The years from Archer’s announcement of wet collodion in 1851 until the early 1880s could be called the reign of collodion. Collodion in its manifold applications (the ubiquitous tintype, ambrotype and wet plate negative) ruled the entire photographic world. It offered such overwhelming advantages over the daguerreotype and calotype that the professional photographers switched to it almost instantly. However, it was a difficult to master process, using potentially explosive ingredients (collodion), a potent poison (cyanide), and requiring the darkroom to be close at hand. Further, the coating of the glass plate with the syrupy collodion took substantial manual dexterity; the difficulty increases geometrically with the area of the glass plate. Whereas the calotype had been within the reach of motivated amateurs, the wet collodion essentially was not. There are notable exceptions, such as Julia Margaret Cameron and Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden (England 1822-1865), but such amateur involvement was unusual. The need for a darkroom close at hand limited those exceptional amateurs to photographing in interiors and grounds around their grand homes; the landscape was scarcely noticed by them.
Due to the slow emulsions of the wet plate era combined with the Victorian mindset that the raison d’ être of a photograph was to be a perfect simulation of reality and thereforemustbe as sharp as possible, the real dawning of the medium was delayed
until 1889 when there was a true revolution regarding the role of photography. A new attitude theorized that it could be art; perhaps in direct opposition to its previous role as science. On the other hand, professional photography had become stale and moribund in the 1870-1890 period with almost no changes in either aesthetics or technology
“The period from 1870 to 1890 was one of transition and was singularly barren of progress in pictorial work. The old ideas had lost their vitality, whilst new ideas were not generally accepted.”2The dullest period of photography, the 1870-1890 years, can largely
be attributed to photographers blindly following trends originated by manufacturers, whose interests lay in profits, not aesthetics. Badly painted back drops, contrived faux props and a myriad of vignette devices all helped keep the makers in the black and consumers in the dark. An examination of a hundred random cartes-de-visite will illustrate the homogeneity and lack of individualism so representative of the era.
2
J. Dudley Johnston “Phases of Development in the Development of Pictorial Photography in Britain and America”The Photographic Journal (Dec., 1923) p. 573.
Figure 2.1:Two staid American cabinet cards representative of portraiture in the 1870- 1885 period (collection of the author)
Although many studio-oriented conventions of Pictorialism eventually are absorbed into the professional mainstream, most of the darkroom-oriented technical advances in printing were not; these techniques were typically slow, results not precisely repeatable, and might require significant experience to master. Professionals sought to produce prints as rapidly and cheaply as possible to enhance their cash stream.
This fossilized approach to photography was swept away by a radical change in syntax: the transition from wet plate negatives to dry plates and soon thereafter, to flexible roll film. This was the most significant change in photographic syntax since the invention of photography and was not equaled again until digital photography in the 1990s. There were also corresponding changes in printing media; the platinum print was introduced on the commercial market, the daguerreotype had totally disappeared, tintypes
had dwindled to a small percentage of their former market share, enlarged negatives become more feasible, and cameras aimed at amateur photographers were immense commercial successes. An amateur market had developed, for better or worse, and photography was no longer the exclusive domain of the professional.
Dr. Richard Leach Maddox (England 1816-1902) is generally credited with the invention of the dry plate in 1871. Unlike the wet collodion process, the dry plate was not perfect as invented and required several years of further development to be of practical use. In particular, Maddox’s plates were much less sensitive to light than wet collodion. The first commercially sold plates were made by London photographer John Burgess in 1873; they had problems as well. The Liverpool Dry Plate Company introduced a much improved version in 1876 but it failed to be a financial success because of the marked conservatism and unreserved skepticism of professional photographers. The chemical and physical problems were soon resolved and by 1879 the firm of Mawson & Swan was utilizing an automatic coating machine to insure nearly perfect plates each time.
The advantages were undeniable. As Gernsheim noted, “photographers could no longer deny the superiority of dry plates, their good keeping qualities, their simplicity of development, and above all, their wonderful rapidity…”3By 1882 or so, the revolution
was complete — almost all professionals were using dry plates — and with them amateurs as well. “Pictorial photography received a large accession of votaries in consequence of the greater facilities offered by the introduction of the gelatino-bromide or dry-plate process, which, although dating from 1880, did not notably affect the
photographic communities until some years afterwards.”4The era of amateur
involvement in photography was now technologically enabled to proceed.
The higher speed of the new dry plates also allowed hand-held cameras to finally become a reality. For all practical purposes, every exposure made from 1839 until dry plates had been made with the camera on a tripod or other stationary rest. As a matter of syntax, this exerted significant control in the selections of the subjects and compositions by any photographer. By the 1890s, hand cameras, both the cheap box cameras of the total amateur as well as Graflex-type reflex cameras used by more advanced amateurs and professionals, allowed photography to go on the move almost anywhere there was enough light. Suddenly a camera might be seen in almost any context and without any notice (as compared to erecting a tripod which signaled to anyone in sight that a
photograph would soon be made). The Graflex and its commercial variants were widely used by Pictorialists; Stieglitz, Annan, Coburn, Post, Anderson, Hagemeyer and Weston were among those who took advantage of its unique syntactical possibilities.
In photographic syntax, changes in the process creating the negative are always accompanied by corresponding changes in printing methods. This is essentially necessary because the contrast range of the negative must be matched fairly precisely by the
printing medium. The calotype had been matched to salted paper; the wet-plate to
albumen. With the advent of the dry plate negative, new printing methods were bound to follow. The platinum print (or platinotype) was introduced to the English market in 18805
and soon became the major printing method promoted by “art” photographers. The
4A. Horsley Hinton “Pictorial Photography”The Encyclopaedia Britannica11thed. (Cambridge:
University Press) p. 521
5
Luis Nadeau,Encyclopedia of Printing, Photographic and Photomechanical Processes(New Brunswick: Atelier Luis Nadeau, 1994) p. 389.
market penetration was initially retarded because in addition to the expense of the paper, inventor William Willis (England 1841-1923) required a license as well, costing five shillings, regardless of whether the user was an amateur or professional.6After Peter
Henry Emerson’s strong recommendation in 1889, it became the prime printing medium for artistic photographers and to a great extent remained so until after World War I.
By the 1890s, photographers were inventing their own printing processes, such as gum bichromate and oil, which became the lightning rod for criticism of Pictorialism in general. This became the first time since the earliest years of photography that
photographers would lead the industrial manufacturers rather than the other way around. On the whole, pictorial inventions and modifications such as gum prints and oil prints never represented more than a tiny segment of the international photographic market and were entirely ignored by the larger manufacturers.
Figure 2.2: Sanguine gum bichromate portraitProfileby Celine Laguarde, the apotheosis of early pictorialist art (“Art in Photography”The Studio1905 plate F.1)
Manufacturers regained near total control as flexible roll film and box cameras came to dominate the world market for the next seventy years (the first Kodak box camera was marketed in 1888); the “rank” amateur had become the target of the photographic manufacturers. Advanced amateurs such as the Pictorialists, did not represent enough of a market segment for the large manufacturers to cater to that niche. However, many small new-start companies such as The Platinotype Company would be bought up by the larger companiesifthey have demonstrated successful market
penetration. Eastman Kodak would appropriate any good idea, regardless of the original source, should the market conditions demonstrate a profit was probable, not just possible.
Accompanying the new syntax of roll film, printing paper sensitive enough to be exposed to artificial light was mass marketed by Eastman (Kodak) beginning in 1884.7
Prints could be made day and night enabling factories to produce thousands of prints in a short time and amateurs could print at night after work. Matte surfaced silver bromide prints, deliberately imitating platinotypes, were introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1894 as
Platino.Lacking any of the significant attributes of platinotypes (tonal range, longevity,
color) the sole comparison was the matt surface — but that was enough to attract amateurs not willing to work with platinum papers or uneducated enough to believe the two were indeed equivalents.
Moreover, for the first time, enlargements were now practical. Virtually all printing processes prior to silver bromide were sensitive solely to blue and ultra-violet light and required printing by sunlight. Only a contact print could be made — one where the negative was in direct contact with the paper and the resulting print was precisely the same size as the negative. Although the concept of enlargement, that is, making a direct print larger than the negative, dates to Talbot, the printing media were too insensitive to light until the late 1880s. There had been the use of “solar” enlargers, huge boxes on tilting mounts, which tracked the sun, as early as the 1860s but they were cumbersome, required good sun light, constant attention and the heat generated often broke the
collodion negative. Now, however, a gas light or the newly invented electric bulbs could
7
Josef Maria EderHistory of PhotographyEdward Epstean trans. (New York: Dover Publications, 1978) p. 440.
provide enough light. No longer was a large camera necessary in the field in order to produce a large print.
The creation of the first new optical glass since before the invention of
photography occurred at the Schott optical works in Jena. They introduced several new types of glass beginning in 1886 that allowed lens designers previously undreamt of possibilities. Freed by the new glasses, designers soon began creating previously impossible objectives with undreamt-of levels of aberration correction. The first true anastigmats were made by Zeiss in 18908and heralded a new category of lenses that gave
photographers unprecedented sharpness in their negatives.
Social change had helped create an upper-middle class in America; they had some leisure, disposable income, and aspirations resulting in America’s “Gilded Age.”
Although the British economy was not as robust and the entrenched social class system was slow to allow for thenouveau riche, a solid middle class was developing there as
well. These people would soon swell the ranks of amateur photography and become the dominant market for photographic supplies, a much larger and more lucrative segment than the professional market which had previously been the nearly sole consumer of equipment and supplies.