Wilson's Quarter Century in Photography

The first seven chapters (the first half of the book) cover studios, lenses, artful composition, and other essential skills. But the info in those chapters is better covered in other books of the era. I decided not to reprint them in order to keep the price of the "good stuff" down.

The first chapter of good stuff, chapter eight, covers darkroom contrivances: darkroom layout, ventilators, washing machines, icebox to keep chemicals cool in hot weather, bath holders, a simple distillation device, filtration setups, drying racks, agitators, ways to empty silver baths, and many unusual devices not seen anymore. You may want to adapt them, or build replicas if you're trying to exactly replicate early photography.

Chapter nine covers negative-making - "wet". Here Southworth explains cleaning glass for coating or silvering. Richardson explains albumenizing glass. Blanchard explains how to make a brush that bears his name today. Fennemore reveals the formula for the long-lasting collodion he uses. Dr M Carey Lea debates about which side of the glass to coat (probably because glass back then was not as uniform as it is today.) Wilson himself describes the proper mixing of the silver bath for making wet plates. Snell describes a test for the silver bath to see if it can provide good plates. Wilkinson discusses pinholes and a cure. Sternberg gives three formulas for compound developers. And there are tips on fixing, retouching, intensifying, coating problems, and more.

The best general book on wet plates I've come across is John Coffer's homespun manual. You can think of that as cake. But this is frosting on the cake. It provides interesting tidbits and ideas worth trying.

Our plan is to reprint the best parts of Wilson's book in low-cost editions, this being the first. If early photography is your thing, get a copy of this. It's worth reading. And it's cheap! 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 softcover 64 pages (more volumes coming soon)

No. 23691 ... $7.95
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