THE ROYAL TOUCH
Then in 1860, Queen Victoria, her husband Prince Albert, and their children posed for some cartes-de-visite. These images were the first photographs of the royal family ever commissioned for the public. They were sold individually, in sets, and in a book called the Royal Album. And they were hugely popular.
Photo studios took note. They started printing photographs of other famous people—Sarah Bernhardt, Abraham Lincoln, and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant among them—to see if they would sell. They did, prompting what came to be known as "cardomania." Cartes-de-visite covered a huge variety of subjects, including animals, politicians, military leaders, famous works of art, scenes of faraway places... even Bamum's circus freaks. Collectors bought them all. During the Civil War, people bought pictures of Maj. Robert Anderson, the hero of the battle of Fort Sumter, at a rate of 1,000 prints a day.
HOUSE OF CARDS
Cardomania was so powerful that it may be the reason the White House still stands in Washington B.C. The Founding Fathers never intended the White House to be a permanent presidential residence; it was just supposed to serve until something bigger and better would be built.
Few Americans had ever seen the White House, until Lincoln's assassination in 1865, when photos of the fallen president—as well as of the house where he had lived—circulated in great numbers.
STILL WET AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
In the fifteen years since the invention of the daguerreotype in 1837, photography had made amazing progress. The collodion process and its descendants—ambrotypes, tintypes, and cartes-de-visite—were huge improvements, but they were still "wet-plate" processes.
Photographers had to apply fresh collodion to their glass photographic plates right before they took a picture, and then develop the plates immediately afterward, before the chemicals dried. That meant lugging all their chemicals and equipment, including a portable darkroom, wherever they went to take a picture. Every photo shoot was an expensive camping trip... which made photography off-limits to everyone except professionals and a handful of dedicated amateurs. Someone either had to find a substitute for collodion or find a way to stop it from drying out so quickly, perhaps by mixing insubstances that were slower to dry. They tried everything they could think of—honey, glycerine, raspberry syrup, beer—but nothing worked.
THE SMELL OF SUCCESS
Ironically, the person who finally stumbled onto the answer, English physician Richard Leach Maddox, was not even trying to solve the problem. Maddox didn't mind the inconvenience of the wet-plate process—he just hated the way it smelled. His photography studio was set up in a glasshouse, and when it heated up, the smell of the ether in the collodion was overpowering. He became determined to find a process that did not require ether.
In 1871 Maddox found one that showed a lot of promise: a silver-gelatin emulsion. He believed this was the key to a non-smelling "dry-plate process," but the demands of his medical practice prevented him from spending the time needed to refine it. Therefore, in a letter to the British Journal of Photography, Maddox invited others to pick up where he had left off.
Seven years later another Englishman, Charles Harper Bennett, refined the process and proved Maddox right. He discovered that he could "ripen" the gelatin emulsion by heating it to 90°F and holding it at that temperature for several days. Then, after washing the plate to remove excess chemical salts, Bennett discovered that he could create a "dry plate" that was 60 times more sensitive to light than one made with the collodion or any other photographic process.
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE
For decades, photographers had yearned to capture all that the human eye could see. Now, in a single stroke, Bennett had invented plates that worked /aster than the human eye, allowing people to see things that it had never been possible to see before: horses in mid-gallop, birds flapping their wings in flight, children jumping rope, water droplets falling in mid-air.
Before gelatin plates, all of these images had appeared as blurs—now they were crystal clear. The invention of gelatin plates prompted new camera designs: bulky wooden tripod-mounted cameras were replaced by smaller units that photographers could easily hold in their hands. The new cameras were also more sophisticated: In the past people took pictures by removing the lens cap and replacing it a few seconds later, but gelatin plates were too sensitive for that. Precise exposure speeds, accurate to within a fraction of a second, were necessary. So camera makers added shutter systems that allowed for short and accurate exposure times. By 1900 it was possible to take exposures as short as 1/5000 of a second.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Just as important as the speed of the new gelatin plates was the fact that they remained photosensitive for months on end, which meant that they could be prepared well in advance of being used. Photographers no longer had to prepare plates themselves; they could buy them from the hundreds of small companies that sprang up to sell ready-made plates.
They still had to develop the plates themselves, but at least now they could do it at their leisure.
Gelatin plates also helped bring standardization to the photography industry. In the past, each photographic plate was prepared from scratch moments before being put into use, so photosensitivity varied from plate to plate and from photographer to photographer. Not anymore: Now plates could be made under more controlled conditions, making their performance more predictable and reliable.
This mass production made it possible for two British scientists, Vero Charles Driffield and Ferdinand Hurter, to begin some of the first serious scientific studies of the chemistry and physics of photography. Through their research they calculated the optimum exposure time for photographic plates depending on lighting, temperature, and other factors, and they perfected the developing process to the point that people could develop exposures in absolute darkness, just by timing how long the exposures soaked in developing chemicals. As Driffield and Hurder unlocked photography's secrets, they helped to make it more accessible to ordinary people.
Then in 1860, Queen Victoria, her husband Prince Albert, and their children posed for some cartes-de-visite. These images were the first photographs of the royal family ever commissioned for the public. They were sold individually, in sets, and in a book called the Royal Album. And they were hugely popular.
Photo studios took note. They started printing photographs of other famous people—Sarah Bernhardt, Abraham Lincoln, and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant among them—to see if they would sell. They did, prompting what came to be known as "cardomania." Cartes-de-visite covered a huge variety of subjects, including animals, politicians, military leaders, famous works of art, scenes of faraway places... even Bamum's circus freaks. Collectors bought them all. During the Civil War, people bought pictures of Maj. Robert Anderson, the hero of the battle of Fort Sumter, at a rate of 1,000 prints a day.
HOUSE OF CARDS
Cardomania was so powerful that it may be the reason the White House still stands in Washington B.C. The Founding Fathers never intended the White House to be a permanent presidential residence; it was just supposed to serve until something bigger and better would be built.
Few Americans had ever seen the White House, until Lincoln's assassination in 1865, when photos of the fallen president—as well as of the house where he had lived—circulated in great numbers.
STILL WET AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
In the fifteen years since the invention of the daguerreotype in 1837, photography had made amazing progress. The collodion process and its descendants—ambrotypes, tintypes, and cartes-de-visite—were huge improvements, but they were still "wet-plate" processes.
Photographers had to apply fresh collodion to their glass photographic plates right before they took a picture, and then develop the plates immediately afterward, before the chemicals dried. That meant lugging all their chemicals and equipment, including a portable darkroom, wherever they went to take a picture. Every photo shoot was an expensive camping trip... which made photography off-limits to everyone except professionals and a handful of dedicated amateurs. Someone either had to find a substitute for collodion or find a way to stop it from drying out so quickly, perhaps by mixing insubstances that were slower to dry. They tried everything they could think of—honey, glycerine, raspberry syrup, beer—but nothing worked.
THE SMELL OF SUCCESS
Ironically, the person who finally stumbled onto the answer, English physician Richard Leach Maddox, was not even trying to solve the problem. Maddox didn't mind the inconvenience of the wet-plate process—he just hated the way it smelled. His photography studio was set up in a glasshouse, and when it heated up, the smell of the ether in the collodion was overpowering. He became determined to find a process that did not require ether.
In 1871 Maddox found one that showed a lot of promise: a silver-gelatin emulsion. He believed this was the key to a non-smelling "dry-plate process," but the demands of his medical practice prevented him from spending the time needed to refine it. Therefore, in a letter to the British Journal of Photography, Maddox invited others to pick up where he had left off.
Seven years later another Englishman, Charles Harper Bennett, refined the process and proved Maddox right. He discovered that he could "ripen" the gelatin emulsion by heating it to 90°F and holding it at that temperature for several days. Then, after washing the plate to remove excess chemical salts, Bennett discovered that he could create a "dry plate" that was 60 times more sensitive to light than one made with the collodion or any other photographic process.
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE
For decades, photographers had yearned to capture all that the human eye could see. Now, in a single stroke, Bennett had invented plates that worked /aster than the human eye, allowing people to see things that it had never been possible to see before: horses in mid-gallop, birds flapping their wings in flight, children jumping rope, water droplets falling in mid-air.
Before gelatin plates, all of these images had appeared as blurs—now they were crystal clear. The invention of gelatin plates prompted new camera designs: bulky wooden tripod-mounted cameras were replaced by smaller units that photographers could easily hold in their hands. The new cameras were also more sophisticated: In the past people took pictures by removing the lens cap and replacing it a few seconds later, but gelatin plates were too sensitive for that. Precise exposure speeds, accurate to within a fraction of a second, were necessary. So camera makers added shutter systems that allowed for short and accurate exposure times. By 1900 it was possible to take exposures as short as 1/5000 of a second.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Just as important as the speed of the new gelatin plates was the fact that they remained photosensitive for months on end, which meant that they could be prepared well in advance of being used. Photographers no longer had to prepare plates themselves; they could buy them from the hundreds of small companies that sprang up to sell ready-made plates.
They still had to develop the plates themselves, but at least now they could do it at their leisure.
Gelatin plates also helped bring standardization to the photography industry. In the past, each photographic plate was prepared from scratch moments before being put into use, so photosensitivity varied from plate to plate and from photographer to photographer. Not anymore: Now plates could be made under more controlled conditions, making their performance more predictable and reliable.
This mass production made it possible for two British scientists, Vero Charles Driffield and Ferdinand Hurter, to begin some of the first serious scientific studies of the chemistry and physics of photography. Through their research they calculated the optimum exposure time for photographic plates depending on lighting, temperature, and other factors, and they perfected the developing process to the point that people could develop exposures in absolute darkness, just by timing how long the exposures soaked in developing chemicals. As Driffield and Hurder unlocked photography's secrets, they helped to make it more accessible to ordinary people.
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