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Most photographs taken in the 19th century were portraits. While there were a few amateur photographers and some wealthy people had cameras by the 1890s, the vast majority of photographs were taken in studios by professional photographers. It was not until 1900 with the appearnce of the Lodak Brownie that snap shots began to appear. Quite a number of different types of photographs were taken by these professional photographers. Printed images in today's digital era are sometimes confused with photogrpahs. Photographs are printed on photosensitive paper, which means the paper reacts to light, not ink. Ink prints, while they may depict a photograph, are not real photographs. This distinction is made by the presence of photosensitive paper and a saturation of the black areas within real photographs. Ink prints use tiny dots of ink, whereas photographs do not. Here are some of the different types of photographs. As mentioned above this meant in the 19th century that they were in effect the different types of photographs. HBC plans to go into more detail, but this will briefly sketch out some of the principal portrait types.
Daguerre continued Niépce's experiment. He accidentally discovered that exposed photographic plates were developed by Mercury vapors. This greatly reduced the exposure time from 8 hours down to 1/2 an hour. Daguerre announced his discovery in 1839 and named it the Daguerreotype. It was a sensation and an instant popular success. The announcement that the Daguerreotype "requires no knowledge of drawing...." and that "anyone may succeed.... and perform as well as the author of the invention" was greeted with enormous interest, and "Daguerreomania" became a craze overnight. The process could produce strikingly beautiful images. They provide us the first true photogaphs of the 19th century.The Daguerreotype process, though good, was expensive. In addition, it produced a positive image which could not be duplicated.
The ambrotype was a less expensive alternative to the daguerreotype. By the 1850s it had become the dominant form of photographic portraiture. Frederick Scott Archer improved the calotype and invented the "wet collodin" negative. A glass plate was cleaned and iodized collodin was poured onto it, then it was immersed in a silver-nitrate bath. This was put into the camera while still wet, and the development had to be performed before it dried. A variation of the "wet collodin" was the ambrotype. The ambrotype is an underexposed wet-collodin negative on glass. Ambrotypes were mounted against black backing appearing like a positive, but did not have the tonal range of a Daguerreotype and could not be duplicated. The tintype was a variant of the ambrotype (Ferrotype or Melaninotype). It produced positive images usually on a thin sheet of iron. This process was easier, cheaper, and unbreakable compared to the ambrotype, but lacked the tonal range. Ambrotypes, tintypes made the Daguerreotype a dead art. These forms eventually became dead arts also with the development of the dry plate process and negatives.
A salt print photograph was printed using sodium chloride (salt) that is subsequently coated with silver nitrate. They are also referred to as a salted paper print. They appear to have been most popular in the period before the development of the albumen process. Salt prints were a negative-based process at a time when most photographs were daguerreotypes or ambrotypes--processes in which only one image could be produced (1840s-50s).
It was the first type of photograph printed on paper. Salt prints were produced with both paper and glass negatives. The best, sharpest images of course were produced with glass negatives. The prints produced from paper negatives were characterically grainy and somewhat mottled. Salt prints had white highlights. Thin
paper stock was used for the prints. They were then mounted on thicker paper. The salt prints differed fro albumen prints in that the image was not suspended in an emulsion layer on top of the paper, but created within the paper itself. As a result the image is not as crisp as albumen images. While albumen prints became the major photographic process in the late-19h cetury, we still see some salt prints after the 1860s.
The most common type of portraits during the 19th century (1860-1900) were albumen prints. Albumen photographic paper captured the image on the surface instead of embedding it the paper fibers. This was a major advance maling it possible to print very sharp images on paper with a smooth, glossy surface. Albumen prints were usually a brownish tone. Nearly all albumen prints are on very thin paper and mounted to period cardboard as CDV or cabinebt cards. The term albumen is used because because egg whites were used to help achieve the gloss. The paper is sensitized with a silver nitrate solution. The sentitized paper is then exposed to a negative through a "printed-out"process. The image is produced by the light exposure without any chemical bath to develop abd desinthesize the nitrate salts. This made it highly suspectible to fadeing. Old photograph collectors are very familiar with badly faded albumen CDVs and cabinent cards. Even so, most photographic prints used this process (1860s-1890s). Emulsion speeds improved, but were still relatively slow. We see stands which had to be used to steady the subject, especially during the 1860s and 70s.
An albumen print, usually with dimensions wre 2 1/2 by 4 inches, but there were ome variations. They were mounted on a
cardboard mount. The front of the card had the photograph mounted. The back of the card had the name and usually the address of the phographer, normally in an elaborate design. As the name suggests, the origins are French. One source indicates that the carte-de-viste or CDV was first introdued in 1851. I have been unable to confirm that. Another source indicates that a French photographer, André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, introduce the CDV about 1854. Within a few years the CDV appeared in England. I am precicely sure when. One English collector reports tht the earliet English CDV he has dates to 1859. We do not believe that large numbers of CDVs appeared until about 1860. This appears to be about the same time that CDVs began to appear in America. We tend to note substantial numbers of CDVs appeaing in America about 1861. The CDV was dominant from about 1860-66, but with the introduction of the cabinent car in 1866 began to decline. Many preferred the large images on the cabinent card. They were also common in the 1870s, but by that time cabinent carfds had begun to replace them. CDVs did not entirely disappear until the 1910s. The CDV was a very important advance in commercial photography. Disdéri's rotating camera back allowed the photographer to make eight individually exposed images on a single negative. The images were printed on albumen paper, then cut apart and glued onto mounts about the size of calling cards. The new camera and procedure permitted multiple images to be taken very quickly. Even more important, the CDV was produced from negatives so that unlike daguerotypes, multiple prints were possible. Negatives could be used to produce any number of prints desired. The studios usually kept the negatives on file so customers could order more photos for friends and family when ever they wanted. Some of these studio archives have been preserved and are wonderful historical records. These multiple printings also meant that photographers could sell images of celeberties to the public and collecting these images became a popular hobby. The CDVs were reasonably priced and families could collect large numbers of images over time. Soon enterprising shops were offering albums specifically designed to hold small CDV cards. Different families had various approaches. The albums wre usually kept by the mother. Some were just the immediate fmily. Others included the extended family. Still others might add celeberity CDVs such as President Lincoln, Queen Victoria, or th Emperor Napolon. Other families might be more likely to add theater actresses or opera singers. A good example of CDVs during the 1860s and 70s is an album kept by an English family in Cambridge--the Stanley.
The cabinent card was the most important photographic portrait format of the 19th century. More cabinenbt card were made than any other type of print. The cabinent card was introduced in 1866 and soon surpassed the smaller CDV format in popularity. Some clients, however, contunued to prefer the CDV prints. We are not entirely sure as to why 19th century clients chose one fom or the other. A cabinent card is a simple term to describe a print, usually with dimensions no more than 6," that is mounted upon period cardboard. There were various kinds of mounts. At first raw paste board was used. Later cards appeared with a gloss finish. As with CDVs, the card board was used to protect prints which were normally made on very unsubstantial paper. The characteristics of the photographic paper changed as improvements were made in the photographic process. The printed cardboard mounts that the impage were pasted on were printed with information about the photographer and studio. The colors, script style, and art work used to decorate the mounts varied over time and can also used to help date these cards. There were also change in borders and other aspects of he mounts. Early cards were normally sepia in color, but the colors varied over time and can be useful in dating the cards. Later cards with soft, silverish tones as well as rich blacks. Subsequent cards were Although used for a variety of subjects, this was the most common way to display portraits in the 19th century. the cabinent type was a popular format for 19th-century photographs. It is a photograph mounted on heavy card stock and measures approximately 6-1/2 x 4-1/4 inches. Cabinet cards were usually studio portraits. Cabinet cards of celebrities were a favorite subject. Celeberity cards were widely collected in the last quarter of the 19th century. The cabinet card lost much of its popularity after 1900 with the introduction of the Brownie and rise of amateur phoytography. The cabinent card largely disappeared by the end of World War I.
A single photograph depicting more than one image.
Early English photographer, Sir John Herschel, invented the cynotype photographic process (1842). It uses Prussian blue in a process best known today as architect's blueprints. A Cyanotype print is easily identified for its blue color. It is a very primitive process using iron salts for printing. The basic cyanotype recipe is basically unchanged from the process developed by Herschel, although photo processing experimenters have made minor improvements. Some technicians refer to the Cynotype II process. The Cynotype process involves two basic solutions.
Potassium ferricyanide and Ferric ammonium citrate (green) are mixed with water separately and then blended together. The solution is then used to soak an absorbent material (paper, card, textiles or other canvas) meant for an image and allowed to try in the dark. The canvas is then exposed through the negative. While the process was developed in the 1840s, we do not notice 19th century American ctnotype prints. Perhaps they were more common in Btitain. We do note American Cynotype snapshots in the early 20th century before World war I. We do not know why they suddenly appeared at this time. We do not notice studio Cynotype portraits.
Gelatin silver prints were a major advance in photography at the turn-of-the 20th century. It was the principal printing process in the 20th century until color printing became common in the 1870s. The process is till in use today. This printing medium began use in the 1870s, but it was not perfected on a commercial basis until the turn-of-th 20th century. It is a common and visually appealing way to print images. With age, the silver in dark areas of the print is often visible at certain light angles.
See "Tintypes".
Opalotype (also spelled opaltype) was another early photographic process. The names derives from a type of white, translucent glass, commonly clled moilk glass. The opalotype was some\times called milk glass positives. There were two types of opalotypes. The first was transferring a carbon print onto glass. A similar process was for on inexpensice decorated pottery. The second process
used a negative to expose a glass sheet which has been sensatized by a photographic emulsion. Opalotypists used wet collodion and silver gelatin. It was essentially a glass plante used like a sheet of photographic paper. Often they were colorized through hand tinting, giving a more pleasing effect than a black-and-white image. The opalotype gave something like the impression of ivory minatures which were popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries before the development of photography. Glover and Bold of Liverpool developed and patented the process (1857). The process does not appear to have been very popular. We do not note vety many examples in the photographic record, in comparison to the huge number of CDVs and cabinent cards. The process was, however, persued into the20th century. We note very few examples after the 1920s.
Sepia is not really a separate type of photograph. "Sepia" refers to the brownish color of a photograph caused by the toning agent used in the early 20th century to prevent fading. This was very common in the early 20th century after albumen prints were replaced with gelatin silver prints. They were in fact a type of silver gelatin print.
Photographs printed on thin iron sheets are known as ferrotypes. These appeared in Europe in the late 1830s. They are better known in America as tintypes. The poor sister of modern portature is the tintype, the American term for ferrotype or printing on thin iron sheets. These prints became popular in America during the Civil War (1861-65) as they were easy to send back to the folks at home by mail. They were the least expensive form of photography and itinerate photographers brought photography to the back roads of rural America in the years after the Civil War.
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