Figure 1.--HBC has been able to find very few English Daguerreotypes. We are not sure why. This boy is unidentified. A photographic dealer believes the dag is English because the case is an English style. It is a beautifully colorized dag. The portrait is undated, but the plane frame suggests the 1840s to us. The boy looks to be about 3-years old. The boy wears what might be called a kilt suit, although the skirt has no kilt detailing. He has a lace collar. The kilt suit is green. The vest he is wearing is colored blue. We are not sure just how accurate this depiction is. We suspect that the colors are probably accurate, but the actual shades less so. He is wearing pantalttes. The boy's hair is tinted brown.

English researchers made some of the most important discoveries which led to modern photography. It was English scholar and resaearcher William Henry Fox Talbott that first fixed an image on paper (1834). He does not, however, seem to have told anyone. Talbot was a classical scholar and amateur scientist of independent means and saw no need or inclination to either publicize his achievement or develop a commercial application. He apparently did not even tell his mother until after Daguerre began publicizing his accomplishments (1839). She was apparently furious with him. And after Tabot began showing his images, he called them calotypes, using the Greek word "kalos" meaning beautiful. This showed his roots as a clasical scholar and lack of interest in self promotion. The resut of course is Daguerre is generally seen in the public mind and only a few historians have ever heard of Talbot. Daguere's process using metal plates was in fact a commercial dead end although the Daguerreotype was a commercial success in the 1840s. . It would be Talbot's process which used a negative that would until the digital age be the basis for modern photography. Talbot worked to improved his process in the 1840s. Frederick Scott Archer (1813-57) in England invented the photographic collodion process which preceded the modern gelatin emulsion. The initial result ambrotype which used this process. This esentially ended the commercial potential of the calotype. Professional studios quickly adopted the collodion process. Interestingly, upperclass amateurs, often from the landed gentry, continued to dable with caloptypes. Thus mny of these images are scenes of the countryside, but rarely of the rising industrial cities.

Calotypes

English researchers made some of the most important discoveries which led to modern photography. It was English scholar and resaearcher William Henry Fox Talbott that first fixed an image on paper (1834). He does not, however, seem to have told anyone. Talbot was a classical scholar and amateur scientist of independent means and saw no need or inclination to either publicize his achievement or develop a commercial application. He apparently did not even tell his mother until after Daguerre began publicizing his accomplishments (1839). She was apparently furious with him. After Tabot began showing his images, he called them calotypes, using the Greek word "kalos" meaning beautiful. This showed his roots as a clasical scholar and lack of interest in self promotion. The resut of course is Daguerre is generally seen in the public mind and only a few historians have ever heard of Talbot.

Daguerreotypes

Commercial photography began with the development of the Daguerreotype in France. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre continued Niépce's experiments. He finally perfected a commercially viable process (1839) and without Fox Talbott's modesty, named it after himself. Daguere's process using metal plates was the first sucessful commercial photographic process. There must have been Daguerreotypists setting up all over Britain in the 1840. The process continued to be the principal photographic process in the early 50s, although competing processes appeared in the mid-50s. Strangely we have noy been able to find many examples, in sharp contrast to America. We are not sure why we have found vry few English dags. Presumably it is simply that based in merica we have less opportunity to find English dags. The same is true for Europe in general. Daguere's process while commercial suucessful for two decades was a in fact a commercial dead end.

Ambrotypes

Tin-types

Negative-based Processes

It would be Talbot's process which used a negative that would until the digital age be the basis for modern photography. Talbot worked to improved his process in the 1840s. Frederick Scott Archer (1813-57) in England invented the photographic collodion process which preceded the modern gelatin emulsion. The initial result ambrotype which used this process. This esentially ended the commercial potential of the calotype. Professional studios quickly adopted the collodion process. Interestingly, upperclass amateurs, often from the landed gentry, continued to dable with caloptypes. Thus many of these images are scenes of the countryside, but rarely of the rising industrial cities. The first commercial negative process was the albumen print. This began with the carte-de-viste (CDV) which first appeared in France during the late 1850s. The CDV was hugely popular in England by the 1860s and continued to be the principal commercial photographic portrait in the 1870s and 80s. We begin to see more cabinent cards by the 1880s which by the turn of the 20th century had become the principal portrait type. And silver-nitrate prints both for amateur snapshots and studio portraits replaced albumen ptints. While English researchers had played an important role in the development of black and white photography, the development of color photography in the 20th century was led primarily by American and Germn companies.

Created: 8:03 PM 6/5/2008
Last updated: 4:42 AM 10/8/2008