The
Photographic Negative
In the late 1880's the Scovill Manufacturing Co published a series of books on photography to get more people into the field and to advertise its products. By this time the modern gelatin dry plate had taken over photography allowing almost anyone to take their own pictures even before George Eastman had produced the first Kodak. Modern photography had arrived.
Here
you get a virtual encyclopedia of the various ways of making photographic
negatives. "A practical guide to the preparation
of sensitive surfaces by the calotype, albumen, collodion, and gelatine
processes, on glass and paper, with supplementary chapters on development,
etc. etc."
When a new photo process was announced, every amateur and pro would tinker with it to try to improve it. So, for instance, there might be fifteen variations on the Calotype, the original paper negative process of Fox-Talbot. Most were no improvement at all. Over time just a few variations were proven to be worth trying. This book is a compilation of just those proven methods. Only the best.
Only the gelatin process was in use by the time this book was published, so what you get is a source of the best of old-time processes that were already obsolete by 1888!
Chapters
include: general remarks on sensitive surfaces, calotype, sensitive surfaces
on glass, preparation of the glass, the albumen process, the old collodion
wet plate process, the collodion dry plate process, collodion emulsion,
the gelatine process, development and fixing, stripping films on paper
and cardboard, failures in the gelatino-bromide process, methods of stripping
films from glass plates, color-sensitive plates, black & white negatives,
instantaneous photography, touching-up the negative, photo-micrography,
micro-photography, transformation of negatives into positions, and direct
production of negatives from negatives.
Again, you get the formulas and details of manipulation. I have scores of photo books, and have never seen such a compact source of old time secrets. Many of the formulas I've not seen elsewhere. When you finally decide that digital photography has gotten boring and want to move onto the big leagues, this is a great source of new worlds to explore. Get a copy for your reference library! A must have for alternative photo buffs! 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 softcover 221 pages
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