, ITALIAN ICE CREAM SELLER
IN LONDON, 1876

126 (right) JOHN THOMSON.


JUNKSHOP IN LONDON, 1876
3
producing superlative pictures worthy of any modern reportage photogra-
pher. Each is accompanied by an article on the living and working con-
ditions of the subject, written by Thomson or in some cases by Adolphe
Smith, a journalist.
Jacob A. Riis, a police-court reporter on The New York Tribune believ-
,

ing that the camera is a mightier weapon than the pen for attacking the
bad conditions that lead to crime, took between 1887 and 1892 a poignant
series of photographs to point out to society its obligations to the poor
(III. With his books How the Other Half Lives (1890) and Children
127).
of the Poor (1892) Riis awakened the conscience of New Yorkers and
influenced the Governor of New York State, Theodore Roosevelt, to under-
take a number of social reforms, including the wiping out of notorious
tenements at Mulberry Bend. Today the Jacob A. Riis Neighbourhood
Settlement commemorates the photographer’s great work.

127 JACOB riis. ‘bandits’ roost’, new YORK slum, 1888

?
«.
128 LEWIS W. HINE. CAROLINA COTTON MILL, 1908

Lewis Wickes Hine, an American sociologist, took up photography in

1905 in order to highlight the plight of poor European immigrants. Three


years later he continued his sociological studies with photographs of Pitts-
burgh iron andsteel workers. As staff photographer to the National Child

Labor Committee Hine exposed shocking conditions, which resulted in the


passing of the Child Labor Law (III. 128).
Dr Arnold Genthe’s excellent pictures of San Francisco’s China-
life in

town (1897) and the devastation caused by the earthquake and fire of 1906,
are infinitely more interesting than his rather uninspired portraits of stage
and screen stars that made him one of America’s most prominent photo-
graphers after settling in New York in 1911.

149
129 SIR BENJAMIN STONE. OX-ROASTING AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON ‘MOP’, C. 1898

In 1897 Sir Benjamin Stone, Member of Parliament for Birmingham,


founded the National Photographic Record Association with the aim of
documenting old English manners and customs, picturesque festivals and
pageants, and traditional ceremonies which he feared were in danger of
dying out (III. 129). Stone himself was the most active member of the
Association, and left a collection of 22,000 photographs -some dull records,
others of artistic merit, and all of historic value.
Nahum Luboshez, Kodak’s representative in St Petersburg before World
War I, was an enthusiastic amateur photographer, chiefly in portraiture.
But his most striking photographs are of life in Russia, including pic-
tures taken during one of the recurrent famines, in 1910 (111. 130).
Paul Martin’s snapshots of London and of people
street scenes (III. 131)
enjoying themselves at the seaside, taken in the 1890s, make him the first
‘candid cameraman’ nearly forty years before the phrase was coined. Using

150
130 NAHUM LUBOSHEZ. FAMINE IN RUSSIA, 1910

131 PAUL MARTIN. STREET ACCIDENT IN LONDON, 1895


a hand camera concealed in a briefcase, Martin was able to capture revealing
moments. His ‘London by Night’ pictures taken in the winter of 1895-96
were the first of their kind (III. 132).
Eugene Atget had a similar passion for documentation as Sir Benjamin
Stone, though it took a different form. Atget wanted to record Paris in all
its facets, and made between 1898 and 1927 an enormous series of photo-

graphs of buildings, staircases, door-knockers, ornate stucco decorations, shop


fronts (III. 133), vehicles. During
his lifetime few people were inter-

ested in Atget’s self-imposed task, and he ended his days in extreme poverty,
leaving to posterity nearly 10,000 prints. The most publicized side of Atget’s
work is his street life series, very similar to Thomson’s and Martin’s, but
his roving eye was fascinated by many things which other people pass by

as nothing remarkable (III. 192).

132 PAUL MARTIN. PICCADILLY CIRCUS AT NIGHT, 1895


I* « '»

133 EUGENE ATGET. BASKET AND BROOM SHOP IN PARIS, C. 1910

Photography of Movement
The desire to record action existed right from the earliest days of photo-
graphy, but remained in general unfulfilled until the introduction of the
stereoscopic camera in 1853 (III. 33). Noteworthy exceptions were a few
small daguerreotypes taken in 1841: street views including people and slow-
moving traffic by the Natterer brothers of Vienna, a view of the Pont Neuf,
Paris, by Marc Antoine Gaudin, and the changing of the guard at the
Tuileries, with a crowd of spectators, by Girault de Prangey.
Ten years later Hippolyte Macaire of Le Havre showed daguerreotypes
of a trotting horse, a moving carriage, a walking man, and seascapes with
waves and steamships with smoke coming out of the funnel. For these novel

153
134 G. W. WILSON. GREENWICH PIER, 1857

subjects, taken in a fraction of a second, Macaire could command as much


as 100 francs each. Some of his sea views were bought by the marine painter
Eugene Isabey.
Such subjects had to be photographed from a considerable distance to
minimize the movement. In the instantaneous stereoscopic views
effect of

taken in the late 1850s by G. W. Wilson (III. 134), William England,


Adolphe Braun (III. 34) and Edward Anthony, the vantage point was
usually an upper window. Valentine Blanchard photographing from the

154

i
roof of a cab in 1862 was able to snatch very lively impressions of the hustle
and bustle of busy London thoroughfares. Twenty-five years later Charles
A. Wilson (son of G. W. Wilson), using gelatine dry plates, took still better
pictures of larger size from inside a furniture van (III. 135).
Action photographs made it possible to record and study the movements
of animals scientifically. Best known in this field are the serial photographs
of Eadweard Muybridge, the first man to think of a photo-finish in horse-
racing. His investigation of the locomotion of animals originated in 1872
with a controversy about the leg movements of a trotting horse. His serial

photographs of horses taken for ex-Governor Leland Stanford of California


in 1878-79 with a row of twelve to twenty-four small cameras, demon-
strated for the first time movements too fast for the eye to perceive, and
exposed the absurdity of the conventional ‘rocking-horse’ attitude of gal-
loping horses’ legs in paintings. At first the consecutive positions of the legs
were criticized as being ludicrous and impossible, but when Muybridge
synthesized the movement by projection on a screen even sceptics had to
admit the truth. Between 1883-85 Muybridge carried out an investigation
of animal and human locomotion in all forms under the auspices of the

135 CHARLES A. WILSON. OXFORD STREET, LONDON, 1887

P «MT*
n
136 EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE. GALLOPING HORSE, 1883-85

University of Pennsylvania, using up to thirty-six cameras with clockwork


shutters, and gelatine dry plates with which he was naturally able to secure
much better results. Hismonumental work Animal Locomotion (1887) con-
tains 781 plates and remains to this day the most comprehensive publication
of its kind (III. 136).
Muybridge’s photographic analysis led Prof. Etienne Jules Marey of Paris,
who had also been investigating animal movement, to abandon his method
of chronography in favour of chronophotography. In contrast to Muy-
bridge’s battery of cameras Marey used only one, with a disk shutter, and
recorded the consecutive phases of movement on a single plate, to give the
impression that one observer following the movement would obtain. For the
flight of birds (111. Marey devised in 1882 a photographic gun. Men
137)
and horses in rapid movement were photographed with a camera set up on

156
-

137 PROF. E. J. MAREY. FLYING DUCK, C. 1884 (REPRODUCTION)

a moveable wagon running on rails parallel to the subject. In 1890 Marey


used thenew celluloid roll-film in a cine-camera of his own invention, and
two years later a projector, but his pioneer work in cinematography was
overshadowed by the better apparatus of the Lumiere brothers.
It was natural that Thomas Eakins, America’s super-realist painter, who
based his art on scientific principles, should take an interest in photography
and its use to record anatomy and movement. He studied Muybridge’s ex-
periments, but was critical of his use of a battery of cameras instead of
Marey’s single camera method. Eakins himself constructed a camera with
two disk shutters, one revolving eight times as fast as the other, and making
nine or ten exposures on one plate. With it -simultaneously with Muybridge
Eakins made an independent series of experiments for the University of
Pennsylvania, producing pictures of horses and nude athletes which are
from Marey’s (III. 138).
practically indistinguishable
The German photographer Ottomar Anschutz also became prominent
through his instantaneous photographs of animals and birds taken from

138 PROF. E. J. MAREY. JUMPING MAN, C. 1884 (REPRODUCTION)


>*

1882 onward. At first he took single photographs, four years later changed
to Muybridge’s system of twenty-four cameras for chronophotography, mak-
ing chiefly photographs for military training purposes. For stroboscopic
synthesis of these pictures Anschutz constructed the Electrotachyscope in
1887, in which the pictures were arranged round the edge of a rotating
wheel and each in turn briefly illuminated by an electric spark.
The ‘freezing’ of rapidly moving objects for a fraction of a second by the
sudden flash of an electric spark in a darkened room was demonstrated by
Sir Charles Wheatstone five years before the introduction of photography.
Talbot applied photography to record phenomenon in 1851, when he
this

photographed a rapidly revolving wheel with a page of The Times attached


to it, and obtained a clear picture, the duration of the spark being 1/100,000
second. With this demonstration Talbot laid the foundation of high-speed
photography.
Ernst Mach, professor at Prague University, and Dr Salcher of Fiume,
in 1885-86 succeeded independently by the electric spark method in photo-
graphing bullets with a velocity of 765 m.p.h. In 1892 Charles Vernon Boys
of the Royal College of Science, London, obtained photographs of bullets
piercing a sheet of plate-glass at about twice this speed. Whilst these pioneers
of ballistic photography only recorded the shadows of bullets and the sound-
waves they produced, Prof. Hubert Schardin’s photograph (III. 139) taken
at the Scientific Research Institute at Weil c. 1950, shows the great technical
advance made in this field since then.

A similar improvement in technical quality is naturally evident in the


multiple-flash photographs of splashes by Harold E. Edgerton and Kenneth
J. Germeshausen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1933, com-
pared with the pioneer work of A. M. Worthington in England and Theodor
Lullin in Switzerland in the mid-’nineties, or Lord Rayleigh’s photograph
taken in 1891 of a soap bubble at the moment of bursting. These and other
experiments made the public familiar with high-speed photographs and ex-
posures of one-millionth second in the mid-’nineties.
In the early years of the twentieth century Dr Lucien Bull, assistant of
E. J. Marey, was able by the spark method to record the wing oscillations

of insects, which were far too rapid to be successfully photographed before.


From 1933 onward Edgerton and Germeshausen extended multiple-flash
photography to the motion study of games: a tennis player, a diver, a baton-
thrower, and a golfer (III. 140) whose amusing parrot-like pattern of
movement was obtained with 100 flashes per second.

158
139 prof. HUBERT SCHARDIN. BULLET PASSING
THROUGH CANDLE FLAMES, AND THE
SOUND WAVES CAUSED BY IT. C. 1950
140 HAROLD E. EDGERTON. MULTIPLE-FLASH PHOTOGRAPH OF THE GOLFER DENNIS
SHUTE, C. 1935 100 FLASHES PER SECOND
.
Pictorial Photography
The earliest exponent of fine art photography was J. E. Mayall, who in 1845
produced a series of ten daguerreotypes illustrating ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. Six
years later at the Great Exhibition in London Mayall showed several com-
positions described in the catalogue as ‘Daguerreotype pictures to illustrate
poetry and sentiment’ -‘The Soldier’s Dream’, ‘The Venerable Bede blessing
a child’, and ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’ measuring no less than 24X15 inches.
Despite Prince Albert’s encouragement, Mayall abandoned art photography,
realizing probably the validity of the criticism put forward by The Athe-
naeum: ‘To us these pictures seem a mistake. At best, we can only hope to
get a mere naturalistic rendering. Ideality is unattainable- and imagination
supplanted by the presence of fact.’

Apart from Mayall’s misguided excursions into a realm best avoided by


photography, no attempt seems to have been made in the first fifteen years
or so of the new art to deviate from the realistic representation of the every-
day world. Whilst it was recognized that this set a limitation to photo-
graphy, perceptive people were fully aware that there remained ample scope
and composition.
for artistic expression through selection, viewpoint, lighting
The annual exhibitions of the Photographic Society of London, founded
by Roger Lenton in 1853, stimulated photographers to compete with one
another in the production of pictures to be admired by the public and dis-
cussed in the press. The critics, who had hitherto only reviewed art exhibi-
tions, were really not quite sure whether photography were an art, a science,
a bit of each, or neither, binding the constant repetition of portraits, views,
and still-lifes somewhat monotonous -for exposures were still too long to
record action -they drew invidious comparisons between painting and photo-
graphy, pompously urging photographers to strive for loftier themes than
the ‘mere reproduction of reality’, subjects that would ‘fire the imagination,
instruct, purify, and ennoble’. Photographs of historical, allegorical, literary

and anecdotal subjects, similar to the pictures of contemporary Academy


painters, would be the best way -so they argued -to counter the reproach
that photography was a mechanical art. ‘Lor photography there are new
secrets to conquer, new Madonnas to invent, and new ideals to imagine.
There will be perhaps photograph Raphaels, photograph Titians.’ This con-
fusion about the aims of photography and painting led to shocking errors
of taste in both fields.

The idea of raising photography to the exalted regions of High Art


attracted particularly the many former painters who found it easier to earn
a living with the camera than with the brush. In 1855 William Lake Price,

161
a watercolour artist, astonished the world of art and photography -and the
President of the Royal Academy, Sir Charles Eastlake, who was also Presi-
dent of the Photographic Society of London -with
‘Don Quixote’ and his
other compositions in the chivalric style of the Academician George Catter-
mole. They heralded an unfortunate trend -photographic picture making
instead of picture taking. Whilst the art critics welcomed High Art photo-
graphy, as it was then called, those with a deeper knowledge of the photo-
graphic medium were convinced that ‘photographic renderings of historical
or poetic subjects give at best only the impression of a scene on the
. . .

stage’.

The most ambitious allegorical composition in the entire history of photo-


graphy is O. G. Rejlander’s ‘Two Ways of Life’ (111.141): Industry on
the right and Dissipation on the left, with Penitence in between. This photo-
graph, as big as an easel painting (16X31 inches) was first shown at the
Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition in 1857. Here for the first time photo-
graphs were displayed in equality with paintings, drawings, and sculpture,
and Rejlander, a painter devoted to the new medium, saw in the honour
accorded to it a splendid opportunity to prove publicly that it was possible
to create photographs on a par with paintings. Queen Victoria admired
‘The Two Ways its moral content and bought it for Prince
of Life’ for
Albert, who greatly appreciated the present and hung it in his study. Photo-
graphers were on the whole less partial to it. Many were shocked at the
semi-nudity of some of the figures: in Scotland, only the respectable half of
the picture was exhibited! Others rightly disapproved of the technique of

141 O. G. REJLANDER. ‘THE TWO WAYS OF LIFE’, 1857


v
r

142 H. P. ROBINSON. STUDY FOR A COMPOSITION PICTURE, C. 1860

concocting a photograph out of over thirty negatives, and some objections


were raised against the principle of representing an allegory by the realistic

medium The prevailing opinion in art circles seemed to be


of photography.
that this was the highest level which photography could attain, and the seal
of royal approval naturally encouraged the production of some other pre-
tentious compositions. A few titles may suffice: ‘The Baron’s Feast’, ‘The
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’, ‘A Scene in the Tower’ (after Paul De-
laroche) by Lake Price; ‘The Head of St. John the Baptist’, ‘Iphigenia’,
‘Judith and Holofernes’ by Rejlander.
Henry Peach Robinson’s well known photograph ‘Fading Away’ (1858)
showing a dying girl surrounded by her grieving family was a less preten-

tious subject and enjoyed immediate success at exhibitions. It was a com-


bination print from five negatives. For the next thirty years or so Robinson
produced at least one composition picture for each annual exhibition of

163
the Photographic Society of London, which afterwards made the round of
the important exhibitions in Britain and the Continent. These and other
compositions created the style known as ‘pictorial photography’. Robinson’s
method, entirely contrary to the true technique of photography, was to
build up making a preliminary sketch of the
the picture in stages. After
design, he photographed individual groups of figures, cut them
figures, or

out, and pasted them on the separately-photographed foreground and back-


ground (III. 142). When all the photographs had been printed in, the joins
were carefully retouched and the whole picture re-photographed for the
final version. ‘Dawn and Sunset’ (III. 143), Robinson’s exhibition picture

in 1885, shows his great though misapplied skill; one cannot possibly detect
the joins of the five negatives was made up. But why should
from which it

anyone go such a roundabout way of building up his pictures from a number


of negatives, instead of simply posing and photographing the group? This
complication was partly necessitated by the long exposure, for it was im-
possible to rely on several sitters’ keeping still. In this particular picture,
moreover, the contrast between the shadows in the room and the light
streaming in from the window would have been too great for the negative-
material of the period to record satisfactorily. But whereas Rejlander’s
method of printing in the separate pictures direct on to one large sheet of
paper was purely photographic, Robinson’s technique can only be described
as ‘scissors and paste-pot’ or photomontage.
Like an infectious disease, Picture Making by Photography (the title

of Robinson’s most influential book, still reprinted during World War I)

affected even some of the greatest photographers such as Julia Margaret


Cameron and David Octavius Hill -striking examples of how those who
reached the greatest heights of truly artistic photography could plumb the
depths of artificiality and sentimentality when they strove ‘to further the
development of fine art in photography’. This was Hill’s declared intention
when about 1860 he made a short comeback to photography in collaboration
with A. Macglashon, an Edinburgh portrait photographer, but their achieve-
ment hardly went beyond mediocre anecdotal pictures.
Under the influence of her friend and mentor G. F. Watts, Julia Margaret
Cameron spent much time in the misguided effort to explore the realm of
fancy, and like the Academic painters of the period, whom she emulated,
produced the worst kind of Victorian trash in pictures like ‘Pray God, bring
Father safely home’. Her illustrations to the Bible, Shakespeare and Tenny-
son, though compared by her contemporaries with the paintings of Old
Masters, appear ludicrous to modern eyes. In this rational age it is obvious

164

143 H. P^ROBINSON. ‘DAWN AND SUNSET’, 1885 (DETAIL)


v
to us that one cannot photograph ‘The Wise anti Foolish Virgins’, a Sibyl,

St Cecilia, or the Annunciation, because the realism of the medium inevi-


tably reduces the sublime to the ridiculous. Mrs Cameron and her friends
did not see this. The Poet Laureate himself asked her to illustrate his
‘Idylls of the King’, with results that are often comically suggestive of
amateur theatricals.

The New Amateurs


With the general introduction of factory-produced rapid dry plates and
small hand cameras in the 1880s snapshooting became a popular pastime
for hundreds of thousands of amateurs of a different calibre from the
English and French amateurs of the early period. They were on the whole
people of position, who in those days learned to draw as part of their
education and therefore had a trained eye for composition. Moreover, the
very difficulty of photography tended to result in carefully composed pic-
tures. The new amateurs using simple apparatus, and mostly lacking art

144 j. bridson. picnic, c. 1882


145 EIFFEL TOWER AND TROCADERO. INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, PARIS, 1889

training, had never heard of any rules of composition and took rather free-
and-easy snapshots, often very charming like J. Bridson’s picnic (1882)
(III. 144). They were fascinated that a click of the shutter could capture
a slice of life bustling with activity (III. 145). Oscar van Zel’s snapshot
(III. 146) of figure skaters in Vienna ‘froze’ their movement and shows

what short exposures could be attained. Degas, who disliked painting out
of doors, relied a good deal on photographs as studies for his canvases, many
of which convey a casual snapshot-like impression, for example the ‘Place
de la Concorde’ with people half cut off.

146 OSCAR VAN ZEL. SKATING IN VIENNA, C. 1887


v
Most of the new amateurs were content to remain unknown, photograph-
ing solely for their own pleasure. For this reason the work of some of them
has only recently come to light. For example, Count Giuseppe Primoli chron-
icled Roman life both high and low between 1885 and 1905 with directness
and admirable originality of vision. Similar qualities distinguish the pictures
of Jacques FJenri Lartigue, who as a boy took fascinating snapshots of early
motoring and flying, and at race meetings in the years preceding the Great
War.
Many amateurs joined photographic clubs. Up to World War I Great
Britain retained its and
position as the country most active in photography,
by 1900 had no fewer than 256 clubs as against 99 in the United States and
only 23 throughout the whole of the Continent. Those taking their cue
from the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain -the oldest society
still in existence -remained uninterested in the new range of subject matter

that had been opened up, using the recent technical advances merely to
indulge in trite pictorialism with greater facility.

147 P. H. EMERSON. GATHERING WATER-LILIES, 1885


148 B. GAY WILKINSON. SAND DUNES. ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAVURE, C. 1890

Naturalism and Impressionism


By the mid-’eighties H. P. Robinson had gained such international prestige
that artificiality was synonymous with pictorial photography. Realizing that
exhibition photography was completely divorced from reality, Dr Peter
Henry Emerson urged a return to Nature for inspiration, as Courbet had
done thirty years earlier in a similar reaction against academic painting. An
admirer of the Barbizon School, and particularly of Millet, Emerson for the
next ten years photographed the life and landscape of the Norfolk Broads,

and convincingly demonstrated that quite ordinary subjects could be imbued


with artistic quality bearing a personal stamp (III. 147). His manifesto
Naturalistic Photography (1889) was a strong attack on artificial picture-
making. Emerson’s example brought about a revival of landscape photo-
graphy in England. Prominent among his followers were a number of gifted
amateurs: George Davison, Benjamin Gay Wilkinson (III. 148), Colonel

169
149 LYDDELL SAWYER. THE CASTLE GARTH, NEWCASTLE. ORIGINAL
PHOTOGRAVURE, 1888
150 GEORGE DAVISON. ‘THE ONION FIELD*, 1890 (REPRODUCTION)

Joseph Gale, Lyddell Sawyer (III. 149), and Frank M. Sutcliffe. The two
last-named had professional portrait studios, but made delightful landscape
and genre pictures for exhibitions.
Under the influence of the first exhibition of French Impressionist paint-
ings in England in 1889, George Davison revived the old argument that a
soft photograph was more beautiful than a sharp one -an idea that had led
to heated discussions among English photographers in the ’fifties.The follow-
ing year he exhibited the first impressionist photograph, ‘The Onion Field’
(III. which the image was slightly blurred by a combination of
150), in
soft focus and rough-surfaced paper. Soon the desire arose to increase the
softness and to break up the smooth halftones of the photographic image to
emphasize the Impressionistic effect. This met with stubborn opposition from
the traditionalists who were purists in technique, at least, and since the
artistic photographers were already dissatisfied with the recent scientific bias

of the Photographic Society, they broke away from the establishment and

171
founded a secession movement in 1892. The Linked Ring Brotherhood was

formed by Davison and all the members of the Naturalistic school of photo-
graphy (except its founder) and, incongruous as it seems, the old pictorialist
H. P. Robinson. Since England had a long tradition of pictorial photo-
graphy and was indeed until the ’nineties the chief country where it was
practised, it is not surprising that the Linked Ring group was looked up to
as the natural leader by amateur organizations that grew up in other coun-
tries about this time. Within three years the leading French, Austrian and
American art photographers had become members of the Linked Ring and
sent their pictures to its annual exhibitions, the London Salon, which re-
mained the most important international event in photography up to 1914.
The London Salon set an example for international exhibitions of aesthetic
photography on the Continent: Vienna (1892), Hamburg (1893), Paris
(1894), Turin (1897), Berlin (1899); and the Linked Ring led to similar
secession movements, of which the most important was the Photo-Secession
founded by Alfred Stieglitz in New York in 1902.
The pursuit of art unifying photographers of many nations resulted in the
formation in 1904 of the International Society of Pictorial Photographers
under the presidency of J. Craig Annan of Glasgow.
The international status of the aesthetic movement brought in its wake
-at Europe -an extraordinary uniformity of style. Most pictorial
least in

photographs were sombre in tone, grainy in texture, with broad decorative


effects, lacking in perspective. They owed as much to the art nouveau style

as to theadoption of new printing techniques. The gum bichromate, bromoil


and other controlled pigment processes introduced between 1894 and 1907
enabled the photographer to destroy the unique photographic qualities of his
medium. He could omit details, alter tone values, and by manual inter-
ference with brush, pencil or rubber, change the image to such an extent
that it no longer resembled a photograph but assumed the appearance of a
painting, especially if the negative had been initially exposed to coarse

canvas. Rough drawing paper and certain pigments could make the photo-
graph look like a red chalk or charcoal drawing. Nothing flattered the
fin-de-siecle photographer more than the admiring exclamation: ‘That
doesn’t look a bit like a photograph!’ (III. 151), for it proved their

distinction from the mass of casual snapshooters for whom these techniques
were far too difficult. Whilst in their ambition for recognition as artists

many photographers movedand further away from pure photo-


further
graphy in the presentation of their pictures, these were -in contrast to the
earlier High Art photographs -invariably of legitimate camera subjects. Not

151 LACROIX. PARK-SWEEPER. PHOTOGRAVURE OF A GUM PRINT, C. 1900


mm
t •«' ‘ *
infrequently photographers imitated the style of particular artists. Is it De-
machy or is it Degas whom we admire in the charming picture of a ballet

dancer (III. 152)} On the other hand, Frau E. Nothmann’s ‘In the Garden’
has the character of a Renoir without being directly indebted to him (III.

153).
The most prominent art photographers using the gum bichromate and
other controlled printing processes were, in France: Robert Demachy, C.
Puyo. In Austria: Heinrich Kuhn ( III. 154) and Hans Watzek (III. 155).
FRAU E. NOTHMANN. ‘iN THE GARDEN'. PHOTOGRAVURE OF A GUM PRINT, C. 1897
154 (LEFT) HEINRICH KUHN.
VENICE. GUM PRINT, 1897
(reproduction)

155 (RIGHT) HANS WATZEK.


A PEASANT. PHOTOGRAVURE OF
A GUM PRINT, 1894
156 THEODOR AND
OSKAR hofmeister:
GREAT-GRANDMOTHER,
CUXHAFEN, AUGUST 1897.
PHOTOGRAVURE OF A GUM
PRINT

In Germany: the brothers Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister (III. 156), Ru-
dolph Diihrkoop and Hugo Erfurth (III. 157). In Belgium: Leonard Mi-
sonne. In Spain: Jose Ortiz Echague. In Britain: Alfred Horsley Hinton,
Alexander Keighley (III. 158), and F. J. Mortimer. The American Edward
Steichen, then living in Paris, may also be considered to fall in this

European group. His imaginative composition of Rodin with two of his


greatest sculptures (III. 159) is an effective though rather pretentious essay
in photographic impressionism. It was made from two negatives, ‘The
Thinker’ being printed in.

However attractive, art photography was neither art nor true photo-
graphy but a hybrid arising from a misconception of its functions, which
befuddled even the usually clear-headed Munich art critic Karl Voll into
proclaiming: ‘Since the introduction of the gum print their results have no
longer anything in common with what used to be known as photography.
For that reason one can proudly say that these photographers have broken
the tradition of the artificial reproduction of nature. They have freed them-
selves from photography.’

178
157 HUGO ERFURTH. LADY WITH
HAT. NEGATIVE PRINT, 1907

158 ALEXANDER KEIGHLEY.


THE BRIDGE. PHOTOGRAVURE
OF A BROMOIL PRINT, 1906
159 EDWARD STEICHEN. AUGUSTE RODIN WITH HIS SCULPTURE OF VICTOR
HUGO AND ‘THE THINKER’. GUM PRINT, 1902

When one art copies the characteristics of another, decadence inevitably


sets in. This had happened to art when photographic realism became the
hallmark of academic painting; it happened to photography when it aban-
doned realism in a striving for painterly effects. Now the two opponents
had come so close together that recognition was readily accorded to the new
art. At no time during its entire history has photography been held in such
high esteem by painters as during this aesthetic period of art for art’s sake.

The Director of theHamburg Kunsthalle, Prof. Alfred Lichtwark, was the


first to open his museum doors to exhibitions of photography in 1893 and
the following ten years (III. 160), a step which struck the public at first
as anomalous as holding a scientific congress in a church. This official accept-
ance of photography was by no means altruistic, for Lichtwark’s declared

180

!
expectation was a revitalization of painting through photography. The art-

ists of the Munich and Vienna Secessions admitted the art nouveau photo-
graphers to their exhibitions in 1898 and 1902 respectively, and in 1899
the first exhibition of art photography in Berlin took place at the Royal
Academy.

160 TITLE-PAGE OF EXHIBITION CATALOGUE, HAMBURG KUNSTHALLE, 1 8V9

MAMB.U RC, • ISU N ST MALLEI

Ai!5S&CbkilN€
VO IV

m*
Ciei-jT perderuric, a AmAteur-PKpLpe.r^Me
By no means all photographers of the art nouveau period were forgers
work or imitators of non-photographic techniques. A number
of painters’
of English photographers and practically the entire American group, with
the exception of Steichen, had no desire to ‘free themselves from photo-
graphy’. They favoured the soft silver-grey or sepia toned platinum paper,
or hand-made photogravures or photo-etchings. These techniques had been
chosen by P. H. Emerson as giving a slightly softer and more artistic presen-
tation of a photograph than the usual glossy albumen or bromide prints. To
this purist group, who exhibited side by side with the ‘daubers and gum-

splodgers’ as Emerson dubbed them, belonged, in Britain: James Craig


Annan (III. 161), Frederick H. Evans (III. 162), Frederick H. Hollyer,
Frank M. Sutcliffe. In France: Maurice Bucquet (III. 163). In America:
Alvin Langdon Coburn (III. 164), Frank Eugene, Gertrude Kasebier,
Clarence H. White (111.165), Alfred Stieglitz (111.166), and Harry C.

161 J. CRAIG ANNAN. THE PAINTER AND ETCHER SIR WILLIAM STRANG.
PHOTOGRAVURE, C. 1900
162 FREDERICK H. EVANS. AUBREY BEARDSLEY. PLATINUM PRINT, C. 1895
163 MAURICE BUCQUET. ‘EFFET DE PLUIE*. PARIS, C. 1899

164 ALVIN LANCiDON COBURN. REFLECTIONS. PHOTOGRAVURE, 19C8


165 CLARENCE WHITE.
LADY IN BLACK.
PHOTOGRAVURE, C. 1907

166 ALFRED STIEGLITZ.


THE TERMINAL.
PHOTOGRAVURE, 1893
167 HARRY C. RUBINCAM. CIRCUS RIDER. PHOTOGRAVURE, 1905

Rubincam (III. 167). Even their pictures frequently show soft impression-
istic effects, with occasional contre-jour lighting, and a preference for wet
or snowy weather.
George Bernard Shaw admitted to Helmut Gernsheim that he originally
aspired to be a Michelangelo, not a Shakespeare, but could not draw well
enough to satisfy himself (III. 168). Considering the camera a wonderful
5
substitute for the paint-box he began ‘pushing the button in 1898, with
such lack of success that he made the classic comparison: ‘The photographer
5
is like the cod, which lays a million eggs in order that one may be hatched.
Nevertheless Shaw audaciously prophesied in the third year of his hobby:
‘Some day the camera will do the work of Velasquez and Pieter de Hoogh,
colour and all Selection and representation, covering ninety-nine hun-
. . .

5
dredths of our annual output of art, belongs henceforth to photography.

186
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168 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW’S REPLY TO HELMUT GERNSHEIM, GIVING HIS REASON
FOR TAKING UP PHOTOGRAPHY, 1949

Whilst in his own inimitable way Shaw tried to confirm Delaroche’s opinion
that painting was dead, he did not, of course, expect his remark to be taken
literally. But before long, a photographic Pieter de Hoogh interior made
its appearance was only one of many elaborate and accom-
(III. 169). This
plished imitations of Old Master paintings, in which great pains were taken
to achieve historical accuracy. From the photographic point of view the

169 RICHARD POLAK. PHOTOGRAPH IN


THE STYLE OF PIETER DE HOOGH, 1914
(reproduction)
170 ALFRED STIEGLITZ. THE STEERAGE. PHOTOGRAVURE, 1907

technique itself was straightforward. Madonnas and saints far more convinc-

ing than Mrs Cameron’s appeared, and even Crucifixions, Depositions and
Entombments did not escape photographic treatment. With such aberrations
of taste the Dutch amateur photographer Richard Polak, the Americans

J. C. Strauss, F. Holland Day and Lejaren a Hiller, the Italians Ruffo and
Guido Rey, L. Bovier of Belgium, Fred Boissonnas of Switzerland and Mrs
Barton in England, won their laurels.
The man who set out to regenerate the art of true photography towards the
end of the century was Alfred Stieglitz. His photographs of New York streets

188

j
in the ’nineties convincingly proved that everyday scenes abound in effec-

tive pictures and that it is quite unnecessary to stoop to artifice. Stieglitz’s


perception as art connoisseur was far in advance of his time. At the Photo-
Secession gallery at 291 Fifth Avenue he introduced to America, with Stei-
chen’s assistance, the work of many now world-famous avant-garde artists,

as well as photographers. They were also featured in Camera Work, a


prestigious quarterly which he edited during the period 1903-17. Although
a purist and an advocate of straight photography (III. 170), Stieglitz showed
a surprising tolerance towards those who clung to the manipulated print,
and whose work was frequently as artificial as that which he was fighting
against.
In 1913 Alvin Langdon Coburn, exhibiting in London his novel birds-eye
views entitled ‘New York from its Pinnacles’ (III. 171), persuasively asked

171 ALVIN LANGDON COBURN.


NEW YORK.
‘THE OCTOPUS’,
PHOTOGRAVURE, 1912
in the catalogue: ‘Why should not the camera artist break away from the
worn-out conventions that, even in its comparatively short existence, have
begun to cramp and restrict his medium?’ The idea of showing the world

from above was original, but the impressionist softness of presentation


detracts somewhat from the inherent modernity of these photographs.
Stieglitz, Steichen, Coburn ai d other members of the American Photo-

Secession exerted an undoubted influence on photographic exhibitions in


Europe, yet it must be emphasized that the self-conscious picture-making
of these small cliques contributed little to the mainstream of photography.
Men like John Thomson, Jacob Riis, Lewis W. Hine, Paul Martin, Eugene
Atget, Benjamin Stone, and scores of amateur photographers totally in-
different to exhibitionsand societies, used the camera instinctively as an
objective commentator on life, without requiring manifestoes on the aims
of photography. They planted the seeds of modern photography well before
the first World War, though the full measure of their importance only began
to find recognition with the changed outlook in the 1930s. 1914 marks the
end of an era in photography as well as in social structure (III. 172).

1 72 EDWARD VII AND QUEEN ALEXANDRA, 28 JUNE 1904


)

173 PAUL STRAND.


SHADOW PATTERN, NEW
YORK. PHOTOGRAVURE,
1915

Pictures and their Makers: The Modern Period

THE REVOLUTION IN PHOTOGRAPHY


A deliberate break with traditional subject matter and conformity in ex-
pression is manifested in Paul Strand’s photographs of 1915-16, published
by Stieglitz in the last two issues of Camera Work in 1917. Strand observed
significant forms full of aesthetic appeal in ordinary subjects such as the
shadow of a fence (III. 173 and a pile of kitchen bowls. These photo-
graphs are in essence abstract designs and do not call for surface texture and
fine detail. In another picture, ‘The White Fence’ (III. 174), Strand in-
tentionally avoided any effect of perspective. Other photographs in the
modern idiom depict ugly subjects such as a ramshackle suburban corner,
telegraph poles, and the close-up of a blind beggar woman, themes with
which Strand jolted the onlooker back from the sophisticated dream-world
of the aesthetic photographers to the harsh realities of everyday life, which
they ignored. Strand’s text to these pictures reads like an advance manifesto
of the New Objectivity movement of the mid-1920s: ‘Objectivity is of the
very essence of photography, its contribution and at the same time its limita-
tion . . . Honesty no less than intensity of vision is the prerequisite of a
living expression. The fullest realization of this is accomplished without
tricks of processes or manipulation, through the use of straight photographic
methods.’ Such objectivity was, in fact, only the long-forgotten natural
approach of the first generation of photographers.

191
Whereas Paul Strand’s experiments in abstraction were photographs of
recognizable objects, the first purely abstract photographs were a series of
‘Vortographs’ made 1917 by A. L. Coburn by photographing bits of
in
wood, crystals and other objects through an arrangement of three mirrors
forming a triangle and resulting in multiple images (III. 176).
At the end of World War I the cynicism, disillusion, and contempt for
established values led not only to political upheavals but also to a disinte-
gration of accepted conventions in art. Traditional rules of composition
were cast aside in a search for new ways of expression. Some young painters,
trying to mould photography to their own visual aims, diverted it from its

true functions. Christian Schad, a member of the Zurich Dada group, in


1918 made abstract designs by a technique rather similar to Talbot’s photo-
genic drawings, by laying flat objects, strips of paper and pieces of string
on photographic paper. Tristan Tzara called them ‘Schadographs’. Schad
also revived photomontage, which had been used on and off since the late
’fifties. In Victorian photomontages cut-out photographs were either com-
bined with one another to make a new composition (as in the case of H. P.
Robinson) or -more usually -formed part of a painted composition to pro-

174 PAUL STRAND. THE WHITE FENCE. PHOTOGRAVURE, 1915


,

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175 ARNO HAMMACHER. TORN PAPER ON WOOD, DESIGNED BY WALTER HERDEG AS



COVER OF ‘GRAPHIS ANNUAL 61 / 62
duce an incongruous or even surrealist effect. Never before, however, had
photomontages been such a mad jumble as those of the Dadaists, for in their

attempt to destroy all visual illusion, disjointed pieces of photographs were


combined with torn-off bits of newspaper, or stuck on canvas without appar-
ent relation to the painted parts.
In 1919 Erwin Quedenfeldt published in Dusseldorf a series of ‘light
drawings’ -graphic designs made with photographic materials, a method
which he considered as ‘absolute photography’ because it freed the photo-
grapher from the mechanicalness of the camera.
Two Man Ray, the American Dadaist painter who had just
years later
was shown by Tristan Tzara some ‘Schadographs’, and then
settled in Paris,
made somewhat similar light drawings, which he called ‘Rayographs’, using
three-dimensional opaque and translucent objects. In 1922 Laszlo Moholy-
Nagy, a Hungarian abstract painter living in Berlin, after seeing some
‘Rayographs’ made his own brand of ‘photograms’ (III. 177) by placing
three-dimensional objects on photographic plates or paper.
All these techniques aimed at the transmutation of the object into a non-
representational light pattern in which merely the shape of the object was
reproduced without detail or tone gradation.
In 1923 Moholy-Nagy started a class on photography at the Bauhaus to ,

176 ALVIN LANGDON COBURN. ‘VORTOGRAPH’, 1917


177 LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY. PHOTOGRAM, 1922
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178 EARLY X-RAY PHOTOGRAPH, C. 1896-97

179 ADVERTISEMENT OF X-RAY EXHIBITION, LONDON, 1896

explore new techniques of photographic image-making on a much broader


basis than had hitherto been tried, and especially to investigate the extent
to which photography could serve painting, poster art, textile design, etc.-
subjects which were taught at this avant-garde school of design founded by
Walter Gropius in 1919. Techniques which had up to that time been solely
employed for scientific purposes, such as X-ray photography (Ills. 178,
179), photomicrography and macrophotography, were found suitable for
producing novel designs of aesthetic value. The abstract artists at the Bau-
haus- Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger, Moholy-Nagy- were intrigued by the
fascinating forms revealed under the microscope (III. 181). Paul Klee wrote
in 1924: ‘The comparatively simple act of looking through the microscope
presents the eye with pictureswhich we should all declare fantastic and far-
fetched we happened upon them by chance.’ Their similarity to abstract
if

art prompted The Illustrated London News to publish in May 1931 a


number of colour photomicrographs by Mme Albin Guillot and M. H. Ragot

195
180 ERNST HAAS. POSTER, 1959
181 PHOTOMICROGRAPH FROM ‘FORM IN ART AND NATURE* BY GEORG SCHMIDT AND
ROBERT SCHENK, BASLE, 1960
Even quite simple techniques such as negative-printing (III. 157) (i. e.

not reversing the image to the positive), multiple images, and distortion
could result -so Moholy-Nagy pointed out -in exciting optical images, and
being the enfant terrible who aimed at a complete break with traditional
methods of picture-making, he urged his pupils to look at everything afresh,
from novel viewpoints (III. 182). Moholy-Nagy made photomontages
chiefly in connection with typography, or for advertising, and called the
combination of the printed word with a photograph ‘typophotoh His book

182 LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY. VIEW FROM RADIO TOWER, BERLIN, 1928


Malerei, Fotografie , Film (1925) is a forceful expose of his revolutionary-
ideas on the future development and union of abstract painting, abstract
photography, and abstract music -a combined art form based on optical and
aural impulses conveyed by colour, photoplastic (photograms giving a three-
dimensional effect) and electronic sound effects.
The phenomenon of partial reversal of the negative into a positive image
by the action of light, called solarization by John William Draper in 1840,
was used creatively by Man Ray in 1929 for emphasizing a certain graphic
effect in photographs (III. 183).
Although much of the experimental darkroom work of the immediate post-
war period was of limited value, Moholy-Nagy’s, and to a lesser extent, Man
Ray’s contribution to photography lay in extending photographic tech-
niques and uprooting outmoded conventions.
A search for new ways of expression occupied some photographers in
England in the following decade. Cecil Beaton, for twenty-five years leading
photographer of fashion and celebrities for Vogue, created a new style in
portraiture, with the sitter forming part of an imaginative decor (III. 184).
The American Francis Bruguiere showed in London in 1933 light patterns in
which the camera had been merely used to record light effects on his abstract

183 MAN RAY. SOLARIZED PORTRAIT, 1931

I
CECIL BEATON. THE ACTRESS DIANA WYNYARD, 1935
185 ANGUS MCBEAN. SELF-PORTRAIT (FOUR EXPOSURES), 1946

paper constructions. Angus McBean, Britain’s leading theatrical photo-


grapher, for many years combined surrealist fantasy with photographic
realism in his portraits of actresses and other compositions (Ills. 185 187). ,

Other avant-garde photographers active in London in the ’thirties were


Peter Rose Pulham, a painter making surrealist photomontages, Edmiston,
an advertising photographer, and Winifred Casson, a portrait and advertis-
ing photographer (III. 186), whose double exposure ‘Accident’ is a brilliant
evocation of horror (III. 188).

200
186 WINIFRED CASSON.
SURREALIST PHOTOGRAPH, C. 1935

187 ANGUS MCBEAN.


SURREALIST COMPOSITION INCLUDING
SELF-PORTRAIT, 1949
188 WINIFRED CASSON. ‘ACCIDENT’, C. 1935

In France, the Dutch photographer Erwin Blumenthal and the Hungarian


Andre Kertesz, both of whom, like many other gifted Continental photo-
graphers, later emigrated to the United States, shocked the public with
strange distortions in portraits and nudes (III. 189).
Fascinated by the strange and fantastic, Clarence J. Laughlin was drawn
to the beauty of old architecture in his home town, New Orleans, and the
abandoned mansions of cotton planters along the Mississippi, which he
photographed with poetical imagination sometimes in the surrealist vein, to
resurrect the spirit of the past (111. 190). It was all part and parcel of the
surrealist movement, and a natural parallel to contemporary art trends.

202
189 ANDRE KERTESZ.
DISTORTION STUDY, 1934
(reproduction)

190 CLARENCE J. LAUGHLIN.


‘elegy for moss land’, 1947
NEW OBJECTIVITY
Of more lasting importance in the evolution of modern photography and
in direct contrast to the extremely subjective Bauhaus experimentation was
the simultaneous New movement pioneered by Albert Renger-
Objectivity
Patzsch. Neue Sachlichkeit was by Gustav Hartlaub,
a term coined in 1924
Director of the Mannheim Kunsthalle, to denote the style of several German
neo-realist painters. Later it was also applied to the new realism which
found expression in photography and the cinema.
Fascinated by the beauty of everyday things, Renger-Patzsch from 1922
onward made close-ups of natural and man-made objects, isolating the
subject from its surroundings and recording it with the utmost realism and
textural detail. Renger-Patzsch’s book Die Welt ist scbon (1928) is an
eloquent proof of his contention that the aesthetic value of a photograph
lies just in these specifically photographic qualities (III. 191).
Like all movements, New Objectivity was not without forerunners. The
same idea had already occurred to Eugene Atget, who made extended series

191 ALBERT RENGER-PATZSCH. DRIVING-SHAFT OF A LOCOMOTIVE, 1923


192 EUGENE ATGET.
TREE ROOTS AT ST. CLOUD,
C. 1910

of close-ups of flowers and trees (III. 192) as well as many architectural


details; and to Edward Steichen, whose recent autobiography includes a
number of photographs in this style: a lotus flower, a frog in a lily-pond,
and above all some stacked flower-pots, all of which antedate Neue Sach-
lichkeit by several years.
Renger-Patzsch’s straightforward photographs came as a revelation. ‘Let
us leave art to artists,’ he wrote, ‘and let us try by means of photography
to create photographs that can stand alone on account of their photographic
quality -without borrowing from art.’ Quite independently he had arrived
at the same conception as Paul Strand.
Neue Sachlichkeit was a reaction against sentimentality, romanticism,
picturesqueness, flattery in portraiture, and falsification of any kind. Picto-
rialism was left to the photographic Salons, prettiness and beauty in the
conventional sense belonged to the picture postcard, and abstract designs
for their own sake, to graphic art. The photographer at last began to recog-
nize and pursue again the unique characteristic qualities of his medium with

205
•s

its almost unlimited possibilities of genuine expression. He was able, as


William Blake wrote,
‘To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower.’
In shaping the new vision the influence of the cinema must not be over-
looked. D. W. Griffith in ‘Intolerance’ (1916) brought for the first time to
the screen the emotional close-up. The horrifying realism of Eisenstein’s
famous Odessa steps sequence in ‘Potemkin’ (1925) and the close-up of
maggots crawling on the sailor’s meat, and Pabst’s film ‘The Joyless Street’
(1925), not only firmly established realism as a major style in the cinema,
but also had a tremendous impact upon still photography.
New Objectivity gathered momentum with Karl
Blossfeld’s Urformen der
Kunst (1929). The strange forms Blossfeld found in quite common plants
are extraordinary. There is evident, however, a conscious striving to aston-
ish by bringing out details, frequently enlarged over life-size to accentuate,
in some cases, their likeness to artefacts.
Before long, the close-up and reproduction of texture began to be applied
to portraiture. Since the exponents of New Objectivity were interested above

193 HELMAR LERSKI.


METAL-WORKER, 1930
all in everyday things, their portraits were naturally of ordinary people,
not celebrities. Erna Lendvai-Dircksen, like the German realist painter Wil-
helm Leibl before her, dedicated herself for many years to portraying Ger-
man peasants in their traditional costumes. August Sander’s Antlitz der
Zeit (1929) gave an unflattering portrait of a cross-section of Germany’s
social structure. Helmar Lerski in Kopfe des Alltags (1931) concentrated on
everyday faces -beggars, hawkers, industrial workers, and servants -feeling
that whereas celebrities often wear a mask and strike a pose before the
camera, these unimportant people gave him a chance to make objective
character studies (III. 193).
Miniature cameras with wide-aperture lenses, introduced in Germany in
the mid-’twenties, made angle-shots, distortions, and novel viewpoints com-
mon practice. When used with discretion they could add forcefulness to
the expression (III. 194), increase apparent height (III. 195) or diminish
apparent size. The extraordinary pictures assembled by Werner Graff in his

207
.

'mutt

195 ALBERT RENGER-PATZSCH. TOWER OF THE HOFKIRCHE IN DRESDEN, 1923


196 WALTER HEGE. IONIC CAPITAL FROM THE ENTRANCE TO THE PROPYLAEA, 1929

book Es Kommt der Neue Fotograf (1929) form the perfect guide to the new
vision, which now began to establish itself firmly in Germany. The classic
rules of composition and perspective devised in the Renaissance for paint-
ing were now deliberately discarded as photographers at last learned to see
photographically
Several German weekly illustrated papers and monthly magazines in the
late ’twenties surprised their readers with startling photographs featured
under such titles as ‘The New Vision’, ‘The World from Above’, ‘Under the
Magnifying Glass’, ‘How Our Photographer Saw It’, ‘The Picture can be
Found in the Street’, ‘Beauties of Every Day’, ‘Journeys of Discovery with
the Camera’, etc.
The possibility of publishing their pictures in magazines and books freed
photographers from their former dependence on exhibitions for fame. It

208
brought about a much wider division between photographs made for ex-
hibitions -the old art for art’s sake- and those intended for publication,
which were concerned with life and reality, photography’s proper domain.

Germany, which had played no role in the development of artistic photo-


graphy until late in the nineteenth century, found herself suddenly leading
Europe, and with no hampering tradition, progress was rapid. Walter Hege’s
photographs in the 1930s of German cathedrals, the Athenian Acropolis
(III. 196) and Olympia, inspired later contributions in the fields of architec-
ture and Kurt Hielscher, Martin Hiirlimann, and E. O. Hoppe
sculpture.
(III. 197) produced for the Orbis Terrarum series photographic books on

foreign countries which were a model for present-day publications. Other


leading photographers who spread the new style beyond the borders of
Germany were Adolf Lazi, Willi Zielke and Herbert Bayer, who was head
of the typography department at the Bauhaus before settling in the U.S.A.
198 HUGO ERFURTH. KATHE KOLLWITZ, OIL PIGMENT PRINT, C.
199 HOWARD COSTER. G. K. CHESTERTON, 1928

Hugo Erfurth, though adhering to the manipulated gum and oil pigment
print, depicted the German intelligentsia in the 1920s with a depth of un-
derstanding and artistic conception (III. 198) equalled by South African-
born Howard Coster, who settled in London in 1925, in his portraits of the
English intelligentsia (III. 199).

211
200 EDWARD WESTON.
SWEET PEPPER, 1930

The only country outside Germany where New Objectivity found imme-
diate acceptance was Switzerland; perhaps it was natural that the new factual
style should appeal to a nation noted for clockwork precision and down-to-
earth exactitude, and be considered unpoetic in England and France.
In the United States new realism began independently of German influence
with a small number of photographers, of whom Edward Steichen, Paul
Strand and Edward Weston are the best known. Steichen’s early work in
this style has already been referred to. Strand began in 1926 to take close-up
photographs of machinery, plants and rock formations. Weston was a Salon

201 ANSEL ADAMS.


PINE-CONE AND EUCALYPTUS
LEAVES, 1933

202 (RIGHT) ANSEL ADAMS.


SAND DUNES, OCEANO,
CALIFORNIA, 1962
romantic until, during three years’ residence in Mexico, the stimulating in-
fluence of his friend the painter Diego Rivera resulted in a complete change
of style. In September 1925 Weston exhibited his first sharp objective land-
scape photographs and portraits, and after returning to California in 1927
embarked on close-ups of unusual natural forms for which he later became
justifiably famous. Whether it were a sweet pepper (III. 200), an eroded

rock forming an abstract pattern, or Californian sand dunes, he rendered


every subject with its surface texture strongly emphasized. The contribu-
tions of Edward Weston and his son Brett, Edward Steichen, Imogen
Cunningham, Berenice Abbott, a pupil of Man Ray, and the realist painter-

photographer Charles Sheeler made a deep impression at the important


International Film & Photo Exhibition in Stuttgart in 1929. About a year
later Ansel Adams, stimulated by the work of his teacher and friend Edward
Weston, began to devote himself to similar subject matter (III. 201), before
turning to the grand landscapes of the Yosemite Valley and other American
National Parks, for which he is today chiefly celebrated.
)

•N

This American group did not abandon their 10X8 inch plate cameras in
favour of the miniature cameras introduced in the ’twenties, because they
considered superlative technique just as essential as imaginative vision. In
1932 Willard van Dyke, a cinematographer, formed the F 64 Group with a
few other like-minded photographers, including Weston and Imogen Cun-
ningham. They used the smallest diaphragm opening on their lens in order
to obtain the greatest possible depth and sharpness from foreground to back-
ground, rarely making larger prints than contact copies. This was a return to
the practice of the pioneer landscape photographers three-quarters of a
had usually worked with much larger plates.
century earlier, except that they
Inspired by the Westons and Adams (III. 202), there are today in America
a number of dedicated nature photographers -Wynn Bullock, William
Garnett, Eliot Porter and Cedric Wright -whose brilliant work has appeared
in This is the American Earth (1960) by Nancy Newhall and other fine
publications sponsored by the Sierra Club in San Francisco.
Mention must also be made in this connection of the originators of New
Objectivity who are and have published a number of books con-
still active
taining superb photographs: Paul Strand on Mexico (1940), New England
(1950) and the Hebrides (1963); Renger-Patzsch on the Ruhr and Mohne
landscape (1958), trees (1962) and stones (1965).
When Helmut Gernsheim tried to propagate New Objectivity in Britain,
his book New Photo Vision (1942) (111.204) met with the same kind of
hostile reception from the old guard as Die Welt ist schon had previously.
For many years the new style found little favour outside advertising, despite
the excellent annuals Modern Photography and the books of Ansel Adams
and the Viennese Wolfgang Suschitzky, all published by The Studio. Su-
schitzky applied the modern realistic style to close-ups of animals (III. 203)
and children in a way that had not been attempted before. During World
War II Gernsheim brought the same approach to the architecture and
sculpture (III. 205 By isolating and lighting he
of historic monuments.
intensified individual motifs and brought out significant details which in
some cases would otherwise have remained unnoticed by the casual observer,
since they were often in obscure positions.
Andreas Feininger, who left Germany in the mid-’thirties about the same
time as Gernsheim, has been staff photographer of Life for over twenty
years, specializing in subjects calling for an intellectual rather than an
emotional approach. An architect by training, Feininger’s analytical search-
ing eye discovered many new vistas in American landscape and townscape
(III. 206) and fantastic forms in The Anatomy of Nature (1956).

214
203 WOLFGANG SUSCHITZKY.
TWO CAMELS, 1938

SECTION THROUGH A CUCUMBER. 1935


205 HELMUT GERNSHEIM. THOMAS THYNN (d. 1682 ). DETAIL FROM MONUMENT
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1942
206 ANDREAS FEININGER. OIL DERRICKS, SIGNAL HILL, CALIFORNIA

Today good straightforward photography in the New Objectivity style


is the normal standard, apart from the diehard pictorialists whose banal
anachronisms still clutter the London Salon, the annual exhibitions of the
Royal Photographic Society and of the Photographic Society of America,
and indeed a large number of other reactionary clubs and societies. Typical
is a proud note in an English exhibition catalogue as recent as 1960: ‘Viewers
will be able to see the continuing tradition of pictorial photography, which
continues largely unruffled by modern movements. This conservatism with
variations is one of the strengths of the photographic society exhibitions and
one of the facets that is periodically attacked by graphic artists and fine

art critics/!

217
207 PETER CORNELIUS. CANAL ST-MARTIN, PARIS, 1958
208 YOUSUF KARSH. SIR WINSTON CHURC^HILL, 1941
CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITURE
The greatest contemporary representative of portraiture in the classic tradi-

tion Armenian-born Yousuf Karsh, whose name will for ever remain
is

associated with the image he created of Sir Winston Churchill (III. 208)
-the most characteristic portrait expressing the bulldog determination of
the great wartime leader. No other artist succeeded so well in catching the
forcefulness of Eleanor Roosevelt, the impish, quizzical expression of G. B.
Shaw, or the Weltschmerz of Albert Einstein. These and many other faces
of destiny photographed by Karsh during the war for the Canadian Govern-
ment make a strong case for an International Photographic Portrait Gallery.
Smaller fry do not stand up to the same heroic treatment, though their
portraits too are unmistakably stamped with Karsh’s personality.

209 IDA KAR.


WILLIAM SCOTT, 1961

— " »
210 ELIOT ELISOFON. LOUIS ARMSTRONG

211 (RIGHT) ANDREAS FEININGER. CATERPILLAR


OF SPICEBUSH SWALLOWTAIL, C. 1960
Like the portrait painter, the studio photographer aims at obtaining in
one static picture the most characteristic expression, combining various
aspects of the sitter’s personality. The reportage photographer, on the other
hand, will record a number of fleeting expressions in a set of pictures form-
ing a kind of serial portrait. The reportage style of portraiture, pioneered
by Felix H. Man in 1929, has today become modified inasmuch as the
photographer finally only one or two out of the great number
selects for use

taken. For a picture story on a well-known person, readers of a magazine


would rather see the subject in a variety of places and activities, than
merely expressions and gestures recorded during one conversation with an
interviewer. Progressive portrait photographers, aware that the sitter is more
at ease in his usual surroundings, practise what used to be called At Ffome
photography, except that nowadays the term also covers place of business,
a film or TV studio, concert hall, club, and so on. Outstanding recent ex-
amples have been taken, among others, by Ida Kar (III. 209), especially of
artists and writers, and Erich Auerbach, of musicians. Brian Seed’s clever
study of Patrick Fieron (III. 212) focuses attention in a very original way
upon the abstract painter on the occasion of an award.
213 PHILIPPE HALSMAN.
PROFESSOR ALBERT EIN-
STEIN, 1948

Latvian-born Philippe Halsman, with over 100 Life cover pictures to his

credit, has produced some immortal portraits displaying great originality


and To Halsman, a portrait is above all a human document, and
liveliness.

he sees his greatest reward when one of his portraits becomes the definitive
image of some famous person. History will remember Einstein as Halsman
saw him (III. 213). His Jump Book of famous people, on the other hand,
strikes one as hardly more than a gimmick.
Living with Pablo Picasso for several months enabled David Douglas
Duncan to build up a great composite portrait -the best documentation that
has so far been produced on the private life of a great figure. The Private
World of Pablo Picasso (1958) has that air of intimacy which only famili-
arity can give. Despite his flair for acting, Picasso refrained from playing
to the gallery.

225
s
Irving Penn and Richard Avedon are America’s leading fashion magazine
photographers today. They have created a contemporary style for Vogue
and Harper's Bazaar respectively, as distinctive as Edward Steichen’s for
Vanity Fair in the 192Qs and and Cecil Beaton’s for Vogue in the 30s
30s,
and 40s. Observations (1959) and Moments Preserved (1960) show better
than words can describe the quality which gives their fashion photographs
that new look, and makes their colour advertisements so eye-catching. Eco-
nomy of means, unusual viewpoints and a strong black-and-white effect create
a sense of monumentality in Penn’s portraits of Picasso and Marlene Dietrich.
The same strength emerges from Avedon’s Stravinsky (III. 214). Occasionally,
however, when the sitter has to play-act a part assigned to him, he is

reduced to an insignificant figure on the photographer’s stage.

214 RICHARD AVEDON. IGOR STRAVINSKY, 1958


215 TONI SCHNEIDERS.
AIR-BUBBLES IN ICE, 1953

FOTOFORM
Since much was stigmatized by the
of the avant-garde art of the Bauhaus
Nazis was closed down when Hitler came to power. Walter
as degenerate, it

Gropius and Moholy-Nagy had already left in 1928. To the post-war gen-
eration in Germany most of the Bauhaus teaching was a sealed book.
In the wave of non-representational art which swept the world after
World War II Kandinsky, Klee and Feininger, who had made the Bauhaus
the spearhead of abstract art, were international idols. It is not surprising,
therefore, that in the spirit of the times Prof. Otto Steinert, teacher at and
later director of the State Art & Craft School in Saarbrticken, considered
the moment opportune to revive the entire range of photographic image-mak-
ing evolved by Moholy-Nagy. Under the name ‘Fotoform’, and with a good
deal of drum-beating from art critics, one of whom likened the impact
of the first Fotoform exhibition (1950) to ‘an atom bomb in the dungheap of
decadent German photography’, photographs with a graphic design or ab-
stract pattern became the rage in Germany. Some photographers discovered
that nature abounded with abstract patterns if you started looking for them.
Toni Schneider’s air bubble formation in ice (111.215) and Peter Keetman’s

227
216 PETER KEETMAN. OIL DROPS, 1956
oil drops (III. 216) are excellent examples. Keetman made a variety of
aesthetically satisfying oscillation photographs (III. 217 ), unaware that the
first made with a swinging light source had been produced as early
designs
as 1904 by C. E. Benham and published in the January 1905 issue of The
Photogram London. The ‘Luminograph’,
,
originally introduced for time-
and-motion study of factory workers, led Gjon Mili to ask Picasso to draw
for him a light picture in the air. Less original, but sometimes more fantastic,
were the light patterns traced by the headlights of motor cars on photo-
graphic film, and the helicopter spiral (III. 218) by Andreas Feininger.
However, more often than not abstractions and graphic designs were only
conceived in the darkroom, and it was in the nature of things that the
desired graphic effect usually necessitated the suppression of the specifically
photographic qualities in order to render the subject of the photograph
meaningless. Extremists seemed to feel the same urge to ‘free themselves
from photography’, as some of the art nouveau gum-splodgers had done.
The quest for originality frequently led to cultivation of what had
formerly been rejected as technically faulty, transforming the normal
image quite surprisingly: over-enlargement of a small part of a negative,
coarse grain, blurred outlines, camera-shake, double images, exaggerated
contrast and reticulation. Man Ray in his self-portrait obtained a
graphic effect by printing from a zincographic plate (III. 219). As the

218 ANDREAS FEININGER. NAVY RESCUE HELICOPTER TAKING OFF AT NIGHT, 1957
219 MAN RAY. SELF-PORTRAIT, 1948. PHOTOZINCOGRAPH
222 CAROLINE HAMMARSKIOLD. FISHING-NET, 1950

223 PROF. OTTO STEINERT. INTERCHANGEABLE FORMS (NEGATIVE MONTAGE), 1955

p hfamzteiWs&m 1

- '

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JIM ‘
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224 HANS HAMMARSKIOLD.
SECTION THROUGH TREE, 1951

metamorphosis was caused by optical or chemical methods it constituted a


legitimate broadening of photographic image-making. Nevertheless, Foto-
form was far too narrow a conception of photography, and fully aware of
the dangers of a cul-de-sac Steinert, himself a distinguished photographer
of great originality (Ills. 220 , 223), in 1951 widened the scope to Sub-
jective Photography -meaning any creatively-guided picture-making, in-

cluding reportage. ‘Subjective’ implied a personal expression or interpretation


by the photographer in contradistinction to the objective outlook of Neue
Sachlichkeit.
Steinert’s revolutionary exhibitions of Subjective Photography, and two
books based on them, propagated the new style, which found particularly
receptive ground in Sweden and Japan, countries traditionally strong in
design but before 1950 practically non-existent in the field of creative photo-
graphy. Lennart Olson, Hans and Caroline Hammarskiold (III. 222), George
Oddner, Rolf Winquist (III. 221) and others who have won international
recognition both individually and as the Tio Group, owe their creative
impulse largely to Fotoform. Most profound was its influence on modern
textile design: curtain material, table cloths, and on wallpaper design.

233
f n. • m
)

226 RAYMOND MOORE. DECAYED CEILING, 1964

Though some Neue Sachlichkeit photographs could also be classified as


Fotoform, the different approach of the two styles can be demonstrated by
a comparison of Gernsheim’s cross-section through a cucumber (III. 204)
with Hans Hammarskiold’s cross-section through a tree (III. 224). Whilst
the former wanted to intensify the reality with all possible tone gradation,
the latter intentionally destroyed the half-tone in order to obtain a graphic
design transcending the reality of the object. Subjects never failing to mystify
the viewer are fissured tree bark (111.228), cracked paint (III. 229) and
paper ( 111.226 and cracked windows (III. 227). And while on the subject
of glass, Sir George Pollock finds an infinite variety of abstract designs in

235
225 RAYMOND MOORE. ROCK POOL, 1964
227 CLARENCE J. LAUGHLIN.
WINDOW, 1963

228 HANS HAMMARSKIOLD.


BARK OF A TREE, 1952
BRETT WESTON. CRACKED PAINT, 1954
230 HEINZ HAJEK-HALKE. LIGHT PATTERNS, 1960
the surface irregularities of lumps of waste glass and their interior flaws,
according to the angle at which the lump is held, the part of it chosen for
an extreme close-up, and the direction of the light. By watching the play of
multiple reflections and composing them into attractive patterns, and the
use of coloured filters, Pollock creates in his ‘Vitrographs’ a mysterious
universe aglow with colour, and stimulating to the imagination. Some pic-
tures seem to give a glimpse of a submarine world (III. 231), others of outer
space, a volcanic eruption and so on. All are pregnant with meaning and
it is left to the observer to give them his own interpretation.
Raymond Moore, on the other hand, creates abstract photographs in the
spirit of Neue
Sachlichkeit by taking extreme close-ups of decayed houses
(III. and of rock formations of the Welsh coast (III. 225), to which he
226),
returns annually just as Edward Weston never exhausted his favourite sub-
jects, rocks on Point Lobos and the sand dunes of Oceano. Both he and his

son Brett were among the first to be captivated by the expressiveness and
wonderful forms they found on their explorations of nature. However, their

231 SIR GEORGE F. POLLOCK. VITROGRAPH, 1964


232 AARON SISSKIND.
WALL PATTERN, 1960

233 HARRY CALLAHAN.


ELEANOR, 1948
)

234 BILL BRANDT.


NUDE, 1958

pictures are less closely related to the current trend in painting than those of
a number of other American photographers in this field, foremost among
them Aaron Siskind ( III. 232 and Harry Callahan, who for many years
jointly directed the photographic department of the Illinois Institute of
Design (the New Bauhaus). Quite a different abstraction, depending purely
on form, is given by Callahan’s silhouette (III. 233) and Bill Brandt’s strange
study from Perspective of Nudes (1961) (III. 234). Very interesting patterns
are sometimes- also the by-product of scientific investigations as in Prof.
Schardin’s photograph of the temperature distribution around a heated
metal tube (III. 235).
Henry Holmes Smith has used the multiple-colour dye-transfer process
for creating abstract forms in colour. Herbert W. Franke in Kunst und
Konstruktion (1957) lists a great many techniques from X-rays to ultralight.

241
)

-35 HUBERT SCHARDIN. TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION AROUND A HEATED METAL TUBE, C. 1950

Several experimenters including the Welsh photographer Norman Tudgay


and the German Heinz Hajek-Halke 278 have reverted, with modifica-
( III.

tions, to the cliche-verre process which goes back to 1839. In this, the
photographic part consists solely in copying on to sensitive paper a design
scratched or painted on a coated glass plate (III. 236). Some of the light-
drawings of the Hungarian teacher of design Gyorgy Kepes (III. 237) -co-
founder with Moholy-Nagy of the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937-also
fall into this group. Indeed, many so-called innovations in photography are
ancient: light-drawing, photomontage, cliche-verre , oscillation photographs,
solarization and other techniques have been re-invented from time to time
simply because people forgot, or perhaps never knew, what had been done
before. It is a common failure to ignore the past instead of learning from it.

242
236 NORMAN TUDGAY.
‘clich£-verre’, 1955

237 GYORGY KEPES,


LIGHT-DRAWING, 1950
REPORTAGE
No other medium can and
reality so close as does photography
bring life

and it is and documentation that photography’s


in the fields of reportage
most important contribution lies in modern times. The reportage photo-
grapher makes us eye-witnesses of events as they happen, and forces us to
realize, with a power never before contemplated, the strife and life, the hope

and despair, the humanity and inhumanity, of the world in which we find
ourselves participants whether we like it or not.
With new techniques of transmission, photography as a communications
medium has gained immeasurably in importance. Pictures of the assassina-
tion of President Kennedy were on the front page of every important daily
newspaper throughout the world the next day. The modern world takes in
its stride photo-telegraphy, television, Telstar, and pictures of the moon
automatically taken and radio’d to earth from a distance of 240,000 miles.
A surprising circumstance in this revolutionary development of communica-
tions is that it is only sixty-one years since the first newspaper world
in the
illustrated exclusively with photographs, The Daily Mirror (London), made
its appearance. Indeed it was only in June 1919 that the New York tabloid
The Illustrated Daily News followed suit, thirty-nine years after the feasibil-
ity of printing a halftone block alongside type had been satisfactorily de-
monstrated by Stephen H. Horgan in The New York Daily Graphic. Even

238 FRENCH MACHINE GUN DETACHMENT UNDER FIRE AT HELLY DURING WORLD WAR I, 1918
C
239 THE REVOLT OF THE MASSES. RED THURSDAY’ DEMONSTRATION IN PARIS, 1925

during the early twentieth century practically the only outlet the news
photographer had for pictures of events, and complete reportages of occa-
sions such as Queen Victoria’s funeral and Edward VII’s coronation, was
the sale of postcards.
During World War I photographers were for the first time officially at-
tached to the armed forces, and some action shots under fire comparable with B

those of World War II were taken (III. 238). Yet comparatively few of them
were published in the press, and to satisfy the growing demand, sets of official
war photographs were released to the public in the 1920s in England, France
and Germany in the form of stereoscopic slides and published albums.
Newspapers were incredibly slow to adapt themselves to the photo-age.
Although numerous excellent photographs of historic events had been
made in the and early twentieth century, photo-reportage
nineteenth
in the modern sense began only in the mid-’twenties (III. 239) with the

introduction of the Ermanox camera and ultra-rapid plates. This new


equipment made it possible to seize fleeting expressions and movements, and
even to take indoor photographs in poor lighting conditions. It was, never-

245
a rather exaggerated claim of the manufacturer of the Ermanox
theless,

camera to advertise: ‘What you see you can photograph’. According to Hugo
von Hofmannsthal, Dr Hans Bohm working with this camera from a box
in the Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna recorded for the first time the ex-
pressions and gestures of actors during actual performances in Max Rein-
hardt’s first season 1924-25. His success decided the former research chemist
to become a professional stage photographer.
The new technical facilities gradually gave rise to a new kind of photo-
graphy -a preoccupation with human situations (III. 240). The fathers of
modern photo-reportage are Dr Erich Salomon, Felix H. Man and Wolfgang
Weber.
Salomon started as a free-lance photo-reporter in February 1928 after the
sensational success of his photographs of a Berlin murder trial taken secretly
with an Ermanox concealed in an attache case. In fact, a similar ‘scoop’ had
already been made twenty years earlier by an English press photographer,
Arthur Barrett, who caught expressive close-ups (111.241) of suffragette
leaders in the dock at Bow Street Magistrate’s Court, London, with a camera
hidden in his top hat, in which he had cut a hole for the lens.

240 JAMES JARCHE. AT THE SERPENTINE, HYDE PARK, LONDON, C. 1925


241 ARTHUR BARRETT. SUFFRAGETTE LEADERS IN DOCK AT BOW STREET, LONDON,
ON 24 OCTOBER 1908. CHRIST ABEL PANKHURST, MRS DRUMMOND, MRS PANKHURST

Dissatisfied with the traditional static portraits and groups published in

the Berliner lllustrirte Zeitung , Dr Salomon astonished the world with his
candid snapshots of statesmen and other celebrities in unguarded moments,
especially at international political conferences. Aristide Briand called him
‘le roi des indiscrets’ (111.242), for Salomon was as ingenious at getting
into secret sessions from which photographers were barred, as the China-
man who, posing as a special envoy, boldly joined the royal procession at
the opening of the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851.

242 DR ERICH SALOMON. ARISTIDE BRIAND POINTING AT SALOMON AT A BANQUET AT THE


c
QUAI D’ORSAY IN 1931, SAYING VOILA LE ROI DES INDISCRETS*. ON BRIAND’s LEFT IS HERIOT
243 FELIX H. MAN. IGOR STRAVINSKY
CONDUCTING AT A REHEARSAL, 1929

244 (right) FELIX H. MAN. MARC CHAGALL


AT VENCE, 1950
,

Another early worker in this field was the Hungarian Muncaszi, who like

Dr Salomon worked chiefly in single pictures for the Berliner lllustrirte.


The pioneer of the picture-story or series of related photographs of a
general event is Felix H. Man. His series of life on the Kurfiirstendamm,
Berlin, between midnight and dawn was the first nocturnal photo-reportage
(1929). The same year he made the first photographs of conductors (III. 243),
musicians, and so on, during performances by available light, using an Erma-
nox. Another innovation due to Man was the intimate picture series of
famous personalities, beginning Day with
with ‘A Mussolini’ (1931).
The first reportage of Wolfgang Weber, who is still active for the Kol-
nische Illus trier te was on the New York traffic problem, published in the
Miincloner lllustrierte Presse in February 1929.
‘Dephot’ (Deutscher Photodienst), an agency in Berlin founded that year
by Alfred Marx and Simon Gutmann was until 1932 the leading enterprise
in the sphere of photo-journalism in Germany. Its two principal photo-

graphers were Umbo and Felix FI. Man, the former working mainly on the
studio and advertising side, and the latter as photo-journalist. In 1930 they
were joined by Kurt Hiibschmann (later Hutton). Others working for
Dephot were Walter Bosshard, and Harald Lechenperg who some years
later became editor of the Berliner lllustrirte. The close association with
Stefan Lorant, who was from August 1928 Berlin editor of the Miinchner
lllustrierte and became its brilliant editor-in-chief in 1930, was the main

cause of the rapid rise of the new photo-journalism sponsored by Dephot.


The Associated Press in Berlin, whose chief photographer was the Hun-
garian Alfred Eisenstaedt (111.243), adopted the reportage style, and other
agencies gradually followed suit.
Stefan Lorant laid down the axiom that the camera should be used like

the notebook of a trained reporter, to record events as they occur, without


trying to stop them to arrange a picture. This trend in the course of a few
years transformed the German illustrated weekly magazines, of which there
existed in 1930 no fewer than thirteen: the Berliner lllustrirte Zeitung and
Miinchner lllustrierte Presse, followed by the Kolnische lllustrierte (the
third largest), Hamburger and Stuttgarter lllu-
Hackebeil, Frankfurter,
strierte, Die Woe he, the Weltspiegel (the Sunday picture supplement of the

Berliner Tageblatt), Zeitbilder (the Sunday picture supplement of the Vos-


sische Zeitung, Berlin), Die Dame, Die Koralle, and Beyers fur Alle, Leipzig.
Through Dephot and Henry Guttmann, a journalist in Paris, the German
reportage style seeped into the leading French weeklies such as Illustration,
Miroir du Monde, and a Strassburg illustrated paper, during 1929-32. The

250

245 ALFRED EISENSTAEDT. ETHIOPIAN SOLDIER, 1935


i t *#*4
246 FELIX H. MAN. THE THAMES AT CHELSEA, 1949

following year three Dephot-trained Hungarian photographers, Robert Capa


and H. and Ina Bandi, transplanted the new style to Paris, where they
settled. By this time most reportage photographers had changed over to the

Leica or the Contax miniature cameras. In contrast to present-day exposures,


a little flash-back to the conditions prevailing in the early ’thirties is

revealing. Dr Salomon’s and F. H. Man’s indoor photographs, during the


daytime and at night, were taken by available light at exposures varying
between Vsth second and V2 second, the camera mounted on a tripod. Adolf
von Bliicher in the early ’thirties took the first action shots of circus per-
formances at night -naturally also with relatively long exposures, carefully
waiting for the moment when the movement of acrobats swinging on a
trapeze, for instance, was at its dead-point.
The new photo-journalism was brought to England by Felix H. Man and
Kurt Hutton when Stefan Lorant founded Weekly Illustrated in 1934 and
four years later Picture Post of which Man was chief photographer until
,

1945. Lorant emigrated to the United States in 1940, and with his book

252
Lincoln: His Life in Photographs (1941) pioneered a new genre in book-
publishing— the pictorial biography.
From the foregoing it becomes abundantly clear that the oft-repeated
claim that photo-reportage originated with Life completely lacks founda-
tion. Eisenstaedt, staff photographer on this magazine from its foundation
in November 1936, like a number of other emigre photographers, merely
introduced into the United States a style already current in Germany for
several years. Moreover, for the first two years Eisenstaedt had to operate
with flashlight and tripod in order to satisfy the American concept of a good
photograph -pinsharpness. In fact, it was only after the appearance of

Picture Post in September 1938 that Life changed to the modern reportage
style.

Brassai’s frank revelations of Parisian life (III. 249) in the early ’thir-

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s outstanding reportages of Spain (1933) and


ties,

Mexico (1934) (III. 248), and Robert Capa’s dramatic pictures of the
Spanish Civil War (III. 250), firmly established reportage photography as
an art form.

247 FELIX H. MAN. THE FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN, 1951


249 BRASS AI. TRAMP SLEEPING IN THE STREET, PARIS, 1937

248 (LEFT) HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON. MEXICAN PROSTITUTE, 1934


“S

Influenced by the work of Atget and Brassa’i, Bill Brandt, a pupil of Man
Ray, took up reportage photography and made an unforgettable documen-
tation ofThe English at Home (1936), illustrating the great chasm divid-
ing richand poor in housing, education and leisure. His famous picture of
an unemployed miner searching for coal (III. 251) epitomizes the grimness
of the economic depression.
Also in the mid-’thirties, but in the United States, a number of photo-
graphers recording for the Farm Security Administration the appalling
conditions in depressed areas during the economic crisis produced outstand-
ing pictures which shocked America by their starkness, for they were the
commentary of socially conscious observers on the misdeeds of their time.
Walker Evans’s photographs (III. 253), as one writer said, ‘put the physiog-
nomy of the nation on your table’. The ramshackle dreariness revealed in
his photographs and those of his colleagues Dorothea Lange (III. 254),

Margaret Bourke-White, Arthur Rothstein (III. 252) and others, is a


terrible indictment of civilization in certain parts of America. M. Bourke-

250 ROBERT CAPA. DEATH OF A REPUBLICAN SOLDIER, SPANISH CIVIL WAR, 1936
251 BILL BRANDT. COAL-SEARCHER AT EAST DURHAM, 1936

White’s book You Have Seen Their Faces (1937) contains haunting pictures
that go far beyond the mere documentation of conditions in the Southern
States, and especially of negro chain-gangs. Photography had become a

powerful weapon in awakening the social conscience, as Jacob Riis first came
to realize. What Gustave Dore accomplished in his dramatic pen drawings of
London slums in the 1870s can today be achieved with even greater force-
fulness by a photographer equal in his powers of expression to Dore.
A photographer of sensitivity cannot record poor social conditions ob-
jectively; the deeper his compassion goes, the greater will be the impact of
his pictures. It is probably true that most great reportage photographers

257
252 ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN. HOME OF POSTMASTER BROWN, OLD RAG, VIRGINIA, 1935

253 WALKER EVANS. AT VICKSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, 1936


254 DOROTHEA LANGE. SEASONAL FARM LABOURER’S FAMILY, 1935-36
cannot help getting emotionally involved in what they see, and their crea-
tive ability may subtly influence our way of thinking.
For Robert Capa it was impossible from political events
to stand aloof
which were affecting the lives of millions. The inhumanity of man to man
and the futility of war became an obsession wfith him. He hated war, and
it is ironical that he should have won recognition as the best combat photo-

grapher in the world (III. 255). Capa photographed five wars in eighteen
years, and finally paid with his life for his courage.

Cornell Capa has like his elder brother made human interest his main
theme, but in more peaceful surroundings (III. 256).
Warsaw-born David Seymour, a founder-member with Cartier-Bresson
and Robert Capa of the Magnum Group in 1947, was killed in action while
covering the invasion of Egypt during the Suez crisis. He made picture-
stories in many countries (111.257), and is particularly remembered for
his compassionate photographs of children.
Mario de Biasi caught the violence of the avenging crowds surging through
Budapest as no other photographer of the Hungarian revolution did.

255 ROBERT CAPA. ALLIED LANDING ON NORMANDY BEACHES, 6 JUNE 1944


256 CORNELL CAPA. TALMUDIC TEACHER, ISRAEL, 1955

257 DAVID SEYMOUR. SPANISH CIVIL WAR. AIR RAID ON BARCELONA, 1936

258 MARTYRS OF BELSEN, APRIL 1945


259 WERNER BISCHOF. SHINTO PRIESTS
IN THE COURTYARD OF MEIJI SHRINE,
tokio, 1952

260 WERNER BISCHOF.


FAMINE IN MADRAS, 1951

LI
Thousands of pictures taken at the end of the war by the allied armies

liberating Nazi extermination camps (III. 258) will remain for ever a
reminder of the unspeakable brutality and flagrant violation of human
rights committed by the criminals of the Thousand Year Reich.
Werner Bischof’s reportages on refugees, war-scarred districts of France,
Holland and Germany, and famine in India (III. 260) leave no doubt that
he was sick at heart at what he had to report. Some of his finest work is
contained in his books Japan (1954) (III. 259) and Unterwegs (1957).
Suppression of Bert Hardy’s reportage on an incident in the Korean War
led to Tom Hopkinson’s resignation as editor of Picture Post: the indictment
of the South Korean Government, an ally of the Western Powers, that
allowed totalitarian behaviour within its own ranks, was inconveniently
outspoken. A dramatic series of action pictures involving American troops
in Korea was taken by Life photographer David Douglas Duncan.
Eugene Smith’s wonderful picture-story ‘The Spanish Village’ (1950) ex-
plores the eternal themes of life and death in a poor community whose life

he shared for a year in order to understand their customs and be regarded


as a friend, not as an outsider. Smith’s photograph of a dead man mourned
by his family (III. 261) has the economy of means and strong tone contrast

261 EUGENE SMITH. THE SPANISH VILLAGE, 1950


5
264 BERT HARDY. ‘LE RACONTEUR ,
1948

of a Goya etching. The same power of expression distinguishes the Peruvian


and Spanish reportages of the Swede George Oddner, which are full of
images of intense human interest (Ills. 262 263). Unforgettable, too, is Ernst
,

Haas’s moving picture-story of the arrival in his home-town Vienna of


returning prisoners-of-war from Russia in 1946.
Compassion with a strong admixture of the sensational stamps the work
of Arthur Fellig, known as ‘Weegee’. He built up a big reputation with his
candid news coverage of poverty, crime and calamities in New York during
fifteen years’ close collaboration with the New York police as a free-lance
photographer. With iron nerves and cool detachment Weegee captured
situations and emotions in which the photographer must have seemed an
intruder.

265
265 WERNER BISCHOF. BOLIVIAN BOY, 1954

It however not only wars and bad social conditions but the whole of
is

life which modern photography depicts more convincingly than any other

medium. Bert Hardy’s many reportages while chief photographer to Picture


Post include some memorable shots. The raconteur in a French wine cellar
has a Falstaffian quality (III. 264). To obtain unfamiliar aspects of familiar
subjects is one of the tasks of the reportage photographer; success lies in i

catching mood, atmosphere, and expression of the personalities of the people

266

266 BRIAN BRAKE. MONSOON, 1962



267 ELLIOTT ERWHITT, FAMILY SCENE, 1953

involved. Such pictures are Elliott Erwhitt’s intimate family scene (III. 267)
and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s classic ‘Sunday on the Banks of the Marne’
(III. 269), which perfectly conveys the atmosphere of a typical French
working-class family’s ideal Sunday outing. This is only one of the many
fine pictures in his first book Images a la Sauvette (1952). Kurt Hutton’s
‘Scenic Railway’ (III. 268) evokes all the fun of the fair, although the scene
was carefully rehearsed, which rather invalidates it as reportage.
The Dutchman Ed van der Elsken became internationally known with
his book Love on the Left Bank (1956) -the rather sordid story of a young

girl, who eventually returned home to Canada pregnant. More cheerful and

equally good are Leonard McCombe’s You are My Love and de Carava’s
The Sweet Flypaper of Life that appeared soon afterwards.

268
268 KURT HUTTON. SCENIC
RAILWAY AT THE FAIR, 1938

269 HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON.


SUNDAY ON THE BANKS OF THE
MARNE, 1938
-

271 BERT HARDY. THE COLOUR PROBLEM IN LIVERPOOL, 1949

The American William Klein -the angry young man of photography


produced provocative ‘portraits’ of New York (1956) and Rome (1959) in

a dynamic motion-picture style. A greater contrast to Karel Plicka’s City of


Baroque and Gothic (1946) can hardly be imagined. However, de gustibus
non disputandum. Plicka concentrated on the splendid architecture and
town views of Prague, perhaps the most beautiful city in the world, and
many readers may prefer to see the unique beauty of a city rather than
dreary snatches of life common to all large towns.
Simpson Kalisher took railroad men as the subject for a highly stimulat-
ing book (1961) on the forgotten men working America’s declining railway
system. The Swiss Rene Groebli highlighted the plight of Arab refugees;
Bert Hardy, the colour problem in Liverpool (III. 271); Roger Mayne, the
children in Paddington slums; and Michael Petoe, starving children in the
East.

272
The fact that a great photographer will produce fine pictures even if he
has to work in an unfamiliar was shown during World War II by the
field

fashion magazine photographers Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton. The


former, in command of U. S. Navy combat photography, made an out-
standing contribution. His picture of a bomber taking off from the aircraft

272 CECIL BEATON. REMAINS OF A TANK IN THE LIBYAN DESERT, 1942


274 BRIAN BRAKE. INDIAN WOMEN ON SWING, 1962

WALTER BALLET WITH MUSIC BY STRAVINSKY, 1958


5

27 3 (left) BOJE. ‘THE TIDES


275 SAM SHERE. THE ‘HINDENBURG’ DISASTER AT LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY, 6 MAY 1937

carrier ‘Lexington’ springs immediately to mind. For Beaton the switch-


over from peace to war meant exchanging the luxurious world of Vogue for
the stark reality of photographing for the Ministry of Information in London
during the Blitz and in the Near and Far East. The striking pattern of a
burnt-out tank in the Libyan Desert (III. 272) is as brilliant a war picture
as any painted by Paul Nash.
Unlike free-lancing reportage photographers, press photographers are as
a rule only identified
by the name of the newspaper or press-agency for
which they work. These usually anonymous photographers frequently take
outstanding pictures, but it is only occasionally that a particularly dramatic

subject becomes widely known instead of being buried in the picture-archive


the day after publication. Historic Events: 1839-1939 illustrates many great

276
press photographs which Gernsheim retrieved from neglected picture files.
A classic news one of the most striking ever taken, shows
picture, indeed
the explosion of the giant airship ‘Hindenburg’ on landing at Lakehurst,
New Jersey, in 1937 (111.275). A more recent example that caused world-
wide protest and made Sharpeville, like Lidice, a byword for mass murder,
shows the ground strewn with Africans after the police fired on and killed
fifty them (III. 277). Photographers covering such events require great
of
presence of mind and courage.

276 ANDREAS FEININGER. JUPITER ROCKET AND THE MOON, C. 1960


*s

George Rodger, a founder-member of Magnum, made expressive pictures


of tribal ceremonies in Africa (III. 281). In fact, all the photographers
belonging to the Magnum group (III. members of the
284), and all the
American Society of Magazine Photographers, deserve mention; so do
the French photographers Robert Doisneau, Daniel Masclet, Jean Roubier,
Andre Thevenet; the Germans Robert Lebeck, Willi Beutler, Hans Hubmann,

277 MASSACRE OF AFRICANS AT SHARPEVILLE, 1960


Thomas Hopker; the Italians Toni del Tin, Fulvio Roiter, Paolo Monti; the
Swiss Gotthard Schuh and Robert Frank; the Dutch Cas Oorthuys, Emmy
Andriesse, Arno Hammacher. Each of these talented photographers, and
many others besides, such as the Creative Photo Group in London, has
produced splendid pictures, but out of the wealth of excellent material all

over the world, obviously only a small proportion can be discussed within
the limits of this book.
COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHY "S

Good colour photography demands more of the photographer than simply


shooting with colour film. Compared with black and white, colour requires
not only a different technique but a different way of seeing. In monochrome
the massing of light and shade and the reproduction of texture are of the
utmost importance: in colour photography, the imaginative use of colour
rather than truth to nature. The average photographer sees in colour only
278 HEINZ HAJEK-HALKE. NUDE, 1959
.
vi* v- , >
>'

2
§8*

279 HIROSHI HAMAYA. AUTUMN TREES, C. 1960

280 ERNST HAAS. MOSS, 1959


281 GEORGE RODGER. INITIATION CEREMONY, AFRICA, 1956
an additional means of bringing greater realism into his picture, and he will
invariably consider brightly coloured subjects ideal, since ‘colour’ and ‘bright’
seem to him synonymous. The creative photographer, on the other hand,
uses colour to add to the significance of the subject. This requires a fine sense
for the delicate nuances of colour, which he uses to enhance atmosphere, to
stress a mood, heighten tension, or increase the decorative effect of his pic-
ture; or he may, like a painter, employ colour deliberately as a means of
expression. Colour and form -and in reportage, action -have to amalgamate
to produce a harmonious composition. Above all, sensitive use of colour
calls for good taste and a great deal of experience, which up to now com-

paratively few photographers seem to have acquired.


Felix H. Man was a pioneer in colour reportage as well as in black and
white. The Thames at Chelsea, the first colour photograph of this kind ever
attempted successfully (1949) has Whistlerian atmospheric effects (III. 246).

During 1948-51 Man applied the principles of black and white photo-
journalism, without additional artificial light sources, to colour film, which
then had only about one-quarter of today’s speed. He made for Picture
Post the first important indoor colour reportage -a canonization in St Peter’s,
by available light (1950). The following year he produced for Life the first

colour reportage at night -the Festival of Britain (III. 247) -and the first

colour pictures by moonlight, at Monte Carlo. Interviews with leading


artists shot in colour in their homes and studios were the subject of Man’s

book Eight European Artists (1954) (III. 244). The documentary value of
such reportages is greatly increased by the inclusion of the artist’s canvases
or sculpture.
Improved colour film and greater speed have now solved all practical
difficulties in taking colour photographs. The main obstacle to the wider
application of colour in the illustration of books and magazines remains
today the prohibitive cost of printing. The re-creation of the colour photo-
grapher’s achievement in print makes very high demands on the skill of the
blockmaker and printer, who canmake or mar the picture. The chief diffi-
culty is that the opaque pigments of the printing ink do not correspond very
closely with the translucent dyes used in the colour transparency. For this
reason a certain amount of colour-masking and hand correction is necessary
to compensate for the shortcomings of the printing colours. This accounts
for the high cost of colour printing, and, in turn, for the comparative rarity
of books illustrated entirely or largely with colour photographs. Up to now,
the finest colour printing comes from the presses of a few Swiss printing
firms.

283
283 IDA KAR. FISH, 1963

Emil Schulthess’s superb colour documentations Antarctica (1960) and


Africa (1961) consist of nature and townscapes rather than human situations.
The exceptional impact of these reportages often derives from the extra-
ordinary visual quality of the subject itself. What breathtaking close-ups
and depth of observation! What eerie beauty pervades the fantastic scenery!
A wonderful kaleidoscopic jigsaw emerges from these pictures, which blends
into an overall impression.

285

282 (left) ARNO HAMMACHER. REEDS IN THE CAMARGUE, 1963


A stimulating exploration of colour photography in the aesthetic sense,
and a perfect demonstration of its creative possibilities, were given by
Walter Boje in Magie der Farbe (1961) ( Magic with the Colour Camera)
in which a number of German photographers show unusually imaginative

use of colour and interpretation. Some of them deliberately depart from


realism and use both colour and subject matter expressionistically, as Cecil
Beaton first did in his splendid portrait of Martita Hunt (III. 1). The effect

is sometimes rather startling, as when you see Hajek-Halke’s green nude


(III. 278), or when the photographer imitates by the use of long-focal lenses
the focussing of the human eye, giving greater importance to the main
subject of the picture by blurring nearer and more distant objects (III. 270).
Blurred representation of movement, too, comes out very dramatically in
colour, as Walter Boje shows in his ballet picture (III. 273) and Brian Brake
(III. 274). A number of contemporary photographers give a highly personal
interpretation with an impressionistic effect due partly to selective focussing
and partly to slow shutter speeds.
Eliot Elisofon was one of the first to advocate the deliberate alteration
of the image’s colour values in keeping with the subject, by the use of filters.

He was special colour photography consultant in the making of the film


‘Moulin Rouge’ (1952) in order to re-create Toulouse-Lautrec’s colours. In
the still from the film (III. 285) blue and fog filters were used on the camera
to create the atmosphere of the Moulin Rouge.
Control of colour, when used with discretion, can also add greatly to the
aesthetic pleasure of a picture. The magazine photographer has on the whole
more latitude in this respect than the illustrator of topographical or ethno-
graphical books, where any creative use of colour would reduce the inform-
ative value of the illustrations. Emil Schulthess’s Africa (1961), Werner
Bischof’s Japan (1954) and other publications (III. 265), the colour docu-
mentations of Eliot Elisofon, Ed van der Elsken’s Bagara (1961), Rene
Gardi’s Sepik (1958) and Peter Cornelius’s Paris (1960) (III. 207) are out-
standing examples of this kind.
Erwin Fieger’s London City of Any Dream (1962) is, on the other hand,
intended as a completely personal interpretation. His brilliant ability to
handle his theme creatively in colour is evident (III. 270), and provided one
accepts Fieger’s idea of representing a great city in snatches of its life and

amusing oddities, very much in Bidermanas’ (Tzis’) poetic way of treating


Paris and London in black and white in the 1940s, all is well. Sometimes,
however, such fragmentary glimpses are not typical of the subject and could
just as well have been taken elsewhere.

287

284 BRUCE DAVIDSON. LONDON LIFE, 1964


Superb nature photographs in colour have- been taken by Ernst Haas
(III.280), Raymond Moore (III. 225), Arno Hammacher (III. 282), Andreas
Feininger (III. 211), Ida Kar (III. 283), the Japanese Hiroshi Hamaya
(111.279) and the American Eliot Porter, whose book In Wildness is the
Preservation of the World (1962) is full of poetic pictures.
Despite the competition of numerous television channels, the U.S.A. still

has the largest number of glossy magazines in the world. The high circula-

tion of the leading ones enables them to offer fees and opportunities that
attract the cream of European photographers. There now remains only one
weekly magazine in Europe of high photographic quality -Paris Match ,

founded in March 1949. With few exceptions, the others endeavour to excite
their public with sensational pictures rather than satisfy them with creative
ones. People of discernment with a taste for good photography may find
certain monthly magazines like Du (Zurich), Realites (Paris) and Magnum
(Cologne) more appealing. But the best of contemporary European photo-
graphy is now to be found in books rather than magazines, and a library
of photo-books, despised only by philistines, is as vital to visually-sensitive

people as good stereophonic records are to serious music-lovers.

289
Select Bibliography

The following books recommended for further study, in addition to


are
those mentioned in the text. The list is not comprehensive, and within the
limits of this volume cannot do more than serve as an introduction to the
subject. Readers wishing to study the history and aesthetics of photography
more thoroughly are referred to the fuller bibliography given in Creative
Photography by Helmut Gernsheim, London 8t Boston, 1962.

General Works
baier, Wolfgang: Quellendarstel- without much consideration of the
lungen zur Geschichte der Fotogra- purpose for which they were devis-
fie. Halle & London, 1964. 703 pp. ed — the production of pictures.
inch 313 illus. freund, Giselle: La photographie
boni, Albert (ed.): Photographic en France au dix-neuvieme siecle:
Literature: an International Biblio- Essai de sociologie et d’esthetique.
graphical Guide to General and Paris, 1936. 154 pp. Illus.
Specialized Literature . New York, gernseieim, Helmut: Masterpieces of
1962. 333 pp. Victorian Photography. London,
doty, Robert: Photo-Secession: Pho- 1951. 107 pp. inch 72 pi.
tography as a Fine Art. Rochester, gernsheim, Helmut: Creative Pho-
N.Y., 1960. 104 pp. inch 32 pi. tography: 1839-1960. London &
eder, J. M.: Geschichte der Photo- Boston, U.S.A., 1962. 258 pp. inch
graphie. 4th edition, 2 vols. Halle, 244 illus.
1932. 1108 pp. Illus. gernsheim, Helmut and Alison: The
English translation by Edward Ep- History of Photography from the
stean, New York, 1945. 860 pp. Earliest Use of the Camera Obscura
For readers who know German the in the Eleventh Century up to 1914.
well-illustrated German edition is London 8c New York, 1955. 395
infinitely preferable to the transla- pp. plus 359 illus.
tion, which has no illustrations. As gernsheim, Helmut and Alison:
Eder was a chemist, his History is Historic Events: 1839-1939. London,
largely taken up with the descrip- 1960. 254 pp. 260 illus. Published
tions of inventions and processes, in New York, 1960 under the title

291
The Recording Eye. A Hundred ward Epstean. New York, 1936.
Years of Great Events as Seen by 272 pp.
the Camera: 1839-1939. The translation, which was limited
gruber, L. Fritz: Grdjle Photogra- to 300 copies, lacks the illustrations
phen unseres Jahrhunderts. Darm- of the original. Potonniee’s History
stadt, 1964, 208 pp. Illus. deals with the period up to 1851,
kempe, Fritz: Fetisch des Jahrhun- and exclusively from the French
derts. Diisseldorf 8c Vienna, 1964. point of view.
380 pp. plus 64 plate pages. potonniee, Georges: Cent ans de
lecuyer, Raymond: Histoire de la photographie 1839-1939. Paris,
Photographie. Paris, 1945. 452 pp. 1940, 178 pp.
incl. approx. 500 illus. skopec, Rudolf: Photographie im
morosov, Sergej: The Art of Seeing Wandel der Zeiten. Prague, n. d.
(in Russian). Moscow, 1963. 272 pp. (1964). 317 pp. incl. numerous illus.
numerous illus. stenger, Erich: Siegeszug der Pho-
newhall, Beaumont: The History tographie in Kultur, Wissenschaft ,
of Photography from 1839 to the Technik. Seebruck, 1950. 278 pp.
Present Day. New York, 1964. 256 Illus.

pp. incl. 163 illus. stenger, Erich: The History of


newhall, Beaumont: On
Photogra- Photography its Relation to Civili-
,

phy. A Source Book of Photo zation and Practice. Translated from


History in Facsimile. New York, the first German edition (1938) by
1956. 192 pp. Edward Epstean, Easton, 1939. 204
newhall, Beaumont: The Daguer- pp. with portraits of the inventors,
reotype in America. New York, etc.The subject matter is presented
1961. 176 pp. incl. 80 plates. in encyclopaedic form, and largely
newhall, Beaumont and Nancy: from the German point of view.
Masters of Photography. New York, stenger, Erich: Die beginnende Pho-
1958. 192 pp. incl. 150 illus. tographie im Spiegel von Tageszei-
pawek, Karl: Totale Photographie. tungen und Tagebiichern. 2nd en-
Olten, 1960. 150 pp. 80 illus. larged edition. Wurzburg, 1943. 138
pollack, Peter: The Picture His- pp. Illus.
tory of Photography from the Ear- taft, Robert: Photography and the
liest Beginnings to the Present Day. American Scene: a Social History
New York 8c London, 1958. 624 pp. 1839-1889. 1st edition. New York,
incl. 600 illus. 1938. 546 pp. Illus. The best source-
potonniee, Georges: Histoire de la book on the first half-century of
Decouverte de la Photographie. Pa- American photography.
ris, 1925. 319 pp. Illus. whiting, John R: Photography is a
History of the Discovery of Photo- Language. New York, 1946. 142 pp.
graphy. English translation by Ed- incl. illus.

292
A -.

Monographs on and Autobiographies of leading Photographers

adams, ansel: Ansel Adams. Vol. I cartier-bresson, h. The Photo-


:

The Eloquent Light by Nancy new- graphs of Henri Cartier-Bresson by


hall. San Francisco, 1963. 175 pp. Lincoln kirstein and Beaumont
incl. numerous illus. newhall. New York, 1947. 56 pp.
atget, eugene: Atget by Camille incl. 41 pi. Revised edition Photo-

recht. Paris &


Leipzig, 1930. 34 graphs by Cartier-Bresson. New
daguerre, l.j.m.: L.J.M. Daguerre:
pp. plus 96 pi.
Eugene Atget by Berenice abbot. the History of the Diorama and the

Prague, 1963. 64 illus. Daguerreotype by Helmut and Ali-


avedon, richard: Observations. Lu- son gernsheim. London & New
York, 1956. 220 pp. plus 64 pi.
cerne, London & New York, 1959.
evans, Frederick Frederick H. Evans
:

151 pp. incl. numerous illus.


by Beaumont newhall. Rochester,
bayard, hippolyte: Bayard by Lo
1964. 46 pp. incl. 19 pi.
duca, Paris, 1943. 30 pp. plus 48 pi.
evans, walker: American Photo-
beaton, Cecil: Photobiography
graphs by Walker Evans by Lincoln
London, 1891. 62 pp. plus 32 pi.
boord, W. Arthur (ed.): Sun Artists.
kirstein. New York, 1938. 200 pp.
incl. 87 pi.
London, 1891. 62 pp. and 32 pi.
fenton, Roger: Roger Fenton Pho-
Contains monographs on H. P. Rob- ,

tographer of the Crimean War by


inson, Sawyer, Cameron, B. Gay
Helmut and Alison gernsheim. Lon-
Wilkinson, etc.
don & New York, 1954. 116 pp.
bourke-white, Margaret: Portrait
plus 64 pi.
of Myself. New York, 1963. 383
genthe, Arnold: As I Remember.
pp. incl. illus.
N.Y., 1937. 290 pp. plus 112 illus.
brady,mathew b.: Mr. Lincoln's
gernsheim, Helmut: The Man Be-
Cameraman by Roy Meredith. New
hind the Camera. London, 1948.
York, 1946. 364 pp. incl. illus.
144 pp. 54 illus. Contains
incl.
brandt, bill: Camera in London.
chapters on Beaton, Gernsheim,
London, 1948. 88 pp. incl. 58 pi.
Hoppe, McBean, F. H. Man, Par-
brass i: Brassai by Henry miller
sons, Suschitzky, etc.
and brassai. Paris, 1952. 76 pp. hill, d. o.:David Octavius Hill,
incl. 60 pi.
Master of Photography by Heinrich
cameron, j. m.: Julia Margaret schwarz. London & New York,
Cameron: Her
and Photo- Life 1932. 61 pp. plus 80 pi.
graphic Work by Helmut gerns- hoppe, e. Flundred Thousand Ex-
o.:
heim. London, 1948. 85 pp., 55 pi. posures. London, 1945. 229 pp. incl.
carroll, lewis: Lewis Carroll 64 pi.
Photographer by Helmut gerns- hutton, kurt: Speaking Likeness.
heim. London & New York, 1950. London, 1947. 88 pp. incl. 58 pi.
138 pp. plus 64 pi. jackson, william h. Time Expo- :

293
sure: an Autobiography. New York, Salomon, dr erich: deriihmte Zeit-
341 pp. Illus.
n. d. (1940). genossen in unhewachten Augen-
martin, paul: Victorian Snapshots. blicken. Stuttgart, 1931. 48 pp. plus
London, 1939. 72 pp. plus 79 pi. 112 illus.
nadar (Gaspard Felix Tournachon): steichen, edward: A Life in Pho-
Quand j’etais photographe. Paris, tography. New York & London,
n. d. (1899). 312 pp. 1963. 249 pp. Illus.
nadar: Nadar by Rudolf skopec. stieglitz, Alfred: America and Al-
Prague, 1960. 64 pp. Illus. fred Stieglitz: a Collective Portrait.
negre, Charles: Charles Negre by (A symposium). New York, 1934.
Andre jammes. Paris, 1963. Illus. 339 pp. plus 32 pi.
penn, irving: Moments Preserved. strand, paul: Paul Strand, Photo-
Lucerne, London & New York, graphs 1915-1945 by Nancy new-
1960. 151 pp. incl. numerous illus. hall. New York, 1945. 32 pp. incl.
ray, man: Man Ray: Photographs 23 pi.
1920-1934. Hertford, U.S.A., 1934. strand, paul: Paul Strand by
10 pp. plus 104 plates. vrba. Prague, 1961. 64 pp. Illus.
ray, man: Self Portrait. New York, weston, edward: Edward Weston
Paris & London, 1963. 398 pp. by Nancy newhall. New York,
Illus. 1946. 36 pp. incl. 23 pi.
ray, man: Man Ray by L. Fritz The Day-books of Edward Weston
Gruber and man ray. Giitersloh, edited by Nancy newhall. Part I,
1962. Illus. Rochester, N.Y., 1962.

Acknowledgements
The major portion (213) of the illustrations in this book are from the
Gernsheim Collection at the University of Texas. The authors and pub-
lishers wish to express their gratitude to the Chancellor of the University
for permission to publish them. They also thank the contemporary photo-
graphers as well as museums and institutions for permission to reproduce
some of the illustrations.

Animals magazine: 283


Basilius Presse: 181
Frau Eva Bollert, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe: 196
Camera Press: 208
Conde Nast Publications Limited. Reproduced by courtesy of Voque: 210
Fox Photos: 240
George Eastman House, Rochester: 16, 42, 128, 162

294
Gernsheim Collection, University of Texas: 2-6, 8-15, 18-23, 25-41,
44-48, 50, 52-56, 58-67, 69, 70, 72, 74-80, 83-127, 129-140, 142-149,
151-157, 160, 161, 163-174, 176-179, 182-194, 197-201, 203-205, 209,
212, 214-217, 219-224, 227-229, 231, 234-236, 238, 239, 242-244, 248,
249, 251, 259, 260, 262, 263, 268, 269, 272
Gr aphis: 175
Hans Hammarskiold: 159
Imperial War Museum, London: 258
Andre Jammes: 71
Keystone: 277
Library of Congress: 81, 252-254
Life: 261
Magnum Photos, The John Hillelson Agency: 180, 250, 255-257,
265-267, 274, 279-281, 284
Museum fur Hamburgische Geschichte: 57
Paul Popper Ltd: 82
Radio Times Hulton Picture Library: 264, 271
Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain: 141, 150, 158
Mrs Saul: 241
Science Museum, London: 24, 49
Societe Fran£aise de Photographic: 51, 68
Stenger Collection: 73
The late Prof. Robert Taft: 43
United Press International: 275
Victoria and Albert Museum, London: 7
Warburg Institute, University of London: 203
Harold White: 17, 59

In a history of this kind which brings photography as an art form to the


general public in many countries, the inclusion of pictures which the experts
recognize as classics seems obvious. Just as it would be difficult in a general

history of European painting to dispense with the most famous master-


pieces, so in the history of photography there are certain pictures that have
established themselves as classics. In addition there are many excellent un-
known photographs, and quite a number of contemporary works are repro-
duced here for the first time.

295
List of Illustrations

Italic figures indicate colour plates

1 Cecil Beaton. Martita Hunt as Karl von Frankenstein, Graz).


‘The mad woman of Chaillot’, A good deal of the information
1951 concerning the daguerreotype
2 First published illustration of is speculative
the camera obscura, 1545 14 Arago’s official report on the
3 Nineteenth-century tent camera daguerreotype, August 1839
obscura, of the type used by 15 The Daguerreotype Song, 1839
Johann Kepler in 1620 16 Title-page of the first edition

4 Athanasius Kircher, portable of manual, pub-


Daguerre’s
lished 20 August 1839
camera obscura, 1646
17 W. H. Fox Talbot. Daguerreo-
5 Johann Zahn, reflex type port-
type by A. Claudet, 1844
able camera obscura, 1685
(detail)
6 s’Gravesande, sedan-chair ca-
18 Title-page of Talbot’s privately
mera obscura, 1711
published brochure, constituting
7 Eighteenth-century book came-
the world’s first separate pub-
ra obscura
on photography. Feb-
lication
8 Georg Brander, table camera
ruary 1839
obscura, 1769
19 Portable camera obscura,
9 Nicephore Niepce. Heliograph
c. 1810, of the type used by
of Cardinal d’Amboise, 1 826—
Talbot and Daguerre
1827
20 W. H. Fox Talbot. Photogenic
10 Nicephore Niepce. Pencil and
drawing of feathers and lace,
wash portrait by C. Laguiche, 1839
c. 1795 21 Landscape photographer,
1 1 J. E. Mayall. Daguerreotype of c. 1855
L. J. M. Daguerre, 1846 22 Ambrotype with half the back-
12 Nicephore Niepce. First suc- removed to show positive
ing
cessful photograph from nature, and negative effect, c. 1858
1826 23 Ambrotype of Mrs. William
13 Title-page of the first photo- Blake, c. 1854
graphic manual in the world, 24 Daguerreotype camera with the
July 1839, by ‘F-n’ (probably seal of the manufacturer Gi-

296

>
roux and Daguerre’s signature, 40 Sheet of ‘postage stamp’ photo-
1839 graphs with portrait of George
25 Complete daguerreotype outfit Washington Wilson, 1888
26 Wolcott’s mirror camera, 1840 Withdrawn for lese-majeste
27 ‘The photographer deprives the 41 Ermanox camera with Ernostar
artist of his livelihood’. Cari- lens F 2, 1924

cature by Th. Hosemann show- 42 Louis Ducos du Hauron. View


ing the Voigtlander camera, of Angouleme, 1877
1843 43 Dr J. W. Draper. Daguerreo-
28 Dark-room tent in wet collo-
type of his sister Dorothy Ca-
therine Draper, June 1840
dion period, c. 1875
44 Platt D. Babbitt. Daguerreo-
29 Title-page of ‘Photographic
type of the Niagara Falls,
Pleasures’ by Cuthbert Bede,
c. 1853
1855. The first book caricatur-
45 Richard Beard’s studio. Wood-
ing photography
cut by George Cruikshank,
30 Roger Fenton’s photographic
1842
van in the Crimean War, 1855
46 Daguerreotype of Sir Fdenry
31 Disderi’s life-size portraits.
Bessemer, c. 1848
Caricature by ‘Cham’, 1861
47 Daguerreotype of a gentleman,
32 Stereoscopic daguerreotype in-
c. 1845
cluding stereoscopic viewer,
48 Antoine Claudet. Daguerreo-
c. 1852
type (tinted) of a lady, c. 1851
33 J. B. Dancer’s binocular stereo-
49 Dr A. J. Ellis. Daguerreotype
(improved mo-
scopic camera
of Temple of Faustina and An-
September 1856
del),
toninus, Rome, June 1841
34 Adolphe Braun. The Boulevard 50 ‘La Patience est la vertue des
Poissonnier, Paris, c. 1860. The anes’. Caricature by Daumier
dark pattern in the road is due from ‘Le Charivari’, 1839
to water-sprinkling
51 L. J. M. Daguerre. Daguerreo-
35 David A. Woodward’s ‘solar
type of still-life in his studio,
camera’ enlarger, 1857 1837
36 Disderi. Uncut sheet of carte 52 L. J. M. Daguerre. Daguerreo-
de visite portraits of Princess type of Notre Dame and the
c. 1862
Buonaparte-Gabrielle, lie de la Cite, Paris, 1838
37 Magazine camera, c. 1885 53 ‘Position reputee la plus com-
38 Ross & Co.’s ‘Divided’ twin- mode pour avoir un joli por-
lens reflex camera with plate- au Daguerreotype’. Cari-
trait
changing bag (improved model), cature by Daumier, 1844
1895 54 J. P. Girault de Prangey. Da-
39 ‘Ticka’ detective camera taking guerreotype of statue at portal
25 pictures on 16 mm film, of Genoa Cathedral, 1842
1906 55 Antoine Claudet. ‘The Geogra-

297
V

phy Lesson'. Stereoscopic da- mills of Montmartre. Calotype,


guerreotype 1851 1842
56 C. F. Stelzner. Daguerreotype 69 W. H. Fox Talbot. House in
group, c. 1842 Paris opposite Talbot’s hotel.
57 C. F. Stelzner. Daguerreotype Calotype, May 1843
of ruins around the Alster 70 Maxime Du Camp. Statue of
after the great fire of Flam- Rameses II on the facade of
May 1842. The earliest
burg, the temple at Abu Simbel. Nu-
news photograph Calotype, 1849
bia.
58 Daguerreotype of a Milanese 71 Charles Negre. ‘Les Ramo-
lady, c. 1845 neurs’. Waxed paper process,
59 W. H. Fox Reading
Talbot’s 1852
Establishment. Calotype, 1844 72 Baron Humbert de Molard.
60 W. H. Fox Talbot. Cover of Old farmhouse. Waxed paper
‘The Pencil of Nature’, 1844. process, 1852
The first photographically il- 73 Charles Clifford. Fountain and
lustrated book stairease at Capricho Palace
61 W. H. Fox Talbot. ‘The Chess near Guadalajara Spain,
Players’. Calotype, 1842 c. 1855

62 David Octavius Hill and Ro- 74 Alois Locherer. Transport of


bert Adamson. James Nasmyth, the colossal statue of ‘Bavaria’

inventor of the steam hammer. from the foundry to its present

Calotype, c. 1845 Munich. Calotype, 1850


site in

75 The Egyptian pyramids. En-


63 David Octavius Hill and Ro-
graving from Banke’s ‘New
bert Adamson. ‘The Birdcage’.
and Complete System of Geo-
Calotype, c. 1843
graphy’ (17 ). It was copied,
.
.
64 David Octavius Hill and Ro-
with slight alterations, from
bertAdamson. Cottage at New-
O. Dapper’s ‘Beschreibung Afri-
haven near Edinburgh. Calo-
kas’ (Description of Africa),
type, c. 1845
1670
65 Roger Fenton. Domes of the
76 Francis Frith. Pyramids of
Cathedral of the Resurrection
Dahshoor, Egypt, 1858
in the Kremlin. Waxed paper 77 William England. Blondin
process, 1852 crossing the Niagara River,
66 Dr Thomas Keith. Willow 1859
trees. Waxed paper process, 78 Louis and Auguste Bisson. Mont
c. 1854 Blanc and the Mer de Glace,
67 John Shaw Smith. Pillars of 1860
the Great Flail of the Temple 79 Samuel Bourne. The Scinde
of Karnak, Luxor. Waxed pa- River, 1864
per process, 1851 80 Carleton E. Watkins. Washing-
68 Hippolyte Bayard. The wind- ton Column, Yosemite, 1867

298
81 Timothy H. O’Sullivan. The 100 Nadar. George Sand, 1866
Canyon de Chelle, 1873 101 Honore Daumier. ‘Nadar rais-
82 Herbert Ponting. The ‘Terra ing photography to the height
Nova’ in the Antarctic, 1912 of Art’. Lithograph 1862
83 Robert MacPherson. Garden of 102 Julia Margaret Cameron. Sir
the Villa d’Este, Tivoli, c. 1857 John Herschel, 1867
84 Henry White. Bramble and ivy, 103 Julia Margaret Cameron.
1857 Charles Darwin, 1869
85 Gustave Le Gray. ‘Brig upon 104 Robert Howlett. Isambard
the water’, 1856 Kingdom Brunei, 1857
86 James Mudd. Dam-burst at 105 Paul Nadar. F. T. Nadar inter-
Sheffield, 1864 views the centenarian M. E.
87 P. H. Delamotte. Opening cere- Chevreul, August 1886
mony by Queen Victoria of 106 Melandri. Sarah Bernhardt in
the rebuilt Crystal Palace, Sy- her studio, 1876
denham, 10 June 1854 107 Elliot & Fry. Sir Joseph Wilson
88 P. H. Delamotte. Upper gal- Swan, 1904
lery of the Crystal Palace, Sy- 108 Self-portrait of Dr G. B. Du-
denham, 1854 chenne using his electrization
89 Robert MacPherson. Relief on apparatus, 1862
Arch of Titus, Rome, c. 1857 109 Maull & Polyblank. Rober Ste-
90 James Anderson. Base of Tra- phenson, 1856
jan Column, Rome, c. 1860 110 Thomas Annan. Dr David
91 Carlo Ponti. Piazza San Marco, Livingstone, 1864
Venice, c. 1862 111 Eugene Dutilleux. Camille
92 Edouard Baldus. The Pont du Corot at Arras, 1871
Gard near Nimes, c. 1855 112 Paul Sescau. Double portrait
93 Henry Dixon. The office of of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,
the ‘Daily News’, founded by c. 1892

Charles Dickens, in Fleet Street, 113 Lithographic poster for Paul


shortly before demolition, 1884 Sescau by Toulouse-Lautrec,
94 Thomas Annan. Glasgow slum, c. 1894

1868 114 Lewis Carroll. Ella Monier-


95 ‘Art Progress’. Cartoon in Williams, 1866
‘Punch’, May 1857 115 Lady Hawarden. At the win-
96 J. E. Mayall. Queen Victoria dow, c. 1863
and the Prince Consort, 1861 116 O. G. Rejlander. The milkmaid,
97 Camille Silvy. Carte de visite c. 1857

of an unknown lady, c. 1860 117 Roger Fenton. Crimean War,


98 Antoine Adam-Salomon. Balaclava harbour, 1855
Charles Gamier, c. 1865 118 Roger Fenton. Crimean War,
99 Etienne Carjat. Charles Baude- cantiniere and wounded man,
laire, c. 1865 1855

299
119 James Robertson. Crimean 134 G. W. Wilson. Greenwich Pier,
War, interior of the Redan 1857
after withdrawal of the Rus- 135 Charles A. Wilson. Oxford
sians, September 1855 Street, London, 1887
120 Timothy H. O’Sullivan. ‘The 136 Eadweard Muybridge. Gallop-
Harvest of Death’. The battle- ing horse, 1883-85
field of Gettysburg, July 1863 137 Prof. E. J. Marey. Flying duck,
121 Franco-Prussian War, German c.1884 (reproduction)
troop train blown up by the 138 Prof. E. J. Marey. Jumping
French near Mezieres, August man, c. 1884 (reproduction)
1870 139 Prof. Hubert Schardin. Bullet
122 Paris Commune insurrection, passing through candle flames,
the fallen Vendome Column, and the sound waves caused
16 May 1871. The bearded by it. c. 1950
man in second row is Gustave 140 Harold E. Edgerton. Multiple-
Courbet flash photograph of the golfer
123 Copying pigeon post dispatches Dennis Shute, c. 1935. 100
during the Siege of Paris, flashes per second
1870-71 141 O. G. Rejlander. ‘The Two
124 Reinhold Thiele. Boer War, fir- Ways of Life’, 1857
ing ‘Joe Chamberlain’ at Mag- 142 H. P. Robinson. Study for a
ersfontein, 1899 composition picture, c. 1860
125 John Thomson. ‘Ha’penny Ices’, 143 H. P. Robinson.' ‘Dawn and
Italian ice cream seller in Lon- Sunset’, 1885 (detail)
don, 1876 144 J. Bridson. Picnic, c. 1882
126 John Thomson. Junkshop in 145 International Exhibition, Paris,
London, 1876 1889. Eiffel Tower and Troca-
127 Jacob Riis. ‘Bandits’ Roost’, dero
New York slum, 1888 146 Oscar van Zel. Skating in
128 Lewis W. Hine. Carolina cot- Vienna, c. 1887
ton mill, 1908 147 P. H. Emerson. Gathering
129 Sir Benjamin Stone. Ox-roast- water-lilies, 1885
ing at Stratford-on-Avon ‘Mop’, 148 B. Gay Wilkinson. Sand dunes.
c. 1898 Original photogravure, c. 1890
130 Nahum Luboshez. Famine in 149 Lyddell Sawyer. The Castle
Russia, 1910 Garth, Newcastle. Original
131 Paul Martin. Street accident in photogravure, 1888
London, 1895 150 George Davison. ‘The Onion
132 Paul Martin. Piccadilly Circus Field’, 1890 (reproduction)
at night, 1895 151 Lacroix. Park-sweeper. Photo-
133 Eugene Atget. Basket and gravure of a gum print, c. 1900
broom shop in Paris, c. 1910 152 Robert Demachy. ‘Behind the

300
Scenes’. Photogravure of a gum to Helmut Gernsheim, giving
print, 1904 his reason for taking up photo-
c
153 Frau E. Nothmann. In the graphy, 1949
Garden’. Photogravure of 169 Richard Polak. Photograph in
a gum print, c. 1897 the style of Pieter de Hoogh,
154 Heinrich Kuhn. Venice. Gum 1914 (reproduction)
1897 (reproduction)
print, 170 Alfred Stieglitz. The Steerage.
155 Hans Watzek. A peasant. Photogravure, 1907
Photogravure of a gum print, 171 Alvin Langdon Coburn. ‘The
1894 Octopus’, New York. Photo-
156 Theodor and Oskar Hofmeister: gravure, 1912
Great-grandmother, Cuxhafen, 172 Edward VII and Queen Alex-
August 1897. Photogravure of andra, 28 June 1904
a gum print 173 Paul Strand. Shadow pattern,
157 Hugo Erfurth. Lady with hat. New York. Photogravure, 1915
Negative print, 1907 174 Paul Strand. The White Fence.
158 Alexander Keighley. The Bridge. Photogravure, 1915
Photogravure of a bromoil print, 175 Arno Hammacher. Torn paper
1906 on wood, designed by Walter
159 Edward Steichen. Auguste Herdeg as cover of ‘Graphis
Rodin with his sculpture of Annual 6L62’
Victor Hugo and ‘The Thinker’. 176 Alvin Langdon Coburn.
Gum print, 1902 ‘Vortograph’, 1917
160 Title-page of exhibition cata- 177 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Photo-
logue, Hamburger Kunsthalle, gram, 1922
1899 178 Early X-ray photograph,
161 J. Craig Annan. The painter
c. 1896-97
and etcher Sir William Strang.
179 Advertisement of X-ray ex-
Photogravure, c. 1900
hibition, London, 1896
162 Frederick H. Evans. Aubrey
180 Ernst Haas. Poster, 1959
Beardsley. Platinum print,
181 Photomicrograph from ‘Form
c. 1895
in Art and Nature’ by Georg
163 Maurice Bucquet. ‘Effet de
Schmidt and Robert Schenk,
Pluie’. Paris, c. 1899
Basle, 1960
164 Alvin Langdon Coburn. Reflec-
182 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. View
tions. Photogravure, 1908
165 Clarence White. Lady in black. from radio tower, Berlin, 1928
Photogravure, c. 1907 183 Man Ray. Solarized portrait,

166 Alfred Stieglitz. The Terminal. 1931


Photogravure, 1893 184 Cecil Beaton. The actress Diana
167 Harry C. Rubincam. Circus Wynyard, 1935
rider. Photogravure, 1905 185 Angus McBean. Self-portrait
168 George Bernard Shaw’s reply (four exposures), 1946

301
N
186 Winifred Casson. Surrealist from monument in West-
photograph, c. 1935 minster Abbey, 1942
187 Angus McBean. Surrealist com- 206 Andreas Feininger. Oil derricks,
position including self-portrait, Signal Hill, California
1949 207 Peter Cornelius. Canal
188 Winifred Casson. ‘Accident’, St-Martin, Paris 1958
c. 1935 208 Yousuf Karsh. Sir Winston
189 Andre Kertesz. Distortion Churchill, 1941
study, 1934 (reproduction) 209 Ida Kar. William Scott, 1961
190 Clarence J. Laughlin. ‘Elegy 210 Eliot Elisofon. Louis Armstrong
for Moss Land’, 1947 211 Andreas Feininger. Caterpillar
191 Albert Renger-Patzsch. Driv- of spicebush swallowtail,
ing-shaft of a locomotive, 1923 c. 1960

192 Eugene Atget. Tree roots at 212 Brian Seed. Patrick Heron,
St. Cloud, c. 1910 1959
193 Helmar Lerski. Metal-worker, 213 Philippe Halsman. Professor
1930 Albert Einstein, 1948
194 Edward Steichen. Paul Robeson 214 Richard Avedon. Igor Stra-
as The Emperor Jones, 1933 vinsky, 1958
195 Albert Renger-Patzsch. Tower 215 Toni Schneiders. Air-bubbles in
of the Hofkirche in Dresden, ice, 1953

1923 216 Peter Keetman. Oil drops,


196 Walter Hege. Ionic Capital 1956
from the entrance to the Pro- 217 Peter Keetman. Oscillations,
pylaea Athens, 1929 1950
197 E. O. Hoppe. Brooklyn Bridge, 218 Andreas Feininger. Navy res-
1919 cue helicopter taking off at
198 Hugo Erfurth. Kathe Kollwitz. night, 1957
Oil pigment print, c. 1925 219 Man Ray. Self-portrait 1948.
199 Howard Coster. G. K. Chester- Photozincograph
ton, 1928 220 Prof. Otto Steinert. Call-up
200 Edward Weston. Sweet pepper, notice, Paris, 1950
1930 221 Rolf Winquist. Gertrud Fridh
201 Ansel Adams. Pine-cone and as Medea, 1951
eucalyptus leaves, 1933 222 Caroline Hammarskiold. Fish-
202 Ansel Adams. Sand dunes, ing-net, 1950
Oceano, California, 1962 223 Prof. Otto Steinert. Inter-
203 Wolfgang Suschitzky. Two changeable Forms (negative
camels, 1938 montage), 1955
204 Helmut Gernsheim. Section 224 Hans Hammarskiold. Section
through a cucumber, 1935 through tree, 1951
205 Helmut Gernsheim. Thomas 225 Raymond Moore. Rock pool,
Thynn (d. 1682). Detail 1964

302
226 Raymond Moore. Decayed 243 Felix H. Man. Igor Stravinsky
ceiling, 1964 conducting at a rehearsal, 1929
227 Clarence J. Laughlin. Window, 244 Felix H. Man. Marc Chagall
1963 at Vence, 1950
228 Hans Hammarskiold. Bark of 245 Alfred Eisenstaedt. Ethiopian
a tree, 1952 soldier, 1935
229 Brett Weston. Cracked paint, 246 Felix H. Man. The Thames at
1954 Chelsea, 1949
230 Heinz Hajek-Halke. Light 247 Felix H. Man. The Festival of
patterns, 1960 Britain, 1951
231 Sir George F. Pollock. Vitro- 248 Henri Cartier-Bresson. Mexi-
graph, 1964 can prostitute, 1934
232 Aaron Sisskind. Wall pattern, 249 Brassa’i. Tramp sleeping in the
1960 street, Paris, 1937
233 Harry Callahan. Eleanor, 1948 250 Robert Capa. Death of a Re-
234 Bill Brandt. Nude, 1958 publican soldier, Spanish Civil
235 Prof. Hubert Schardin. Temper- War, 1936
ature around
distribution a 251 Bill Brandt. Coal-searcher at
heated metal tube, c. 1950 East Durham, 1936
236 Norman Tudgay. ‘Cliche- 252 Arthur Rothstein. Home of
verre’, 1955 Postmaster Brown, Old Rag,
237 Gyorgy Kepes. Light-drawing, Virginia, October 1935
1950 253 Walker Evans. At Vicksburg,
238 French machine gun detachment Pennsylvania, 1936
under fire at Helly during 254 Dorothea Lange. Seasonal farm
World War I, 1918 labourer’s family, 1935-36
239 The revolt of the masses. ‘Red 255 Robert Capa. Allied landing on
Thursday’ demonstration in Normandy beaches, 6 June 1944
Paris, 1925 256 Cornell Capa. Talmudic teach-
240 James Jarche. At the Serpen- er, Israel, 1955

tine, Hyde Park, London, 257 David Seymour. Spanish Civil


c. 1925 War. Air raid on Barcelona,
241 Arthur Barrett. Suffragette 1936
leaders in dock at Bow Street, 258 Martyrs of Belsen, April, 1945
London, on 24 October, 1908. 259 Werner Bischof. Shinto priests
Christabel Pankhurst, Mrs in the courtyard of Meiji shrine,
Drummond, Mrs Pankhurst Tokio, 1952
242 Dr Erich Salomon. Aristide 260 Werner Bischof. Famine in
Briand pointing at Salomon at Madras, 1951
a banquet at the Quai d’Orsay 261 Eugene Smith. The Spanish
in 1931, saying ‘voila le roi des village, 1950
indiscrets’. On Briand’s left is 262 George Oddner. Mother Earth,
Heriot Peru, 1955

303
263 George Oddner. Spain, 1952 275 Sam Shere. The ‘Hindenburg’
264 Bert Hardy. ‘Le raconteur’, disaster at Lakehurst, New Jer-
1948 sey, 6 May 1937
265 Werner Bischof. Bolivian boy, 276 Andreas Feininger. Jupiter
1954 rocket and the moon, c. 1960
266 Brian Brake. Monsoon, 1962 277 Massacre of Africans at
267 Elliott Erwhitt. Family scene, Sharpeville, 1960
1953 278 Heinz Hajek-Halke. Nude,
268 Kurt Hutton. Scenic Railway
1959
at the fair, 1938
279 Hiroshi Hamaya. Autumn
269 Henri Cartier-Bresson. Sunday
trees, c. 1960
on the Banks of the Marne,
280 Ernst Haas. Moss, 1959
1938
281 George Rodger. Initiation cere
270 Erwin Fieger. Oxford Street,
mony, Africa, 1956
London, in rain, 1959
282 Arno Hammacher. Reeds in
271 Bert Hardy. The colour prob-
the Camargue, 1963
lem in Liverpool, 1949
272 Cecil Beaton. Remains of a tank 283 Ida Kar. Fish, 1963
in the Libyan Desert, 1942 284 Bruce Davidson.
273 Walter Boje. ‘The Tides’, ballet London life,

with music by Stravinsky, 1958 1964


274 Brian Brake. Indian women on 285 Eliot Elisofon. ‘Moulin Rouge’,
swing, 1962 1951

304
,

Index of Names
The numbers in italics refer to the plates, When known, dates have been given of
persons connected with photography.

Abbot, Berenice (b. 1898) 213 Atget, Eugene (1857-1927) 152, 190, 204,
Abbruzzi, Duke of 104 256. 133, 192
Academie des Beaux-Arts, Paris 22 ‘The Athenaeum’ 66
Academie des Sciences, Paris 22, 28, 74 Auerbach, Erich (b. 1911) 224
Adams, Ansel (b. 1902) 213, 214. 201 Avedon, Richard (b. 1923) 226. 214
202
Adam-Salomon, Antoine (1811-1881) Babbitt, Platt D. 61. 44
121. 98 Bacon, Roger 10
Adamson, Robert (1821-1847) 82, 84, 85, Baldus, Edouard (b. 1820) 92, 114, 115.
87. 62,63,64 92
Aguado, Comte Olympe 116 Bandi, H. 252
Albert, Prince Consort 117, 161, 162 Bandi, Ina 252
Albert, Josef (1825-1886) 133 Bankes, Thomas 97
Alexandra, Queen 172 Barbaro, Daniello 12
Alhazen 10 Bardi, Luigi 113
Alinari, Giuseppe (1836-1890) 113 Barnack, Oskar (1879-1936) 50
Alinari, Leopoldo 113 Barnett, E. Walter (1862-1934) 133
Amboise, Cardinal d* 19,21. 9 Barraud, Herbert 133
American Society of Magazine Photo- Barrett, Arthur 246. 241
graphers 278 Barrett, Elizabeth (Browning) 64
Anderson, James (1813-1877) 112. 90 Barry, Sir Charles 66
Andriesse, Emmy 279 Barton, Mrs. 188
Angerer, Ludwig (1827-1879) 118 Baudelaire, Charles 121. 99
Anglonnes, Prince Giron des 93 Bauer, Franz Andreas (Francis) 21
Annan, James Craig (1864-1946) 172, Bauhaus 194, 195, 204, 209, 227
182. 161 Bauhaus, New (Illinois Institute of
Annan, Thomas (1829-1887) 115, 133. Design) 241, 242
94, 110 Bayard, Hippolyte (1801-1887) 27, 28,
Anschutz, Ottomar (1846-1907) 157, 158 74,90,93, 108. 68
Anthony, Edward (1818-1888) 60, 154 Bayer, Herbert (b. 1900) 209
Arago, Franfois Jean Dominique Beard, Richard 62, 64, 66, 74, 146
(1786-1853) 22,26,28,69. 14 Beardsley, Aubrey 133. 162
Archer, Frederick Scott (1813-1857) Beato, A. 142
32, 33, 96 Beaton, Cecil (b. 1904) 198, 226, 273,
Armstrong, Louis 210 276,287. 1,184,272
‘The Art Union* 82 Beck, R. & J. 48

305
,

Bedford, Francis (1816-1894) 99, 108 Braun, Adolphe 99, 154. 34


Benham, C. E. 229 Breuning, Wilhelm 94
Bennett, Charles (d. 1927) 36 Brewster, Sir David (1781-1868) 43, 53,
Berardy 142 82
Bereck, Dr. Max (b. 1886) 50 Briand, Aristide 247. 242
‘Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung’ 247, 250 Bridson, J. 167. 144
5
‘Berliner Tageblatt 250 Brogi 113
Bernhardt, Sarah 129. 106 Browning, Robert 124
Bertall 121 Bruguiere, Francis (1880-1945) 198
Bertsch, Adolphe (d. 1870-71) 45 Brunei, Isambard Kingdom 129. 104
Beutler, Willi 278 Bucquet, Maurice (d. 1921) 182. 163
5
‘Beyers fiir 250Alle Bull, Lucien 158
Biasi, Mario de 260 Bullock, Wynn 214
5
Bidermanas (Tzis ) 287 Buonaparte-Gabrielle, Princess 36
Bingham, Robert J. 32 Burgess, John 35
Biow, Hermann (1810-1850) 75, 76 Burns, Robert 82
Bischof, Werner (1916-1954) 263, 287.
259, 260 265 Callahan, Harry (b. 1912) 241. 233
Bisson, Auguste (b. 1826) 75, 99, 101, ‘Camera Work’ 189, 191
114. 78 Cameron, Henry Herschel Hay 133
Bisson, Louis (b. 1814) 75, 99, 101, 114. Cameron, Julia Margaret (1815-1879)
78 124, 164, 166, 188. 102, 103
Blake, William 206 Canaletto (Antonio Canale) 72
Blanchard, Valentine (1831-1901) 154 Caneva, Giacomo 93
Blanquart-Evrard, Louis Desir£ (1802- Capa, Cornell (b. 1918) 260. 256
1872) 34, 90, 91, 94 Capa, Robert (1913-1954) 252, 253, 260.
Blossfeld, Karl 206 250, 255
Bliicher, Adolf von 252 Carava, de 268
Blumenthal, Erwin 202 Carbutt, John 36
Bohm, Hans (1890-1950) 246 Cardano, Girolamo (1501-1576) 11
Boissonnas, Fred (1858-1947) 188 Carjat, Etienne (1828-1906) 121. 99
Boje, Walter 284. 273 Carlyle, Thomas 124
Boole, A. & J. 115 Carroll, Lewis (Rev. Charles Lutwidge
Bosshard, Walter 250 Dodgson) (1832-1898) 136, 137. 114
Boulanger, General 129 Cartier-Bresson, Henri (b. 1908) 253,
Bourke-White, Margaret 256, 257 260,268. 248,269
Bourne, Samuel (1834-1912) 102. 79 Casson, Winifred 200. 186, 188
Bouton, Charles-Marie 22 Catherwood, Frederick 72
Bovier, L. 188 Cattermole, George 162
Boys, Charles Vernon 158 Cesariano, Cesare 10
Brady, Mathew B. (1823-1896) 60, 76, Chagall,Marc 244
142, 143 Chalon, Alfred 64
Brake, Brian 287. 266, 274 Champfleury (Jules Francois Felix
Brande 26 Husson) 92
Brander, Georg 8 Charnay, Desire (1828-1915) 98
5
Brandt, Bill 1905) 241, 256. 234, 251
(b. ‘The Chemist 32
Brandt, Friedrich (1823-1891) 143 Chesterton, G. K. 199
Brassai (b. 1899) 253,256. 249 Chevalier, Charles 20, 38

306
Chevreul, Michel-Eugene 129. 105 Edouard 116
Delessert,
Chilton, James 59 Demachy, Robert (d. 1937) 174. 152
Chisholm, Alexander 17 ‘Dephot’ 250, 252
Churchill, Sir Winston 221. 208 Derussy 75
Cini, Count Vittorio 113 Dietrich, Marlene 226
Civiale, Aime (1821-1893) 101 Disderi, Andre Adolphe (1819-c. 1890)
Claudet, Antoine Francis Jean ( 1 797— 46,116,117,118,143. 31,36
1867) 66,74,82,98. 17,48,55 Dixon, Henry 115. 93
Clerk-Maxwell, Sir James (1831-1879) Dodero, Louis 116
52, 53 Doisneau, Robert 278
Clifford, Charles (d. 1863) 94, 107. 73 Donne, Alfred (1801-1878) 71
Coburn, Alvin Langdon 1882)
(b. 182, Dore, Gustave 257
189, 190, 192. 164, 171, 176 Dorffel, Theodor 75
Collen, Henry 53, 56, 79, 81 Downey, W. & D. 133
Constant, Eugene 93 Draper, John William (1811-1882) 59,
Cornelius, Peter 287. 207 60,198. 43
Corot, Camille 133. Ill Dresden Albuminpapier Fabrik 34
Coster, Howard(1885-1959) 211. 199 ‘Du’ 289
Courbet, Gustave 169. 122 Duboscq, Louis Jules (1817-1886) 43
Creative Photo Group 279 Du Camp, Maxime (1822-1894) 91,94,
Cros, Charles (1842-1888) 54 99
Cunningham, Imogen (b. 1883) 213,214 Duchenne, Guillaume Benjamin Amant
(1806-1875) 131. 108
Dada 192, 194 Ducos du Hauron, Louis (1837-1920)
Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mande (1787- 53,54. 42
1851) 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, Diihrkoop, Rudolph (1848-1918) 178
36, 59, 62, 66, 69, 71, 96. 11, 16, 24, Duncan, David Douglas 225, 263
51, 52 Durheim, Carl 94
‘The Daguerreian Journal’ 61 Dutilleux, Eugene 133. Ill
‘The Daily Graphic’ 145 Dyke, Willard van 214
‘The Daily Mirror’ 244
‘Die Dame’ 250 Eakins, Thomas (1844-1916) 157
Dancer, John Benjamin (1812-1887) 43. Eastlake, Sir Charles (1793-1865) 162
33 Eastman, George (1854-1932) 48, 49
Danti, Egnatio (1536-1586) 12 Echagiie, Jose Ortiz 178
Darwin, Charles 124. 103 Edgerton, Harold E. (b. 1903) 158. 140
Daumier, Honore 121,124. 50,53,101 Edward VII, King 99, 245. 172
Davidson, Bruce 284 Edwards, J. M. 60
Davison, George (1856-1930) 169, 171, Egerton, Philip H. 102
172. 150 Einstein, Albert 221, 225. 213
Davy, Sir Humphry (1778-1829) 17 Eisenstaedt, Alfred (b. 1898) 250, 253.
Day, F. Holland 188 245
Deckel, Friedrich 52 Eisenstein, Serjei M. 206
Degas, Edgar 167, 174 Elisofon, Eliot 287. 285
Delacroix, Eugene 92, 121 Elliot & Fry 107
Delamotte, Philip Henry (1820-1889) Ellis, Alexander John (1814-1890) 68.
87, 107, 111. 87,88 49
Delaroche, Paul 23, 93, 114, 163, 187 Elsken, Ed van der (b. 1925) 268, 287

307
•s

Emerson, Peter Henry (1856-1936) 169, Gardner, Alexander (1821-1882) 142


182. 147 Garnett, William 214
England, William (d. 1896) 48, 99, 154. Gamier, Charles 98
77 Gaudin, Marc-Antoine (1804-1880) 75,
Erfurth, Hugo (1874-1948) 178, 211. 153
157, 198 Gaupmann, R. 96
Erwhitt, Elliott 268. 267 Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis (1778-1850)
Eugene, Frank 182 22
Eugenie, Empress 101 Genthe, Arnold (1868-1942) 149
Evans, Frederick Henry (1852-1943) George IV, King 21
182. 162 Gerber, Friedrich (1797-1872) 26
Evans, Walker (b. 1903) 256. 253 Germeshausen, Kenneth J. 158
Gernsheim, Helmut (b. 1913) 186, 214,
Farm Security Administration 256 235,277. 204,205
Feininger, Andreas (b. 1906) 214, 227, Girault de Prangey, Joseph Philibert
229,289. 206,211 (1804-1892) 72,153. 54
Feininger, Lyonel 195 Giroux, Alphonse 36, 59
Fenton, Roger (1819-1869) 39, 40, 87, Gladstone, William Ewart 133
107, 114, 139, 141, 142, 161. 30, 65, Gltickman 68
117, 118 Goddard, John Frederick (c. 1795-1866)
Ferrier, J. A. 99, 142 62, 66, 74
Ferrier, C. M. (1811-1889) 32,99,142 Godowsky, Leopold (1870-1938) 56
Fesquet, Frederic Goupil 72 Goodwin, Rev. Hannibal (1822-1900) 36
Fieger, Erwin 287. 270 Gouraud, Francois 59
Fischer,G. 96 Goya, Francisco 265
Fitz, Henry (1808-1863) 59 Graff, Werner 207
Fizeau, Hippolyte (1819-1896) 26 Graf, Heinrich 143
Flacheron, Comte 93 s’Gravesande, G. J. 6
Fontayne, Charles 60 Griffith, David Lewelyn Wark (1875-
Forbes-White, John 88 1948) 206
Fotoform 227, 233, 235 Groebli, Rene 272
Frank, Robert 279 Gropius, Walter 195, 227
Franke & Heidecke 51 Gros, Baron (d. 1870-71) 72,92,93
Franke, Herbert W. 241 Grundy, William Morris (1806-1859)
‘Frankfurter Illustrierte Zeitung’ 250 139
Frederick William IV, King 75 Guillot,Mme. Albin 195
Fridh, Gertrud 221 Gurney, Jeremiah 60
Frisius, Reiner Gemma (1508-1555) 10 Gutmann, Simon 250
Frith, Francis (1822-1898) 98, 99, 108. Guttmann, Henry 250
76
Frith, William Powell 128 Haas, Ernst (b. 1921) 265,289. 280
Fry, Peter Wickens (d. 1860) 33 Haase, L., & Co. 118
Fry, Roger 124 ‘Hackebeil’ 250
F. 64 Group 214 Hajek-Halke, Heinz (b. 1898) 242, 287.
230, 278
Gale, Joseph (d. 1906) 171 Halsman, Philippe (b. 1906) 225. 213
Galsworthy, John 133 Halwas, Adolph 143
Gardi, Rene 287 Hamaya, Hiroshi 289. 279

308
‘Hamburger Illustrierte Zeitung’ 250 Howie 68
Hammacher, Arno (b. 1927) 279, 289. Howlett, Robert (d. 1858) 128. 104
175 , 282 Hubmann, Hans 278
Hammarskiold, Caroline (b. 1930) 233. Hughes, Alice 133
222 Hugo, Charles Victor (1826-1871) 139
Hammarskiold, Hans (b. 1925) 233, 235. Hugo, Victor 121, 139. 159
224 228
,
Hunt, Martita 287. 1
Hanfstaengl, Franz (1804-1877) 94 Hurley, Frank (c. 1885-1962) 104
Hansen, Georg 118 Hiirlimann, Martin 209
Hardy, Bert (b. 1913) 263, 266, 272. Hutton, Kurt (formerly Hiibschmann)
264 271
,
(1893-1960) 250,252,268. 268
‘Harper’s Bazaar’ 226
Hartlaub, Gustav 204 ‘The Illustrated Daily News’ 238
Hasselblad, Victor 51 ‘The Illustrated London News’ 76, 197
Hauer, Hans 12 ‘Illustration’ 250
Haussmann, Georges Eugene 114 Impressionists 124, 171
Hawarden, Viscountess (1822-1865) Ingres, Jean Dominique 93
137, 139. 115 International Society of Pictorial
Hawes, Josiah John 1901) 60
(d. Photographers 172
Hege, Walter (1893-1955) 209. 196 Irving, Sir Henry 133
Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdi- Isabella II, Queen 94
nand von 52 Isabey, Eugene 154
Henneman, Nicolaas (b. 1813) 80, 82 Isabey, Jean Baptiste 76
Herdeg, Walter 175 Isenring, Johann Baptist (1796-1860)
Heron, Patrick 224. 212 79, 94
Herschel, Sir John Frederick William Ives, Frederick Eugene (1856-1937) 55
(1792-1871) 26,27,31,45, 124. 102 ‘Izis’, see Bidermanas
Herzog 56
Hielscher, Kurt (1881-1948) 209 Jackson, William Henry (1843-1942)
Hill, David Octavius (1802-1870) 82, 104
84, 85, 87, 88, 164. 62 63,64
,
Jarche, James 240
Hiller, Lejaren a 188 Johnson, John 59, 60
Hine, Lewis Wickes (1874-1940) 149, Joly, Charles Jasper (1864-1906) 54
190. 128 ‘Le Journal Illustre’ 129
Hinton, Alfred Horsley (1863-1908) 178
Hitler,Adolf 227 Kalisher, Simpson (b. 1926) 272
Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 246 Kandinsky, Wassily 195, 227
Hofmeister, Oskar (1871-1937) 178. 156 Kar, Ida (b. 1908) 224, 289. 209 , 283
Hofmeister, Theodor (1868-1943) 178. Karsh, Yousuf (b. 1908) 221. 208
156 Kasebier, Gertrude (1852-1934) 182
Hollyer, Frederick H. (1837-1933) 133, Keetman, Peter (b. 1916) 227,229. 216 ,

182 217
Hoogh, Pieter de 186, 187. 169 Keighley, Alexander (1861-1947) 178.
Hopker, Thomas 279 158
Hopkinson, Tom 263 Keith, George S. 88
Hoppe, Emil Otto (b. 1878) 133,209. Keith, Thomas (1827-1895) 87,88. 66
197 Kennedy, President John F. 244
Horgan, Stephen H. 146,244 Kennett, Richard (1817-1896) 35
Kepes, Gyorgy 242. 237 Lewitzky, Serjej L. (1819-1898) 118
Kepler, Johann (1571-1630) 13. 3 Lichtwark, Alfred (1852-1914) 180
Kertesz, Andre (b. 1894) 202. 189 ‘Life’ 253, 263, 283
Kibble, John 42 Linked Ring 172
Kilburn, William Edward 68 Lippmann, Gabriel (1845-1921) 55
Kircher, Athanasius (1601-1680) 13. 4 ‘The Literary Gazette’ 62
Klee, Paul 195, 227 Livingstone, David 133. 110
Klein, William 1925) 272
(b. Locherer, Alois (1815-1862) 94. 74
‘The Knickerbocker* 59 ‘The London &
Edinburgh Philosophical
Kobell, Franz von (1803-1875) 28 Magazine’ 60
Kollwitz, Kathe 198 London Salon 172, 217
‘Kolnische Illustrierte Zeitung’ 250 London Stereoscopic Company 99
‘Die Koralle’ 250 Lorant, Stefan 250, 252
Kratochwila, Franz 77, 79 Lorent, August Jacob (1813-1884) 94
Krone, Hermann (1827-1916) 111 Luboshez, Nahum (1869-1925) 150. 130
Kuhn, Heinrich (1866-1944) 174. 134 Ludwig II, King 133
Lullin, Theodor 158
Lacroix 131 Lumiere, Auguste (1862-1954) 55
Land, Edwin H. 52 Lumiere, Louis (1864-1948) 55
Lange, Dorothea (b. 1895) 256. 234 ‘La Lumiere’ 72
Langenheim, Frederick (1809-1879) 32, ‘Luminograph’ 229
60, 96
Langenheim, William (1807-1874) 32, Macaire, Hippolyte 61, 153, 154
60, 96 McBean, Augus (b. 1905) 200. 183 , 187
Laroche, Silvester 96 McCombe, Leonard 268
Lartigue, Jacques Henri (b. 1896) 168 Macglashon, A. 164
Laughlin, Clarence J. (b. 1905) 202. Mach, Ernst (1838-1916) 158
190 227
, MacPherson, Robert (1811-1872) 107,
Lawrence, M. M. 60 112. 83,89
Lawrence, Sir Thomas 62, 66 Maddox, Richard Leach (1816-1902) 34
Lazi, Adolf 209 Madler, Johann Heinrich (1794-1874) 27
Lebeck, Robert 278 Magnum Group 260, 278
Lechenperg, Harald 250 ‘Magnum’ 289
Le Gray, Gustave (1820-1862) 32, 91, Man, Felix H. (b. 1893) 51, 224, 246,
92, 108 250, 252, 283.243 244 246 247
, , ,

Leibl, Wilhelm 207 Mannes, Leopold (1899-1964) 56


‘Leipziger Stadtanzeiger* 23 Marey, Etienne Jules (1830-1904) 156,
Lemaitre, Augustin Francos (1797- 157,158. 137 138 ,

1870) 19 Margarite 94
Lendvai-Dircksen, Erna (1884-1962) Martens, Friedrich (1809-1875) 72
207 Martin, Adolphe Alexandre (1824-1886)
Leonardo da Vinci 10 34
Lerebours, N. P. (1807-1873) 38, 72, 74 Martin, L. A. 94
Lerski, Helmar (1871-1956) 207. 193 Martin, Paul (1864-1942) 150, 152.
Le Secq, Henri 92, 94 131, 132
Letault, Elzeard Desire 62 Marville, Charles 93, 114
Levy-Roth 50 Marx, Alfred 250
Lewis, William (1714-1781) 17 Masclet, Daniel 278

310

*
Maull & Polyblank 133. 109 Napoleon III, Emperor 101, 117, 131,
Mayall, John Jabez Edwin (1810-1901) 142
60,66, 117, 118, 161. 11,96 Nash, Paul 276
Mayall, J. P. 129 Nasmyth, James 62
Mayer &: Pierson 131 Natterer, Johann (1821-1900) 77, 153
Mayhew, Henry 146 Natterer, Joseph (1819-1862) 77, 153
Mayne, Roger 272 Nay a 113
Meade, Charles R. 60 Negre, Charles (1820-1879) 93, 139. 71
Meisenbach, Georg (1841-1912) 146 ‘Neue Sachlichkeit’, see New Objectivity
Melandri 129. 106 Newhall, Nancy 214
Melhuish, A. J. 39, 48 Newman, Cardinal 133
Mestral, O. 92 New Objectivity 107, 204, 205, 206,
Meynell, Alice 133 207, 212, 214, 217, 235, 239
Mili, Gion 229 Newton, Sir Isaac 55

Millais, Sir John Everett 124 ‘The New York Daily Graphic’ 244
Millet,Jean Frangois 169 ‘The New York Tribune’ 148
‘Miroir du Monde’ 250 Niepce, Claude (1763-1828) 17, 21
Misonne, Leonard (1870-1943) 178 Niepce, Isidore (b. 1795) 22, 62
Niepce, Joseph Nic6phore (1765-1833)
Mitford, Mary Russell 64
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 31, 36.
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo (1895-1946)
9 , 10 , 12
194, 195, 197, 198, 227, 242. 177 , 182
Molard, Baron Humbert de Niepce de Saint-Victor, Abel (1805-
(d. 1 874) 93.
72 1870) 31

Monckhoven, see Rabending Northrup, W. B. 131


Monti, Paolo 279
Nothmann, Frau E. 174. 153

Montmirel, E. T. 71
Oddner, George (b. 1923) 233, 265.
Montmirel, E. 71
262 263
Moore, Raymond (b. 1920) 239, 289.
,

Olson, Lennart 233


225 226
,

Ongania, Ferdinand 115


Morelli, Achille 68
Oorthuys, Cas 279
Morgan, J. P. 133
Oppenheim, A. F. 94
Morris, T. 45
O’Sullivan, Timothy H. (c. 1840-1882)
Morris, William 133
104,142. 81,120
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese (1791—
1872) 59, 60
Pabst, G. W. 206
Mortimer, F. J. 1944) 178
(d.
Palmer, Samuel 82
Mudd, James 108. 86
Pankhurst, Emmeline: Pankhurst,
Muncaszi 250
Christabel 241
‘Miinchner Illustrierte Presse’ 250
‘Paris Match’ 289
Mussolini, Benno 250
Parkes, Alexander 36
Muybridge, Eadweard (1830-1904) 103,
Penn, Irving (b. 1917) 226
104, 155, 156, 157, 158. 136
Perini, Antonio 113
Petitpierre, Eduard (1789-1862) 75
Nadar (Gaspard Felix Tournachon) Petoe, Michael 272
(1820-1910) 121, 124, 129. 100 , 101 , Petzval, Josef Max (1807-1891) 38, 39,
105 77
Nadar, Paul 129. 105 Photograms 194

311
s

‘The Photogram’ 229 Rey, Guido 188


‘Photographic Notes’ 47 Richebourg 75
Photographic Society of America 217 Riis, Jacob A. (1849-1914) 148, 190,
Photographic Society of London, 257. 127
see Royal Photographic Society. Risner, Friedrich (d. 1580) 13
Photo-Secession 172, 189, 190 Rivera, Diego 213
Picasso, Pablo 225, 226, 229 Robertson, James 139, 141, 142. 119
‘Picture Post’ 252, 253, 263, 266, 283 Robeson, Paul 194
Piot, Eugene 94 Robinson, Henry Peach (1830-1901)
Plicka, Karel 272 163, 164, 169, 192. 142, 143
Plumbe, John (1899-1957) 60 Roche, Tiphaigne de la 9
Plumier, Victor 75 Rodger, George 278. 281
Polak, Richard (b. 1870) 188 Rodin, Auguste 133, 178
Pollock, Sir George Frederick (b. 1930) Roiter, Fulvio 279
235,239. 231 Roosevelt, Eleanor 221
Ponti, Carlo 113, 146. 91 Roosevelt, President Theodore 148
Ponting, Herbert (1871-1935) 104. 82 Root, Marcus A. 34, 60
Porta, Giovanni Battista della (1538— Roos & Co. 48
1615) 10,11 Rossini, Gioachino 121
Porter, Eliot 214, 289 Rosti, Paul de (1830-1874) 98
Porter, W. S. 61 Rothstein, Arthur (b. 1915) 256. 252
Price, William Lake (d. 1896) 161, 162, Rubincam, Harry C. 186. 167
163 Rudolph, Paul 39, 52
Primoli, Count Giuseppe (1852-1927) Ruffo 188
168 Ruskin, John (1819-1900) 72, 99
Pulham, Peter Rose 200 Roubier, Jean 278
‘Punch’ 116 Royal Photographic Society of Great
Puyo, C. (1857-1933) 174 Britain 161, 162, 164, 168, 171, 217
Royal Society, London 21, 26, 27, 28
Quedenfeldt, Erwin (b. 1869) 194
Quinet, A. 43 Sacchi, Luigi 142
Sachse, Louis (1798-1877) 75
Rabending & Monckhoven 118 Salcher 158
Ragot, M. H. 195 Salomon, Erich (1886-1944) 51, 246,
Ray, Man (b. 1890) 194, 198, 213, 229, 247, 250, 252. 242
256. 183 , 219 Salzmann, Auguste 94
Rayleigh, Lord (1842-1919) 158 Sand, George 121. 100
Rayographs 194 Sander, August (1876-1964) 207
Reade, Rev. Joseph Bancroft (1801— Sawyer, Lyddell (b. 1856) 171. 149
1870) 26, 27, 31 Saxton, Joseph 59
‘Realites’ 289 Schad, Christian (b. 1894) 192
Reinhardt, Max 246 Schadographs 1942
Rejlander, Oscar Gustave (1813-1875) Schall, J. C. (1805-1885) 75
139, 162, 163, 164. 116 , 141 Schardin, Hubert (b. 1902) 158, 241.
Rendu, Abel 71 139
Renger-Patzsch, Albert (b. 1897) 204, Scheele, Carl Wilhelm (1742-1786)
205, 214. 191, 195 16, 17
Renoir, Pierre Auguste 174 Schneiders, Toni (b. 1920) 227. 215

312
Schott, Kaspar (1608-1666) 13 Stephenson, Robert 133
Schuh, Karl (d. 1865) 77 Stevenson, Robert Louis 133
Schuh, Gotthard 279 Stiba, Julius (d. 1851) 75
Schulthess, Emil (b. 1913) 285, 287 Stieglitz, Alfred (1864-1946) 172, 182,
Schulze, Johann Heinrich (1687-1744) 188, 189, 190, 191. 166 170 ,

15, 16, 17 Stone, Sir Benjamin (1838-1914) 150,


‘Schweizerischer Beobachter’ 26 152, 190. 129
Schwenter, Daniel 12 Strand, Paul (b. 1890) 191, 192, 205,
Scott, Robert 104 212, 214. 173 , 174
Scott, William 209 Strang, Sir William 161
Seager, D. W. 59 Strauss, J. C. 188
Seed, Brian 224. 212 Stravinsky, Igor 226. 214 243,

Seguier, Baron 37 ‘The Studio’ 214


Sella, Giuseppe 104 Sturm, Johann Christoph (1635-1703)
Sella, Vittorio(1859-1943) 104 13
Senebier, Jean (1742-1809) 16 ‘Stuttgarter Illustrierte Presse’ 250
Sescau, Paul 133. 112 , 113 Subjective Photography 233
Seymour, David (1911-1956) 260. 257 Suschitzky, Wolfgang (b. 1912) 214.
Sbackleton, Sir Ernest 104 203
Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) 186, Suscipi, Lorenzo 68
187, 221 Susse, Freres 71
Sheeler, Charles (b. 1883) 213 Sutcliffe, Frank M. (1859-1940) 171,
Shere, Sam 275 182
Shute, Dennis 140 Sutton, Thomas (1819-1875) 47, 52
Silvy, Camille 116 Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson (1828-1914)
Simpson, William 141 131. 107
Siskind, Aaron (b. 1908) 241. 232 Szathmari, Karl Baptist de 139
Skaife, Thomas 43
Smith, Adolphe 148 Talbot, William Henry Fox (1800-
Smith, A. G. Dew 133 1877) 27, 28, 30, 31, 79, 80, 81, 82,
Smith, Eugene (b. 1918) 263. 261 90, 96, 158. 17 , 18 , 20 , 59 , 60 61 , 69 ,

Smith, George P. 50 Taupenot, Dr. 112


Smith, Henry Holmes 241 Taylor, Baron 121
Smith, John Shaw (1811-1873) 88. 67 Telfer, William 68
Southworth, Albert Sands 60 Tennyson, Alfred Lord 124, 166
Sparling, Marcus 39 Thevenet, Andre 278
Spencer, J. B. 39, 48 Thiele, Rheinhold 145. 124
Stanford, Leland 155 Thierry, I. 75
Steichen, Edward J. (b. 1879) 133, 178, Thomson, John (1837-1921) 103, 146,
182, 190, 205, 212, 213, 226, 273, 148, 152, 190. 125 , 126
276. 159 , 194 Tiffereau 72
Steinert, Otto 1915) 227. 220 , 223
(b. ‘The Times’ 158
Steinheil, Carl August von (1801-1870) Tin, Toni del 279
28, 37 Tio Group 233
Stelzner, Carl Ferdinand (c. 1805-1894) Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 133, 287.
76. 56 57
,
112 113
,

Stephanie, Arch-Duchess 133 Traube, Arthur 56


Stephens, John Lloyd 72, 98 Tudgay, Norman 242

313
V
Turner, Benjamin Bracknell (1815— ‘Weekly Illustrated’ 252
1894) 82 ‘Weltspiegel’ 250
Turner, Joseph Mallord William 82 West, Francis 36
Twain, Mark 133 Weston, Brett 213, 214, 239. 229
Tzara, Tristan 192, 194 Weston, Edward (1886-1958) 212, 213,
214, 239. 200

Umbo Wheatstone, Sir Charles (1802-1875)


250
158
Whipple, John Adams (1823-1891) 60
Vaillat 75
White, Clarence H. (1871-1925) 182.
Valentine, James 108
165
Van Eyck, Jan 23
White, Henry (1819-1901) 107. 84
‘Vanity Fair’ 226
Wilde, Oscar 133
Vaquerie, Auguste (1819-1895) 139
Wilkinson, Benjamin Gay (1857-1927)
Velasquez, Diego 186
169. 148
Vernet, Horace 72
Williams, T. R. 68
Victor Emmanuel II, King 113, 142
Wilson, Charles A. (1865-1958) 155.
Victoria, Queen 43, 64, 99, 117, 162,
135
245. 96
Wilson, George Washington (1823—
Vigier, Vicomte 93
1893) 108, 154, 155. 40 , 134
Vitrographs 239. 231
Winquist, Rolf (b. 1910) 233. 221
Vitruvius Pollio 10
Winterhalter, Charles Xavier 118
Vogel, Hermann Wilhelm (1834-1898)
Winther, Hans Thoger (1786-1851) 96
54
‘Die Woche’ 250
‘Vogue’ 198, 226
Wolcott, Alexander S. (1804-1844) 38,
Voigtlander, Peter Wilhelm Friedrich
39, 59, 60, 62, 64. 26
(1812-1878) 38, 39, 52, 77. 27
Woodward, David A. 45. 35
Voll, Karl 178
Worthington, A. M. 158
Vortographs 192. 176
Wratten & Wainwright 54
‘Vossische Zeitung’ 27, 250
Wright, Cedric 214
Wynyard, Diana 184
Walker, Sir Emery (1851-1933) 133
Watkins, Carleton E. 103. 80 Young, Thomas 52
Watts, George Frederick 124, 164
Watzek, Hans (1848-1903) 174. 153 Zahn, Johann (1641-1707) 14. 5
Weber, Wolfgang 246, 250 Zeiss, Carl (1816-1888) 39
Wedgwood, Josiah 17 ‘Zeitbilder’250
Wedgwood, Thomas (1771-1805) 17, Zel, Oscar van 167. 146
18, 26, 30 Zenker, Wilhelm 55
‘Weegee’ (Arthur Fellig) (b. 1900) 265 Zielke, Willi 209

314

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