THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEWS: A Weekly Record,
Edited by William Crookes; London
Vol. I [Sept. 10, 1858 – March 4, 1859*]
 

*Only 1858 in this transcription

                                               

VER:  Sept. 16,2009

 

NOTES: 

   --Italics have been retained from publications, which use them for both titles as well as emphasis.  To more easily locate image titles, I have continued this italicization when titles have been rendered in all capitols or put in quotes, however italics have NOT been used when the general subject of an image is mentioned.

   --Image numbers listed in articles can be either an entry number in an exhibition, or the photographer’s own image number as found on labels. 

    --All names have been bolded for easy location.  Numbers frequently refer to the photographer’s image number, but can also refer to a number in a catalog for a show.  Decide whether to bold or not if can tell.

   --It is not always possible in lists of photographers to know when two separate photographers are partners or not, e.g., in a list, “Smith and Jones” sometimes alludes to two separate photographers and sometimes to one photographic company.  Both names will be highlighted and indexed but a partnership may be wrongly assumed.  Any information to the contrary would be appreciated.

   --  Brackets [ ] are used to indicate supplied comments by the transcriber;  parenthesis

(  )  are used in the original sources.  If the original source has used brackets, they have been transcribed as parenthesis to avoid confusion.

--“illus” means that I have the view mentioned and should be scanned and included.

   --Articles by photographers about technical matters – only name and titles have been listed.  If other names are associated with the paper they are listed as well.

  --Meetings of Societies – Names of officers, members attending or referenced, dates and locations of meetings have been given.  If the reports are very short or discuss photographs, then the articles have been copied; if administrative or technical in nature, they have not.

  -- Some journals, e.g., The Art-Journal, cover both photographer and painting/drawing.  As they frequently refer to the production of both the photographer and the painter as “pictures” it is not always possible to tell when photography is indicated.  If there is doubt, it will be included but a note will be added stating that the names listed may in fact not be photographers.

   --Mostly articles totally discussing technical aspects of photography, products, etc. are not transcribed unless they are part of a larger article covering photographs.   When technical descriptions are too lengthy to transcribe that is noted.

   --Cultural sensitivity – these are direct transcriptions of texts written in the 19^th-century and reflect social comments being made at that time.  Allowances must be made when reading some texts, particularly those dealing with other cultures.

 

1858:  P News, Sept. 10, vol. I, #1, p. ii:

Ad:  Poulton, Photographic Printer and Publisher, 147, Strand, London, and 2, London street, Reading.  Wholesale Dealer in Stereoscopes and Stereoscopic Slides.

 

1858:  P News, Sept. 10, vol. I, #1, p. iv:

Ad:  Skeleton’s Carouse. Free by post for 24 stamps.  London Stereoscopic Compy. 54 Cheapside & 313 Oxford St. [This is the leading portion of the ad, and is also highlighted and centered.  The rest of the ad covers photographic supplies including “Stereoscopic Mounts, Thick drab Board” and locates LSC’s Cheapside address as “2 doors West of Bow Church”] [ad runs other issues afterwards]

 

1858:  P News, Sept. 10, vol. I, #1, p. 1:

            Introductory Address.

            The title we have chosen for this publication will, we hope, be sufficiently explicit to indicate our design; yet, in our first number, we feel anxious to explain as fully as possible the nature and scope of the “Photographic News.”

            Photography has undoubtedly attained to the dignity of a Science; and among the marvels of this age of discovery, there are perhaps none so great as those that are associated with this art.  The pagan nations of antiquity worshipped the sun, whose genial warmth impregnated nature, and clothed the hills with verdure, flowers, and fruit; but we have learned a wiser lesson; we have scientifically utilized the object of pagan worship, and made his golden rays subservient to the purposes of an artificial life.  Philosophers have yet to discover “What is electricity,”: though practical minds have already harnessed it to a girdle that encircles the glove, and bid it bear with lightning speed our thoughts and wants across vast continents and beneath intermediate seas.  Its elements and attributes are not defined; but, nevertheless, its work is ascertained, and this mysterious agent is pressed into the service of mankind.  So chemists have yet to analyse the sunbeam, and tell us accurately what it is; but practical philosophers have already made it a willing and obedient servant.  It paints for them pictures instinct with life and beauty, and with a fidelity so true that art cannot imitate it.  Thus does it convey new lessons to the disciples of science, and inspires her votaries with simpler and purer tastes, and with loftier aspirations after proximate perfection.  This faithful but somewhat capricious servant may now no longer resist the power of the human will, for Nièpce de St. Victor, the modern Laputan sage, has taught us how we may store the sunshine in our cellars, and in a moment release it from imprisonment, amid the profound darkness of the night, to fix with delicate and perfect accuracy a living memorial of endeared objects.  Those wonderful agents, steam and electricity, readily obey the wand of the modern magician, and effect an immediate realisation of human desires; but no discovery can compare with this, the last and greatest acquisition that the bold hand of science has snatched from the secrets of nature.  And yet new mines of undiscovered wealth invite the enterprising disciples of this, as of every other science.  The exhaustless stores of nature are unfolded to us only as pressing wants urge on adventurous spirits to ransack her boundless resources.

            To encourage and sustain such enterprise in the object contemplated in the establishment of the “Photograph News.”  We have carefully studied the subject, and are convinced that such an organ is imperatively necessary to meet a palpable demand.

            The features which will distinguish the “Photographic News,” and render it the most valuable medium, of information, not only to professed photographists, but also to all who are interested in the development of science, will be—

            I.  Under the head “Notes and Queries,” replies to correspondents who may seek information on photographic and other scientific subjects of a kindred nature.

            II.  Information, derived from foreign as well as domestic sources, of all discoveries and improvements in photography, optics, photographic chemistry, and other cognate sciences.

            III. Elementary lessons in photography, together with a dictionary of photographic terms.

            IV.  Reviews of books on photography and its kindred sciences, and critical notes of exhibitions of photographs and other works of art.

            V.  Reports of the transactions of English and foreign photographic and other learned societies.

            The “Photographic News,” as the recognised organ of photograph, will be the guide and instructor of the beginner, the medium of communication and interchange of ideas between more advanced students, and the record of all improvements and discoveries which may take place in the art, or in the allied sciences of optics and chemistry.

            We will not dwell any longer upon the importance of the task that we have undertaken, but will address ourselves carefully to the work, relying on the generous indulgence and on the liberal patronage of those whose interests we are endeavouring to promote and to secure.  We are aware, that n undertaking to smoothe the rough path of investigation and experiment, we accept serious responsibilities, but we are sustained by a firm reliance on the varied talent which has been placed at our disposal, and on the abundant resources that we possess.  We do not, therefore, doubt our power of rendering our performances equal to our promises.

 

1858:  P News, Sept. 10, vol. I, #1, p. 5-7:

            Photography in Algeria.

            My Dear Sir,--Presuming that the first number of the _____ (sic) I must wait until I receive it before I can give it the denomination by which you distinguish it—is already on its way here, I propose to forward you information of my proceedings in this colony as frequently as possible, in the hope that your readers may derive some amusement, if not instruction, from a perusal of such portions of my letters as you may consider best calculated to effect that object; only stipulating that, as I am a stranger in a strange land, and therefore likely to fall into errors which may place me in a ridiculous position, my name shall not be published.

            Of the two objects that prompted my journey hither, viz., the improvement of my health, and the desire to visit and bring away photographs of scenes where events had occurred familiar to us from our school days, I have been successful only in the latter.  I had been told so much of the warmth and genial climate of Algeria, that when I woke the morning after my arrival and found it dull, cold, and raining with that steady, incessant downpour which is associated in the minds of most of us with the recollection of a pic-nic party, I began to think I had been humbugged.  For three days, it never, as far as I am aware, ceased to pour down in the same uncompromising style, and I had already commenced inquiries as to the speediest means of reaching Alexandria, when it suddenly ceased, and I was enabled to traverse the streets and take note of buildings and other interesting objects with a view to future operations; and was gratified to find that I should have no lack of subjects.  In the older part of the town the houses are lofty, and the width of the streets so trifling, that it would not be difficult for an active man to jump from a house on one side of the street into its opposite neighbour.  I was not a little struck on returning to the more frequented parts of the town at the Frenchified appearance of everything.  The shops were full of French goods, and French women stood behind the counters, while the husbands of at least a good many of them were to be found among the tightly-belted, blue-tunicked, pegtop-trowsered individuals who prefaced the streets in every direction—proving how largely the military element enters into the composition of the population of Algiers.  Cafés and restaurants are numerous, and are mostly kept by Frenchmen, although some of the former are held by Arabs.  I entered one kept by an Arab,--a poorly-furnished room, lighted by one window, from which window I was told Jules Gerard dropped the native who had ventured to speak in contumelious terms of Frenchmen in general, and Gerard in particular, upon a heap of what I may in mild terms describe as refuse.

            I was wandering alone outside the town, when my attention was attracted by a superstructure, the object of which was so evident that I looked round for a soldier of whom I might inquire the nature of the crime committed by the individual destined to have his career brought to such an abrupt termination.  I soon found one, and thanks to six months of “Cassell’s French,” and some little practice, I was enabled to comprehend the following narrative:--A man names Gilson inhabited a house a short distance from the town, together with his wife, her mother, a daughter about sixteen years of age, and another some years younger.  One night about ten o’clock they heard a wagon drive into the yard, and a peculiar sound which a boy in Gilson’s service, absent on some domestic errand, was in the habit of using for the purpose of gaining admittance, made the family suppose that he had returned.  The mother opened the door, and several Arabs immediately rushed in, cut down the mother, and then murdered Gilson and his wife, whose-bodies were hacked in a dreadful manner.  The youngest daughter concealed herself behind a large barrel, from whence she could see all that was done, and was thus enabled to give a description of the murderers, one or two of whom were known to her, which led to their speedy apprehension.  The eldest daughter darted out of the house at the instant the ruffians entered; but was pursued by two of them, who caught her, chopped off her hands at the wrists, and otherwise mutilated her in an indescribable manner; and, finally, one of them, with the intention of killing her, made a downward cut at her head, which nearly cut away the forehead from the skull, and left her, to all appearance, a bleeding corpse.  Wonderful to relate, she did not die, and has since been conveyed to Paris, where she remains at this moment; her unfortunately condition but slightly alleviated by the receipt of a sum levied on the goods of the murderers.  The object of the Arabs in this attack was plunder; Gilson having somewhat boastfully, though on the supposition that he was communicating with a friend, showed one of the criminals some valuable articles of jewelry.  The day following the little girl was taken into the town to the magistrate, to whom she gave the names of at least two of the murderers, whom she had frequently seen with her father at his house.  One of these men was a sheikh, and comparatively rich.  Other arrests were also made, and eventually one of the persons arrested made a confession, upon the strength of which seven Arabs were placed on their trial, all of whom were convicted and sentenced to death—the informer being subsequently spared.

            I had no sooner heard this horrible tale than it occurred to me, that if I could get permission to establish my apparatus in a suitable position, the execution would form the subject of an interesting photography.  The execution was fixed for an early hour on the following morning, so that I at once hastened to the prison, and obtained the name of the officer appointed to command the troops who were to guard the scaffold, and from him I obtained the necessary permission to establish myself on the spot most suitable for the purpose.  To avoid the possibility of exciting the feelings of the natives in any way, I determined to conduct the operation with as much secrecy as possible.  With this view I hired one of the light wagons used for crossing the desert, and, with the aid of a couple of tarpaulins, soon contrived a somewhat capacious operating room, in which I placed all the requisite apparatus.  By the time I had made these preparations it was necessary to start for the scene of the execution, as it was certain that an immense crowd would assemble in front of the scaffold.  It was but a little past midnight when I arrived on the spot, yet even then the driver had some difficulty in making his way through the mob.  Having ascertained, by means of my compass, the direction from which the rays of the rising sun would fall upon the scaffold, I placed my wagon accordingly; and then, with the self-satisfied feeling of a man who has sacrificed his personal convenience to the interests of his profession, I lighted a cigar and moved into the open air, more with the object of preventing any attempt on the part of the natives (whoa re great thieves) to cut a hole in the tarpaulins than of admiring the beauty of the night.

            The crowd of men was immense; and as the rays of the rising sun fell upon their upturned, swarthy faces, it was painful to see the earnest and even frightened expression of their countenances.  I had been present not long before at an execution in France, which thousands had assembled to witness; and the recollections of the jests and laughter I had then heard made the dead silence on the present occasion more impressive.  I at first thought that this silence was owing to the number about to be executed, yet I could not reconcile this interpretation of it with the reports I had heard of the indifference of the natives to human life.  I asked the driver of the wagon if such silence was usual, and learned from him, half a native himself, the reason.  The Arabs are followers of Mahomet, and believe that their bodies, after death, will, by means of the tuft of hair they leave on their otherwise shaven heads, be conveyed by their prophet into paradise, Now, the head, which is completely separated from the trunk by the action of the guillotine, can alone, according to their belief, be placed in paradise, and as the body must be left on earth, they conclude (what is perfectly natural, seeing the nature of their paradise) that this arrangement will not contribute much to the owner’s gratification.  (I have since heard, that when the native chiefs executed a man by cutting off his head, the executioner invariably left it attached to the body by a bit of flesh, with a view to obviating the inconvenience referred to above.)

            I purpose, (sic) in a future letter, giving you a detailed account of my photographic apparatus and arrangements for taking instantaneous pictures; it may, however, be interesting to your readers to know that I used on this occasion a stereoscopic camera with twin lenses.  The process, of course, was collodion, some of Hardwich’s make, and the bath contained glycyrrhizine in small quantity, to which the marvellous sensitiveness I attained in some of my pictures may be attributed.  My lenses (view) were 7/8 of an inch in diameter, and 3 ¾ in focus; a pair of Grubb’s exquisite little productions, and the aperture was of the enormous size of 5/8 of an inch, nearly the full aperture, and I can assure you, that even then they worked very sharply, and as rapidly as a good portrait combination.  Part of the day before I had been busily employed in fashioning an instantaneous movement for uncovering the lenses; and, considering that the only available tools were those which were to be found in my portmanteau, I think I succeeded remarkably well.  The stop was not quite as good as if it had been turned out of one of your London shops, but it worked to perfection, and being composed of cardboard, sewing cotton, and pins, it was lighter, and consequently more mobile than brass.  My ambition was not merely to obtain a picture of the instrument of death, that I could have got any time, but to test to the utmost the wonderful powers with which I fancied my arrangements were endowed, by taking the moving objects actually in transition—the head in progress of falling into the basket, or the sharp blade in the midst of its descent.  How well I succeeded you shall have an opportunity of judging, as soon as I have time to print off a copy of the negatives.

            The criminals were not brought on the scaffold together, but led up one at a time.  The first was the sheikh, who seemed perfectly indifferent to his fate.  So rapidly was he bound to the plank and thrust under the axe, that I had barely time to insert the plate-holder and get the instantaneous movement into order before the sharp edge descended, and his head rolled into the basket.  This picture was quite successful, and so was the second, but the third presented a dim appearance, the fourth was nearly, and the fifth and six were wholly, invisible.  How to account for this I know not, unless the atmosphere around the scaffold became in some way affected by the blood, the odour of which was distinctly perceptible to me.  Perhaps some of your readers may be able to suggest the reason.

            My letter has reached such a length that I have neither time nor space at present to tell you of a rather serious difficulty in which my photographic ardour was nearly involving me with the friends of the deceased.  It is all over now, however, and I have still a whole skin, although it must be confessed, “more by good luck than good management.”  Perhaps I may devote the next rainy day to an account of my adventure, for the edification and warning of such of your readers as may be tempted to wander amongst a half-civilised tribe in search of food for the camera. 

                                                Yours truly, C. A.

 

1858:  P News, Sept. 17, vol. I, #2, p. 20:

            Miscellaneous:

            PRIZES FOR SUBJECTS RELATING TO PHOTOGRAPHY.—The Industrial Society of Mulhouse has proposed, amongst many others, the following subject for a prize:--“To bring into commerce at lest five hundred kilogrammes (about half a ton) of paper, having all the necessary qualities for photographic purposes.”  The prize will be a gold medal of the value of one thousand or of five hundred franks (£40 or £20), or a silver medal, according to the importance of the subject.  Everything must be delivered before February 15^th, 1859.  The Society will send a programme containing full particulars to any one who wishes for them.

            A PHOTOGRAPHIC ACCIDENT.—As M. Courtais, a photographer of Bordeaux, was a few evenings ago engaged in his laboratory, a bottle of sulphuric ether suddenly burst, and igniting at a candle set fire to his clothes.  In a short time he was enveloped in flames, and rushed down stairs, where some persons extinguished the fire.  He was, however, so horribly burned that he expired the next day.

            [JEPHSON/LOVELL REEVE IN BRITTANY]    Among the tourists who have been exploring Brittany this summer, we hear of one party, the members of which were lately doing so “with a purpose,”—namely, the production of a book illustrated by photographic drawings.  The party in question consists of the Rev. J. M. Jephson, Mr. Lovell Reeve, and a photographic staff.  This party, as we are informed, landed at St. Malo, and after encircling, as it were, the ancient province, began their way homeward through the centre of Brittany.  They will bring home with them about a hundred first-class stereoscopic pictures, including cathedrals, calvaries, crosses, castles, antiquities, landscapes, fountains, old houses, streets, costumes, and some of the great Druidical monuments still to be seen along the coast of the Bay of Morbihan.  Such a party must have encountered roll incidents by the way, and when they entered a town with tent and apparatus, were probably often mistaken for acrobats or Thespian stroller.—Anatæum

 

1858:  P News, Sept. 24, vol. I, #3, p. 29-30:

            Critical Notices.

            The Photographic Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.  First Notice.

            It is a happy idea, on the part of the directors of the Crystal Palace, that in addition to the already long list of attractions, there should be added another item—in other words, a Photographic Gallery.  This is as it ought to be.  Photography has now assumed a very important position among the arts and sciences, and it is only fitting and proper that it should have appropriated to itself a court or gallery at Sydenham, and that in that court there should be a collection which should in every way be worthy of the importance of the art and the Palace.  Fresh discoveries are being made every day, and every day we find out some new application of this wonderful art, whether it be a means by which we can the more easily detect a prisoner, or record the rapid flight of a cannon ball through the air.  When first we heard of the idea of a photographic collection at Sydenham we thought that not only were the directors taking proper steps in regard to making the Palace even more attractive to the public than it is at present, and not only were they taking a course which must tend to increase their dividends, but that they were placing a means within reach of the photographic world of keeping a record of the progress which the art is daily making.  We thought that it must be indeed a pleasing feature in the attractions of the Palace to the amateur or beginner in photography that here he might have an opportunity of consulting the best results of each particular “process,” and thus be enabled to judge of the efficiency or inefficiency of any particular mode of development, and that in this way the Sydenham Gallery might become an object of constant interest not only to the amateur, but to the public, who, having no means of seeing the progress in the art except in the shop windows, and not feeling sufficient attraction or interest in a simple exhibition of photographs, they might, by the more frequent familiarisation of the eye with photographic progress, acquire a more wide-spread interest than they do at present.

            These were some of the thoughts which occurred to us, we say, when we heard of a Photographic Gallery being about to be formed at Sydenham, and with every desire of being au courant in all that relates to photography, and that we might (as it is our desire and intention) keep our readers equally so, we proceeded last week to Sydenham for the purpose of inspecting “The Photographic Collection.”   We cannot but express disappointment at the almost entire absence of new pictures.  It was to us by no means a new exhibition.  Wherever we turned it seemed as though an old friend nodded to us, and that with an almost self-complacent air.  Here we met with one whom we had first known at Manchester, and with whom we had afterwards renewed acquaintance at the South Kensington Exhibition; but not content with this, is again made its appearance in the Coventry Street Exhibition.  This we had thought the culminating point of re-exhibition, but what was our astonishment to meet again with these old friends who seem to have retained (notwithstanding their exhibitive campaigns) all their juvenescence.  The reader will be inclined to agree with us, that the least thing that could be expected, was some new pictures on the occasion of opening a Photographic Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.

            Of course it may be urged that just at present there is some difficulty in obtaining new photographs; then why not delay the opening and wait until such time as they are obtainable?  By all means let the present collection be replaced with something which shall reflect credit upon the Palace and the art.

            There is in the Crystal Palace Gallery, as far as regards light, arrangements for hanging everything which can conduce to a successful exhibition.  The screen saloon principle we very much admired, and for such a gallery as that at Sydenham it is decidedly preferable.  In the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester, the screen was used, but owing to the narrowness of the gallery the saloon principle, which was carried out in the picture galleries on a large scale, could not be introduced in the Photographic Gallery, as that portion of it which was appropriated to photographs was in such close contiguity to the orchestra that for three or four hours in the afternoon it was impossible to examine any of the photographs in the front of the screens, owing to the crowds who listened to the music.  The saloon principle was admirably carried out at the fourth Kensington Exhibition, and it could not but strike the visitor how much it conduced to his comfort in examining the photographs, since it enables people to inspect the pictures in peace without that continual throng which is always passing behind them, when pictures are hung in long lines.  The colour of the screens, which is a neutral or tea green tint, is admirably suited for a background; and where there are spaces, which must necessarily occur now and then between the frames, it never obtrudes itself as more staring colours do, nor does it offend or strike the eye s disagreeable.  It is worthy of notice how different is the effect here from that produced at Coventry Street, where there were dark rooms and bad light, and, to make things worse, a dirty looking background which gave a somber appearance to the room that was anything but agreeable.

            Of course those works which are new deserve our first attention, and amongst these we may mention Herbert Watkin’s series of portraits of contemporaneous celebrities.  These will no doubt prove interesting to the general public, who will be anxious to behold the lineaments of those about whom they may have heard or read much.  Who, for instance, would not feel interested in seeing the portrait of William Howard Russell, the Crimean and Indian special correspondent of the Times?  he who certainly raised the profession of “special correspondent” to an enviable position; who has thrilled the world with wonderful descriptions, and astonished it with his keen observations.  He is indeed the photographer of life as it is.  With all the correctness of the camera does he transmit pen-and-ink pictures to paper, which make the blood of the reader circulate the faster by the wonderful power of his word-painting.  We say, who is there, then, that would not feel a great desire to look on him as he really is, with his smiling face and patriarchal beard?  None, we will venture to reply; and so might we say of each celebrity, who in the circle in which he moves is a centre around which many admirers revolve, be that circle political, literary, artistic, dramatic, or scientific.  This portion of the Exhibition will at all times prove an attraction, though to speak of the pictures from a photographic and artistic point of view, we cannot say that we admire them much.  We think that it will not be denied that generally the human face has some defect or other, which, as we have it constantly before us, we do not so readily notice; but the moment that the face is portrayed on the glass or paper of a photograph, when there is the absence of that colour which hides what is here a perceptible defect, it is immediately noticed, and the photograph, though a good cone, is condemned as being a bad likeness; another view is taken, possibly so as to exclude the defective part, and then we have what is termed a good portrait, which in reality is only half of the truth, but decidedly the pleasantest half, because it administers to the vanity of the sitters by the exclusion of what would be painful. If, then, this much can be said of ordinary plain photographs, what must be said of such exaggerated pictures as those of Mr. Watkins, where every one of the defects (which perhaps under other circumstances would hardly be noticed) is brought forward with faithful yet painful fidelity?  To show that we are not taking too extreme a view of the case, we cannot do better than refer the reader to a hideous portrait of the eminent tragedian Mr. Barry Sullivan, which is here given with an alarming reality; all the smallpox marks which unfortunately that gentleman has on his face are here so exaggerated, that on inspection the face looks as though it were taken upon a coarse-grained canvas.  Then there are other faces—for instance, those of Mr. Robert Bell, Viscount Combermere, Lord Palmerston, and many others—which look decidedly repulsive, but the portraits of those whom time has furrowed are the least able to bear exaggeration.  All this series are given with a truthfulness free from flattery, which makes the human face appear anything but divine.  The whole of these photographs are open to the above objection of exaggeration.  Some faces do not suffer so much as others, but speaking generally we think it desirable that the size of these pictures should be smaller, and then they would be free from their most objectionable traits.

 

1858:  P News, Sept. 24, vol. I, #3, p. 34:

Arrangement of the Telescope, &c., For Astro-Photography.

                                                                                                            September 16^th, 1858.

Dear Mr. Editor.—I am a young photographic tyro, and seeing you have devoted a space to the answers of those who may choose to refer to you for advice, will you be so good as to give us some intelligible method of arranging the telescope and camera for taking heavenly bodies; something in the able manner in which the article on the microscope is treated in the first number, and oblige.  Your well-wisher, P.F.P.

(We trust that the following extract from a paper which the editor [William Crookes] read before the Royal Society, “On the Photography of the Moon,” will give the desired information.  In speaking of the Liverpool equatorial we wrote:--

“The polar axis and telescope together weigh about five tons, and whilst all parts are so truly and smoothly fitted that this enormous mass is moved equatorially by means of a small watermill with such marvelous accuracy, that a star viewed through it appears absolutely stationary, its firmness is such that a hard blow against the side merely produces a scarcely perceptible momentary deflection.  The object glass is 8 inches in diameter, and has a sidereal focus of 12.5 feet—the diameter of the moon’s image in this focus being about 1.35 inches.

“The eye-piece was removed, and in its place the body of a small camera was attached, so that the moon’s image would fall on the ground glass or sensitive film in the usual manner.

“The clockwork movement was only sufficient to follow the moon approximately when on the meridian, but as the pictures were nearly all taken when the moon was some distance past the meridian, and when consequently the declination and atmospheric refraction were changing rapidly, it was necessary, notwithstanding the short time required to take the pictures, to correct for the imperfect motion of the telescope.  This was done by means of slow-motion screws attached to the right ascension and declination circles, which are each 4 feet in diameter.  The finder had an eyepiece of a power of 200 applied to it, having cross wires in its focus.

“The modus operandi in taking the pictures was as follows:-- The telescope having been moved until the moon’s image was in the centre of the focusing glass, the water-mill was turned on, and the dark slide containing the sensitive collodion plate was substituted for the ground glass.  Mr. Hartnup then took his station at the finder, and, with a tangent rod in each hand, by a steady and continuous movement, kept the point of intersection of the cross wires stationary on one spot of the moon’s surface.  When the motion was most perfectly neutralised.  I uncovered the sensitive plate at a given signal and exposed it, counting the seconds by means of a loud ticking chronometer by my side.  From the ease with which on my first attempt I could keep the cross wires in the finder fixed on one point of the moon by means of the tangent rods, I confidently believe that with the well0-tutored hands and consummate skill which guided this noble instrument, the moon’s image was as motionless on the collodion film as it could have been were it a terrestrial object.”)

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 1, vol. I, #4, p. 38-39:

            Notes for Alpine Photographers.

            Lausanne, Switzerland, Sept. 16.

            Dear Sir,--Perhaps a short gossiping account of a pedestrian tour lately made by myself and a friend to the valley of Zermatt and Aosta may not be uninteresting to some of your readers. Being amateur photographers, we determined to try how far we could prosecute our favourite art on such an excursion without bothering ourselves with too much “impedimenta.”  Photography was only a secondary affair; a fact necessary to be borne in mind.  But we kept our photographic eye open throughout our tour, and perhaps a note or two as to what we saw worthy of the photographer’s attention may prove useful to some of our brethren of the camera intending a similar excursion next season.

            Although I had had very little practice in any of the dry or preservative processes, and that practice had not particularly prepossessed me in favour of any of them, I determined to try the oxymel process of Mr. Lewellyn, which seemed to me to offer the greatest facility in preparation, and the greatest probabilities of success in the result.  This determination I came to in order to avoid the disagreeable necessity of developing my negatives “en route” at night in a strange place, and after a hard day’s walk, when sleep is absolutely necessary.  Now the plates (stereoscopic) so prepared were all successful as far as exposure, development, and intensity were concerned; but (how often has the poor amateur thus to qualify his most successful results!) a mishap befel [sic] them, which rendered all more or less worthless for printing purposes.  Not possessing a box for holding glass plates, I borrowed one from a friend.  This box was made of tin, with internal grooves as usual, but, unfortunately, the interior is blackened with a very coarse lampblack, mixed with sine vehicle, and smells like the strongest soot from an ordinary coal fire.  Although I took the precaution of placing some papier Joseph on top of the plates to prevent their shaking about, I found the plates, when I took them out in order to develop them, covered over with little black atoms from the lampblack, which it was impossible to get rid of by washing, and which bespangled the developed plates with spots, stars, and comets, according to the shape and size of the particles deposited.  I inclose a print, a bit of the Görner glacier, which runs into the valley of Zermatt.  Here you can stand on the green grass and touch the glacier with your hand at the same time.  The negative was developed some ten or twelve days after exposure.  had all the plates been as free from spots as that, I should have esteemed them worth preserving as mementoes of places I may not have an opportunity of revisiting.  My misfortune, or, as some may think it, my want of foresight, may prove a useful caution to beginners not to employ similarly blackened boxes for holding their oxymel plates.

            With the print of the glacier I send you another taken by me last week on a plate prepared according to the novel formula about which I wrote to you.  The plate had been sensitised a week; exposure 3 ½ minutes.  If you think the result tolerable, I shall be happy to give you more particulars concerning the process.

            In addition to these oxymel plates, I took with me a few plates prepared most carefully according to Dr. H. Norris’s plan.  I presume my collodion was not adapted for the process, for I got no good results.  The same collodion which gave good negatives with four or five minutes’ exposure, when employing oxymel, afforded but a faint positive when employing Norris’s formula; and I am convinced, from a number of experiments carefully made since my return home, that the oxymel or syrup processes are the easiest, and by far the most certain of all the preservative processes.  To do anything at all with gelatine, it is necessary to have a sample of pyroxyline made by a very experienced hand, and even then the preparation of the plates is much more difficult and tedious, the exposure very long, and the results, in my opinion, no better.  In the last number of one of your contemporaries there is a paper by Mr. Lewellyn on a modified oxymel process, which will be found most excellent although it is diametrically opposed in theory and practice to the opinions of Dr. H. Norris and others.  Mr. Lewellyn would add to our many obligations to him if he would tell us exactly what formula for the silver bath he uses, and whether he manufactures his own collodion, or whether he employs, as I have been told he does, that made by Ponting.  While the English photographic authorities inculcate the necessity of having a bath slightly acid, the French and other continental authorities, Davanne, Monkhove, &c., as strongly insist upon a neutral one, nay, even one with a slightly alkaline reaction.  I have been trying lately, side by side, a neutral and an acid one, both for wet and dry collodion.  The films sensitised in either bath are equally free from fog, but the neutral bath gives far greater rapidity and density of image.  I have employed distilled water and rainwater for the bath, without any perceptible difference in the results.  But this is a long digression from our road to Zermatt.  S.  (To be continued)

(Our correspondent has forwarded us two very beautiful pictures; they each speak volumes for the excellence of the processes by which they were taken.  The one of the glacier has a few “comets” in one corner; but they are evidently owing to the unphilosophical manner in which the maker of the tin box had tried to make it further opaque.  Besides, comets at this present season are objects of great interest.  We shall be glad to receive a full account of the novel mode by which the second named plate was prepared, as also the continuation of the present article, which we are sure will be read with great interest.)

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 1, vol. I, #4, p. 40-41:

            Critical Notices.  The Photographic Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.  Second Notice.

            There is here an almost utter absence of compositive photography, except in the productions of Mr. Robinson, of Leamington, which almost reconcile us to the principle which we believe scarcely applicable to photography.  But we will not now enter into the question, as it would be foreign to our purpose, and would require more space than we have at command, but at some future time we may take the subject up, as much on account of its applicability, its utility, and the general considerations which may be urged in favour of its use, as of what may be said against it.  We have no objection to single or even double figure subjects, which can be taken in one sitting; what we most object to is the patching process.  The photograph, “Fading away,” is an exquisite picture of a painful subject.  There is such an amount of true feeling in it, that we cannot help giving it a lengthy notice.  The picture is treated in the following manner, and is an exemplification of these beautiful lines by the poet Shelley:--

            ‘Must, then, that peerless form

            Which love and admiration cannot view

            Without a beating heart; those azure veins,

            Which steal like streams along a field of snow

            That lovely outline, which is fair

            As breathing marble, perish?’

In the centre is a beautiful girl, on whose countenance is evidently written her doom; wan and wasted, she reclines on an impromptu bed, behind which stands her sister, sorrowfully musing, and immediately facing the sister is the tender mother, who gazes on the wasted form of her child with great material anxiety.  On her knee is the Bible, which she has just been reading, and at the window stands the lover of the sick girl.—He with melancholy pensiveness is watching, from the window, the setting sun, which, to his eye, is evidently a type of her, who, for him, is no less surely “fading away.”  It seems almost incredible that such a difficult subject could be so beautifully treated by a merely mechanical process.  But the great success which attends Mr. Robinson’s efforts is owing to his being so ably seconded by a young lady, who, to say the least of it, is thoroughly able to appreciate and enter into the feeling of the poetry or sentiment which it is his object to elucidate.  Be the character what it may, she thoroughly understands her part, and, with an art peculiarly her own, she makes the picture something extraordinary.  In this instance we are utterly unable to understand how she can enter into the subject in a manner so con amore, because, of all characters that of a sick person is the most difficult to delineate.  Even on the stage, assisted by all the trickery of the profession, a correct representation of the character is a triumph of artistic skill; but when we come to photography, which would expose anything like extraneous superfluousness, it is really astonishing.  That there are defects in the picture we do not deny; there are many; but these, we apprehend, are not attributable to any fault of the composer, but are inseparable from the means by which the picture is obtained.  For the size of the picture there is decidedly too much drapery on either side of the windows, while the arrangement of one or two things is slightly out of drawing.  But probably these are things which may be obviated in future attempts.  Then, again, though the secondary figures which are necessary to form the picture are good, and are equal to the average run of good photographic models, yet the difference between the model—the gem of models—and the others, is painfully perceptible.  For instance, the figure which represents the sister fails to give that true expression which is requisite for the part assigned her.  She enters but partially into the feeling of the subject, and the expression is consequently forced; hence, instead of a countenance portraying melancholy feelings, we have one of blank musing, not quite in keeping with the rest of the picture; while the lady who plays the part of mother, does it so well that one cannot help being struck with the truly maternal expression of her face.  There is all that solicitude which motherly instincts prompt—that loving gaze which the mother bestows on her favourite sick one.  The male figure is well placed, and although the beholder only sees his back, there is in the attitude a pensiveness which at once tells its own story.  We wish Mr. Robinson every success in that peculiar and difficult branch of the art; and if it is to be recognised as the artistic department of photography, let us at least have men who can do the proper thing, and in the proper manner.  This picture gives a good idea of Mr. Robinson’s capabilities, and we must really warn Mr. O. G. Rejlander to look to his laurels.  There are one or two other pictures in which we again have the favourite model.  The first is a small picture entitled “I know.”   There is a girl walking along in a thoughtful mood, dressed with scrupulous care in the country fashion—in fact, the costume partakes of the antique, and it would require but little stretch of the fancy, to imagine that she was the “Evangeline” of Longfellow—by her side is a smiling, wicked-looking little lass, who evidently is in the secret as to the cause of all this melancholia, undoubtedly the result of a love affair, and the picture represents the time when the mischievous little teaze (sic) is rallying her friend, and is with a chuckle uttering the words “I know.”  This is the only attempt we have seen at humour on the part of Mr. Robinson, and he ahs the advantage over other compositive photographers, that he carefully excludes what is vulgar, and knows where to stop.  There is also another picture in which there is a girl dying (our favourite being again the model), represented with such statue-like fidelity, that our admiration is divided between it and “Fading away.”  The drapery in this study is something marvelous; every fold is so carefully placed, that were it a copy from a marble statue, there could not be greater precision and accuracy displayed.  Underneath this picture are the following lines:--

            ‘She never told her love;

            But let concealment, like a worm I’ the bud,

            Feed on her damask cheek.’

Admirably does the face of the model portray the feeling of secret love.  There is such a gentle loveableness, and, at the same time, such an unmurmuring resignation, that were this figure painted on canvas or sculptured in marble, great praise would be due to the artist who could so idealise the poet’s description.  How much greater, then, is the praise due to the artist who has borrowed the expression from a living model!  There are some smaller but less pretending pictures here by Mr. Robinson, evidently impersonations of “Little Red Riding Hood,” whose adventures with the ravenous wolf have been more extensively read than many more pretentious volumes.  In these pictures there is evidence of the same care in grouping which so distinguished Mr. Robinson’s efforts; but the model is far inferior to the one we have already alluded to.  Probably we find a greater difference owing to the contrast.  But if we recollect rightly, the nursery favourite had scarcely such a smirking face as that of any of the figures in these pictures.  In this lies the chief fault, that the model has been unable fully to appreciate the task which she has to perform; but in the hands of such a skilful trainer as Mr. Robinson we may hope to see greater results.  Altogether, the “Red Riding Hood” series cannot by any means be compared with the other studies we have noticed.  While we see many of Mr. Robinson’s best productions here, we miss that most charming of all his poetic subjects, “Juliet,” that was exhibited at South Kensington, and which we shall not soon forget.  There is also one frame which was exhibited at Coventry-street Exhibition, with three studies, viz., “Vanity,” “Fear,” “Devotion.”  All these are remarkably clever, but his decided success is his study of “Fear.”  There is in the face such a true expression of fear, that the inscription is needless.  How strikingly it contrasts with those maudlin attempts to illustrate fear, which are constantly made in the ghost pictures for the stereoscope.  There is a refined delicacy in the expression which is not to be met with but at rare intervals in compositive photography.  What does Mr. Robinson think of the suggestion of illustrating Longfellow’s Evangeline?  Here is an opportunity for him to enter upon a subject which he is fully competent to handle.  There is in that poem all the simplicity and genuineness of feeling which are necessary for this class of picture.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 1, vol. I, #4, p. 44:

            Microscopic Photography.—M. A. Bertsch has succeeded in reproducing, by photography, the parasite of the parasite of the bee, by magnifying it 1,000 diameters, that is to say, 1,000,000 times in surface.  This acarus, says the Patrie, unknown hitherto, is covered with a superior carapace in form of an arched roof.  Its claws, armed with air-holes and sharp claws, enable it to fix itself in a powerful manner upon the miscroscopic insect which carries it about, and at the expense of the feebleness of which it feeds itself.  In the mysteries of creation, where ceases these strange series of the infinitely small?

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 1, vol. I, #4, p. 44-45:

            Correspondence.  Views for Photographers Near London.

            (Several correspondents have favoured us with suggestions on the above subject.  Whilst we beg to offer our thanks to all, we have selected the following extracts, as being likely to interest our readers.)

            Sir,--If any of the following suggestions, taken with the many others you will doubtless receive, are of the least use, I am fully repaid.  Every place mentioned I have myself visited on foot.            To Watford by slow train:  alight at Bushey station (not going into the town of Watford), then westward to Hamper Mill, on the Colne (a gem), an extensive view, looking towards the north-west from a field opposite the entrance gate; then southwards, towards Pinner, from a field near the residence of Mrs. March, may be seen westward Ruislip Common and Reservoir; proceed still towards Pinner, from the carriage drive of Mr. Faulkes (the outer gates are generally open), Epsom race stand, distant forty miles, may be seen; then to Pinner station, and so home.

            Or, having reached Hamper Mill, cross two fields, and over a style into Moor Park, the seat of Lord Ebury (all public walk), from a spot near the house is a most magnificent view north-east; then, leaving the park by the south-west lodge, is a very extensive view looking west.

            Then to Rickmansworth, and home by the Watford station, from which there are late trains.

            N.B.  Thirty-six gallons of table beer are every day placed in the market-place of the village of Rickmansworth, pro bono publico.

            Or to Watford station, thence to Cashiobury, the seat of Earl Essex, through which there is a public path.  To see the beech trees alone would repay one for a journey of 500 miles.  There are charming little bits towards Aldenham, Bushey Heath, Croxly Green, chorley-wood Common.

            Or go by train to Bromley, Kent, then by public conveyance towards Sevenoaks, alight at the Polhill Arms on Malmscott hill, and revel for a long day in the beauties of the most lovely scenery, and home by same route.

            Or alight at the turnpike gate at Pratt’s Bottom, walk to Knockholt, and get admission to Chevening, the seat of Lord Stanhope; ‘tis thrown open every Wednesday after one.  Then go and count the Knockholt beeches till dinner time, and get back to Pratt’s Bottom in time to catch the coach.

            Or, being at Bromley, go (all public) across Sir S. Scott’s Park, Bonner’s Park, or to the best cricket ground in England, Chislehurst; have a peep at the Church, and return by the road passing through Widmore; these latter famous, teste the works of Mr. A. Melluish, Mr. B. Smith, and others.

            Then there are not a few, engaged all the week in London, who go by early train to Epsom, and walk over the Mickbarndowns to Box-hill or Dorking, have dinner, and home by train through Reigate, and they can testify to the beautiful views they saw, and the proprietors of the hotels to the huge dinners they ate.

            A walk from Gadstone to Reigate passes many beautiful places.  The Rook’s-nest at Gadstone, Nutfield, Bletchingley, all rich with quaint old chimneys and gables.

            Or go to Abbey-wood station, by conveyance to Bexley Heath, walk to Bexley, then by North Cray Church to Foot’s-cray; but a visit to this country particularly requires inquiry about conveyances, which are usually in a transition state.  There is most beautiful foliage at Goot’s-cray Place (Lord Bexley’s), and also beautiful spots on the river Crouch.

            Or go to Ponders End station, walk to Chingford, then through a part of Epping Forest to Woodford.

            Or to Staines, see rectory-house, Ankerwyke yews, &c., cross the bridge, and go by Old Windsor to Windsor.

            18^th September, 1858.   Sarah C. M.

 

            Sir,--Permit me to mention a few spots in and near London, which I think would be available to the photographer.

            The first I shall name is Dartford.  The camera might be placed close to the railway station.  The view would comprise a portion of the river Darwent, but more like a lake than a river, with a good deal of pretty weed floating in the water, and picturesquely surrounded, as it were, with willows and other trees, many of them dropping over the water.  At a short distance would be seen a very extensive building, a paper manufactory.  I would suggest a walk between Strood and Maidstone, including Darnley Park, and Cobham Hall, the Medway, and the hop gardens (when approaching ripeness).  This I propose surveying, as also the country between Dartford and Sevenoaks, which, I am told, abounds with antiquated houses and country scenery.   I propose also a walk from Woolwich to Erith.  There is a pretty bit between Abbey-wood station and Beadon-well, but it is all up hill, and I found a fly from the station very acceptable (it carried five, and cost two shillings and sixpence).  I was not able to photograph this, as I had an engagement a little farther on.  Purfleet appears very pretty from the water, and I have no doubt several good views might be taken there.

            Between Carshalton church and West Croydon station there are various picturesque views; Carshalton parsonage and Wandle seen from near the church, the road to Beddington, Beddington church, churchyard, house and park, with crows’ nests, the Wandle, clear stream weeds, felled timber, &c., Wootten Mill, on the Wandle, towards West Croydon.

            Wimbledon Park, approached from the station, would be a quiet place to take some views of foliage.

            Doubtless the towing path between Hampton Court and Weybridge would be available, keeping the camera away from the water’s edge, in order to allow the towing horses to pass, otherwise both photographer and camera might perform an involuntary summersault on the slack rope.

            On, and between Clapham and Wandsworth Common, one or two views might be taken, though, as far as I have seen it, not equal to Hornsey for the camera.

            Norbury Park and the Mole may be said to be the perfection of wooded scenery.  The parts I know are between one and two miles from the Box-hill station.  A good view of Box-hill can be had a very short distance north of the station.

            The view from the terrace, or from the Star and Garter, Richmond (or park if allowed), may be mentioned, but I am not very sanguine that it would form a pleasing camera picture.  If a sufficient breadth of country were taken to form a panorama, the effect would be improved, but this, I think, could only be properly done with a panoramic camera, not adapted to the tourist of a day.

            I understand that Perivale church is the very picture of a country church, and ought to be photographed.  I have not yet seen it.

            From photographs I have seen, and what I have read of the topography, I should judge that about St. Albans a good deal would be found to suit the camera.  I have the treat in store.

            One day I mounted Muswell Hill, from Hornsey, and passing the road-side inn, with pond in front, kept to the right, and getting over a style, or between some posts, I found an excellent view of the new County Lunatic Asylum at Colney Hatch from the fields.  It reminded me somewhat of Robertson’s views of Constantinople.

            There is much ground about Hampstead Heath that the photographer might occupy.  Mr. Archer once told met that on a clear morning, and early, the Crystal Palace might be seen from the heath, with St. Paul’s, as it were, in a valley beneath.  There is a secluded nook almost closed in with timber north of Highgate ponds, on the east side of Caen Wood, that would be available on an exceedingly bright day.

            Mr. Archer also told me that between Forest-gate station and Leytonstone, were some trees that would form good separate studies.

            I saw a magnificent view, by Archer, taken in Eltham Park, but I believe it was by extraordinary favour that he gained admittance.

            The scenery is rather hilly and wild about Buckhurst Hill, between Woodford and Loughton.  There is a curious oak, split in two parts, both living, between the turnpike, Woodford, and the Bald Faced Stag.

            I propose investigating Chigwell-row, Hainault Forest, starting from Woodford station.,

            There are some pretty bits of the New River, castellated engine house, &c., along the “Green Lanes,” running north from Highbury-park, Stoke Newington, and the new church, Stoke Newington, would form a good interior view, I should think, the capitals of the columns being foliated, and there being carved work about the chancel.

            There are many days on which fine views might be taken about London; for instance, St. Paul’s, and each bank of the river, and bridges; from Southwark bridge, a very retired spot, St. Paul’s, and the Temple gardens; Somerset House, and the Houses of Parliament, from Waterloo and Hungerford bridges; the Crystal Palace, the river bank, and Westminster bridge, with a glimpse of Lambeth palace, in one view, from the strand end of Hungerford bridge.  I was much struck with this one magnificent day this summer, and we have had very many such days.

            At low water I think a venturesome photographer might take good views of Lambeth Palace, and the Houses of Parliament from the middle of the river.  There are a few dry spots.  Let him be provided with fishing boots, and a boat not far off, and commence operations as soon before low water as possible.

            I may mention that I find the late Mr. Scott Archer’s camera, an excellent one for working wet collodion in the open air, as it enables me to dispense with a tent.  The only chemicals I carry are collodion, silver bath, and developer, with a bath of common water to dip the plate in after developing.  Mr. Archer did all his pictures so, and they are equal to any.  His improved plate box is a capital contrivance, each plate rests in a separate cell, in the same way as in an ordinary dark slide, resting on the corners only.  There is also a plan of ventilating the camera, which is pleasant in hot weather, and prevents the vapour of ether being inhaled.  I enclose  a print from a negative, over-exposed, which I took last year, on Good Friday, the only whole holiday of the London man of business.  That day this year was unfortunately too windy for outdoor operations.

            20^th September, 1858              W.E.H.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 1, vol. I, #4, p. 46:

            To Remove the Black Varnish from Glass Positives.  To Obtain Strongly Printing Negatives From Faint Glass Positives.  [ONLY last paragraph transcribed]

…        One of the plates in the photographically illustrated book recently produced by Mr. Lovell Reeve, “Teneriffe, an Astronomer’s Experiment,” was printed from such a second negative, which, in its turn, was taken through the medium of a transparent positive from a first negative, which had actually passed the several earlier months of its existence as an opaque positive, backed up with black varnish, and mounted on a mahogany board, and it was weak even then.  Nevertheless 2,000 paper copies have been already printed from it through means of its “second negative,” and the public demand will alone settle how many more copies may still be taken.  C.P.S.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 1, vol. I, #4, p. 50:

            The Comet.

            During the months preceding March last great preparations were being made in the photographic world to take photographs of the eclipse of that orb which plays such an important part in the economy of photography.  But, unfortunately, the weather prevented the possibility of obtaining anything like a satisfactory picture; indeed, nothing worth speaking of was obtained.  These attempts to perpetuate the occurrence of events which occur at lengthened intervals are important, not only to contemporaneous astronomers, but likewise as records, that may be handed down for the guidance and observation of future astronomers.

            It is, therefore, not a little surprising, that while photographers should have been so fully alive to the importance of taking views of the eclipse of the sun, nothing is being done at the present moment to record the visit of the brilliant long-tailed “celestial vagabond,” which nightly attracts such an amount of attention, both from the scientific, and the mass.  To take a view of the comet by means of photography, we are of opinion that an astronomical telescope would not be sufficient, both because the light would be too feeble, and because the field of view would be so very limited, not embracing more than about a degree, whilst the comet extends over nearly thirty degrees.

            We think that a portrait combination of as large an aperture and as long a focus as could be obtained, would answer the purpose best, if means were taken to neutralise the movement consequent upon the rotation of the earth, by mounting it equatorially, and driving it by clock-work, or similar power, as in many astronomical telescopes.  It is not to be expected that persons could in any moderate time fit up a camera in this way, but there are in England many telescopes mounted as above, and all that would be requisite, would be to fasten the camera on to the telescopic tube, so that it could be driven by the same machinery.  At present the nucleus of the comet is as bright as a star of the first magnitude, and would probably produce an impression on a sensitive collodion plate in the fraction of a second;’ but many minutes’ exposure would doubtless be required to obtain an impression of its tail.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 8, vol. I, #5, p. 52:

            Critical Notices.  The Photographic Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.  Concluding Notice.

            The next person whom we have to notice in compositive photography, is Mr. Grundy, of Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham.  There is nothing new from the studio of that gentleman in the present collection.  Already we have seen the whole of his productions at former exhibitions.  There is a great and very perceptible difference between the style of Mr. Robinson and that of Mr. Grundy.  The former, as we have shown in our last, attempts to delineate sentiment of a high class; and more or less illustrates poetic subjects.  The latter chooses subjects from every-day life, and in contradistinction to Mr. Robinson, portrays the real, rather than the ideal.  He is to photography what Teniers and Wilkie were to art.  He portrays, as they did, those characteristics of human nature which are seen in every-day life.  His most successful pictures are decidedly Dutch in feeling, and, therefore, more or less gross.  By this we do not mean anything derogatory to the class of picture, any more than that Dutch pictures of the highest class never exhibit anything bordering on the ideal.  We all know that even when sacred subjects are being treated by Cutch masters, the character which is sacred and holy receives the same treatment as the most profane subject would.  To illustrate more fully what we mean, we may merely recall to the mind of the reader any of the pictures by the Dutch masters if “Christ insulted,” and as an invariable rule, it will be found, that the figure representing the Saviour is of exactly the same type as those cruel mockers who surround him—and those are generally drunken Dutch boors.  So that it will be seen that there is seldom or ever on the part of Dutch masters any very poetic flights.  They are almost photographic in their transcripts of interiors, and this enables Mr. Grundy to enter fully into the spirit of Dutch composition.  They never crowd their pictures with useless detail; on the contrary, everything will be found in its proper place, and an examination of the detail only heightens the interest of the beholder, by the wonderful power which they display of imitative talent.  Mr. Grundy groups with a care, accuracy, and precision, which is far from painful.

            By this we mean, that crowding of objects into pictures which some photographic composers seem to think the acme of perfection, but which inspire in the mind of the beholder no more ennobling idea than would a walk through the Lowther Arcade; and which are in fact more like copies of the interior of a bazaar than anything which had been arranged so as to give artistic effect.  Mr. Grundy’s studies of  “Fishermen” ought to be highly prized by artists, as there is such an amount of care and tact displayed in the grouping.  We cannot speak so highly of his Turkish studies.  They are admirable in their arrangement, and a great knowledge of the costumes of that country is shown in the pictures; but the faces are decidedly Anglo-Saxon, and this, we think, spoils the whole beauty of these pictures.  Who that has seen the two chefs-d’œuvres entitled, “Dutch Fishermen,” can withhold his admiration?  They combine the greatest amount of perfection which we may reasonably expect in this department of art.  There is such clearness in the tone of the picture, such true feeling in the expression of the Fisherman’s face, such exquisite detail in regard to the furniture of the interior and the dress of the figure, even to the darned stockings, the wooden clogs, the stunted chairs and tables, the oval goblet, all of which strongly call to mind a copy of a picture by Teniers at his best period.  The best reason which we are enabled to give for the success which attends this class of picture is, that it is taken at one view; therefore, nothing is out of drawing, and there are none of the harsh combinations which may be seen in pictures which have been made up of several pieces.  The results of Mr. Grundy’s endeavours are successful to a certain degree, and this we apprehend arises from the fact of his having good models.

            Then we come to two or three attempts at composition which exhibit this branch of the art under the worst possible circumstances.  They are entitled “The Dutch Girl on Sunday,” and “The Dutch Girl on Monday.”  The first is a picture of a girl dressed in anti-Maccassar table covers, with no possible artistic effect; and why she should be denominated a Dutch girl at all, of if a Dutch girl, why she should represent a Dutch girl on Sunday, is certainly above our comprehension.  We would advise the artist who composed the piece, to give a little more lucid information in regard to the meaning which he attempts to convey.  There is certainly nothing in the countenance of the young lady that could justify the most imaginative being in thinking she was a Dutch girl.  On the contrary, she has a decided look of a Somersetshire servant maid, who has, in an hour of vanity. Arrayed herself in grandeur which ill becomes her.  These pictures are really the most stupid compositions we have ever seen, and we think we may with safety venture to advise the artist who has perpetrated them, to retire upon the laurels he has already acquired, lest he produce something of which he shall himself be ashamed.

            Dolamore and Bullock exhibit here some very fine views; we believe that they formed a part of the Kensington Exhibition; but, as far as we can recollect, they occupied positions in which we were unable to inspect them.

            The “View of Warwick Castle” is rendered in a manner to show with the greatest possible effect the extent of this noble building.  “St. Mary’s Porch, Oxford,” is a photograph of great beauty, and the rendering of the traceried iron work is really marvelous; the detail is finely given, while the antique sculpture is so well portrayed, as at once to attract attention.  Among the minor landscapes are Mr. B. B. Turner’s beautiful talbotype pictures.  We cannot help noticing the careful manner in which these pictures are printed, as well as the artistic mode in which Mr. Turner has treated all his groups of trees.

            Mr. Wilson, of Aberdeen, has contributed the little gems of landscapes which he exhibited at the late exhibition.  These are among the best instantaneous pictures we have yet beheld.  Who that has once seen his “Thunder Cloud” can forget the truthfulness with which he has caught the electrically charged cloud, and transferred it to paper, in a manner so as at once to catch the attention of the spectator by its very reality.  The views of the “Aberdeen Docks” are equally beautiful pieces of instantaneous photography; and his little picture entitled “Reach on the Don” is one of the most charming little bits of river scenery which we have ever beheld.  The ripple of the Don as it flows by, is wonderfully true to nature; in fact, it looks as though the lovely stream was, in reality, gently gliding along at our feet.  There are several frames here from Messrs. Ross and Thompson, studies of trees, which we think will recommend themselves to artists, as there is a great deal of botanical knowledge displayed in the selection and grouping of the pictures.  Here are also three frames of small studies of landscapes by Mr. Rosling, but only the mention of these is necessary, as there is nothing in them to recommend them, either in an artistic or photographic point of view.

            Next we come to Mr. Fenton’s views in Wales.  We think that nobody will be inclined to dispute Mr. Fenton’s unrivalled claim to be the best English landscape photographer.  He has succeeded in giving such breadth to his landscape pictures, that one is at first almost inclined to look upon them as copies of pictures.  The selection which has been made by the Crystal Palace authorities for the Sydenham Gallery is far from being an adequate representation of Mr. Fenton, and what he can do.  We miss that charming pair, the “Swallow Falls” and the “Ravine in the Lledr Valley,” which were the decided gems of the South Kensington and Coventry-street Exhibitions.  Those pictures deservedly ranked high as works of art, not only on account of the size, but also for the beauty of manipulation.  The set of views of Wales are, we hope, but the foreshadowing of still greater efforts on the part of Mr. Fenton.  The views on the continent, which were taken by Mr. Bedford at the command of her Majesty the Queen, are here exhibited again.  It would indeed be superfluous on our part to do more than even mention such works as these.  A verdict has been so generally pronounced in their favour, and they have so well deserved all the encomiums which have been heaped upon them, that we can only say, Go, Mr. Bedford, and charm us again in the same manner.

            Having thus dismissed the question of landscape photography, we of course come to the next feature of the exhibition, viz., portraiture.  We have already given an opinion upon the productions of Mr. Herbert Watkins; we will, therefore, now proceed to notice briefly the other specimens.  First, then, we have to call attention to the series of contemporaneous portraits by Mayall.  In regard to these pictures, they can scarcely be called photographs, inasmuch as there is nothing of the photograph left.  They are sepia drawings over photography, and, in many respects, there is a decided advantage in this, because exaggerations which sometimes appear in portraits of the defective portion of the face, are toned down in these pictures.  The style if peculiarly Mr. Mayall’s own; and the manner of producing, in black and white, that Rembrandtish effect, is very pleasing in many instances.  The series of portraits of eminent men which Mr. Mayall has collected, are now being engraved in the successive numbers of Cassell’s Illustrated Family Paper, and no doubt they will be looked upon as highly interesting, besides the value which must attach to them as correct likenesses.  Mr. T. R. Williams has the same series as he exhibited at South Kensington and Coventry-street.  We think that some new specimens ought to be produced by this gentleman.  He takes undoubted precedence among photographers for his untouched pictures, which are really marvelous; they are graceful and easy in attitude, and beautifully printed.  But we suspect that the success which attends Mr. Williams in his photographs, arises from the fact, that he seldom or ever prints anything but the head, and in the vignette style; this accounts for the beauty of his pictures, because vignette printing has always more or less charm about it, owing to the lightness which it gives to the figure; and again, there is the absence of that unruly member—to photographers—the hand, which always will obtrude itself upon your notice, whether you will or not.  The tinted pictures by Mr. Williams are remarkable for their softness of finish.  Then, again, Mr. Williams’s daguerreotype stereograms are something which nobody but himself can achieve.  There is in them such a charming softness and beauty that they at once attract and interest the visitor; and if we are not much mistaken, the table of coloured daguerreotype portraits will prove a very attractive feature of the exhibition.

            There is a series of Maull and Polyblank’s portraits, possessing individuality that no one can mistake.  These photographers are eminently happy in securing good expression of face, although, in many instances, the pose of the figures is anything but pleasing.  It would be idle on our part to even enumerate a series which is so well known as this.  The next which call for our attention are the carefully finished miniatures by Messrs. Lock and Whitfield.  The style in which these are executed is an entire refutation of the erroneous idea that photography cannot be applied to miniature painting.  The manner in which these pictures are finished reflects high credit upon the artist, although we would much rather have seen new faces; those at Sydenham are well known to us, as we have seen many of them at Manchester and elsewhere.  Then, lastly, there is a frame of coloured photographs, if we remember rightly, by Messrs. Mayer, and they certainly are the greatest daubs we have seen for some time.  The positions of the figures are bad in the extreme, but the Wardour-street art, which is used in painting the backgrounds, is something wonderful.  In one instance we have a gentleman painted in Arabian costume (we presume), with a background which would disgrace a fifth-rate panoramic artist.  It is of a fiery red, and, in the distance, we are led to believe that there is a caravan proceeding on its way to Mecca or some other pilgrim destination; and that the gentleman in the foreground has placed himself there pro bono publico, so as to enable the beholder to study the wonders of Eastern costume; while partly in the background is a drawing of what we imagine is meant to be a tent, but which, in reality, would more correctly represent a large glass-blowing establishment.  The whole picture might indeed be considered worthy of being engraved on the head of one of those artistic, commercial invoices, in which we now and then see how admirably the engraver’s artistic merits are brought forward, and what feats of imagination can be performed.  This is a type of the class which adorn a frame.  There is every variety of style used for background purposes,--from landscapes such as we have described, to terraces and avenues approaching baronial halls, in the most approved theatrical fashion.  We should really like to have the pleasure of seeing the original photograph over which these pictures are printed, so that we might all the more thoroughly appreciate the imaginative efforts of the artist.

            Having thus slightly sketched the chief characteristics of this collection of photographs, we desire to express a hope that the day is not far distant, when the present collection shall be replaced by one infinitely superior, and in every way worthy of the art and the Crystal Palace.  Let the directors only see that those instructed with the charge of this department properly discharge their duties, and we will venture to affirm that not one of the least attractive portions of this national building, and national resort, will be the photographic gallery.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 8, vol. I, #5, p. 57:

Miscellaneous:

PHOTOGRAPHY AND ARCHEOLOGY.—Mention was made some months back, says the Journal de Constantinople, of the mission which M. de Sevastianof, councilor of the Emperor of Russia, had undertaken for the purpose of investigating the curiosities of antiquity contained in the convents of Mount Athos.  That spot is stated to be an almost inexhaustible mine of ancient records, and has always been a great point of attraction for artists and scientific men.  All those little priories which, from the summit of the holy mountain, overlook the distant isles of the Archipelago, are so many libraries where the monks have been storing up the annals of ages.  Materials for history are to be found there in all languages and on all subjects, piled up pell-mell, but nevertheless preserved with care by those in whose custody they are placed.  M. de Sevastianof has free access to those treasure.  The daguerreotype gives him hundreds of copies of the manuscripts, which he takes page by page.  Already one-third of the Gospels have been copied, and numerous collections of illuminated maps and pictures have been made.  They are in greek, Sclavonian, and Georgian.  Even the outside of the albums which inclose the collections have been copied, and the Byzantine reliefs on their covers have been reproduced.  Moulds of them have likewise been taken in gutta percha.  Thanks to the co-operation of M. Vaudin, a French painter, the frescoes in the chapels have been copied in the most exact manner.  These drawings remind one of the productions of the first Italian painters, Margaritone, Oreagna, Cimabue, Giotto, Angelo de Fiesole, and Pietro Perugino.  The example of M. de Sevastianof has found imitators, for already other photographers have arrived on Mount Athos, not to compete with him, but to emulate his zeal.  The harvest is abundant, and the sooner artists apply themselves to the task, the sooner will these masterpieces, which were considered as lost, undergo an unhoped for resurrection.

PHOTOGRAPHIC IDENTIFICATION OF STOLEN FRUIT.—A correspondent of our contemporary, “Notes and Queries,” writes:--“While the fruit, peach, nectarine, or apricot is yet in a green state affix an adhesive label, your initial, or any other private mark to the side exposed to the sun.  The ripe fruit thus labeled will carry its unobliterated green stamp into any market.  This simple operation, if it should fail to preserve the fruit, will, unless it should have been subjected to any colouring process, at least enable the owner to identify it.”

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 15, vol. I, #6, p. 62:

            Photography at Cherbourg.

            Among the multitude of visitors, foreigners, tourists, artists, and writers who crowded to Cherbourg during the fêtes, there were, as might have been expected, a goodly number of photographers.  Wherever anything was to be seen, there we were sure to find a camera planted, and sometimes several.  Such opportunities as were offered on this occasion are rare.  It was not to be supposed that photography could be behind-hand in recording the magnificent spectacle offered by the combined fleets at anchor beneath the admiring gaze of an enthusiastic multitude assembled from all parts of Europe, in perpetuating the remembrance of the great events of the epoch.  The French administration, foreseeing and appreciating the importance of the services the art was capable of rendering, had officially charged M. Baldus, the photographer of the new Louvre, to take different views of the anchorage and the fleets.  The mission was honourable but difficult.  In fact, they were sea-pieces, and not simple reproductions, that were required; and, of course, this rendered necessary the employment of processes the rapidity of which would allow figures to be seized while in motion:  happily the artist chosen for this task cares little for difficulties, as the proofs he ahs brought back amply show.  Conformably with the instructions which were given to him, M. Baldus chose a point of view from whence the object glass could take in the whole of the anchorage; the ground of all the pictures is the same, the sky above, the sea below, the bold outline of the breakwater forming the horizon, the rocks bathed by the waves forming the foreground.  But the subject varies according to the evolutions of the fleets.  The size of the picture is such that the artist has reproduced every detail with a precision which allows the recognition of the humblest boat in this animated and floating crowd.  The masts crowd together, the sails are loosened, the bowsprits cross each other, the flags mingle, and yet there is no confusion, all is as precise in the picture as it was in reality.

            M. Moulin, to whom a kind recommendation of the Minister of Marine assured access and protection wherever he presented himself, was thus enabled to compose an album into which the illustrated papers have dipped deeply for their most interesting pictures.  The twenty-four proofs of which this album consists represent the principal episodes of the fêtes, and are very remarkable for their execution.  They are full of light and movement.  Those obtained during the filling of the basin named, after the Emperor Napoleon III., and the launch of the Ville de Nantes, are especially of a most striking appearance on account of the animation of the spectacle they represent.  The clearness of the design is such that one can distinguish dresses and uniforms in the crowd, and the attitudes of the greater part of those present.  It is extremely curious to pass in review, with the aid of a magnifying glass, the microscopic groups which seem to move under the gaze.  The views taken of the anchorage are not less striking.  If it is difficult to seize a crowd in motion, it is not less so to reproduce a squadron in the act of saluting its august visitors with broadsides.  This difficulty M. Moulin has overcome with a success which does honour to his ability.     

            Another artist, M. Furne, junior, already known by previous works, has taken a numerous series of stereoscopic views of Cherbourg, the subjects of many of them trivial enough, but still not without interest.  M. Richebourg also took many similar views; among others, a view of the arrival of the imperial party at the railway station; the Bishop of Coutances pronouncing the discourse at the reception of the Emperor, &c.  A singular circumstance occurs in these pictures—each of them records the moment when the scene represented took place, inasmuch as it reproduces the station clock, by which we are enabled to see that the Emperor arrived precisely at five o’clock, the prelate pronounced the receptional discourse at five minutes after five, and at a quarter past five the engines were blessed.  We think it is scarcely necessary to point out the importance of such precision in certain cases.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 15, vol. I, #6, p.62-63:

            Questionable Subjects for Photography.

            "Alas, poor Yorick!"

            "To what base uses we may return!"

           

            We were recently attracted by an advertisement to the following effect:-- "Extraordinary stereoscopic novelty! 'The Skeleton's Carouse!!' "

            The feeling we experienced on the perusal of the above was something like that which a man feels on reading the play-bill of one of our transpontine theatres, which seem, as a general rule, to flourish on a class of play that has more or less of the mysterious or horrible in its composition.  We are all acquainted with those large poster announcements which inform the reader that a certain play is received with nightly applause; and the advertisement of "The Skeletons' Carouse" can excite but one feeling--that of curiosity, to see how the subject would be treated, and whether the fact would bear out the strong adjective which informed us that it was "extraordinary."  As we are particularly desirous of seeing and knowing all that transpires in the photographic world, whether it be useful or ridiculous, we followed the directions of the advertisement, and forwarded twenty-four postage stamps to the depôt, for which we received a slide which is, in reality, an "extraordinary novelty!"  It is a picture of six human skeletons, in all their ghastly reality, seated round a table, on which are placed all the necessary accessories of pothouse paraphanalia.  At the head of the table sits one of the figures, with a presidential air, while the rest are posed as if it the act of conversing.  On the floor is a spittoon and a lantern; the former, no doubt, being requisite, as the whole of this ghostly crew are supplied with cigars and pipes!  We certainly must give credit to the arranger of this group, who has placed the figures in very natural attitudes. The tout ensemble appears very much like a madcap freak on the part of some medical students, who, we are led to suppose, are anything but reverent to what ought to be considered most sacred--the human body after death.  We cannot find words strong enough to express our disapprobation of the publication of this side.  There is something about the whole affair so flippantly sacrilegious, that it cannot fail to disgust any right-thinking person.  it is well-known that, even when science demands that a body should be subject to medical examination, there is always a strong feeling against such a proposal; and it is often only by urgent representations that the relatives of deceased persons can be induced to allow the body of their dead friends to be thus mutilated.  But what must we say of this gross violation of all the laws of decency and propriety?  Were not all these six skeletons at one time living men, who moved and breathed, and took part in the duties of life as we do now? and though they may, many a time, have repeated the words of Shakespeare,

            "Imperious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,

            Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

            Oh that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

            Should patch a wall, to expel the winter's flaw!"

yet it is certain that it could never have occurred to them that at some future day their skeletons should be made the subject of a jest in a stereoscopic slide!  What meaning there is in the idea of this picture we are unable to understand:  we are not aware that, even in the extravagant class o0f plays to which we have alluded, there is any drama which furnished the groundwork of this picture; and, certainly, there is no sense in the idea.  it is, to our minds, the result of a wanton profanity, which would turn into ridicule what ought to be held in religious veneration.  We think that a sense of propriety will at once forbid any more traffic in this disgraceful attempt to travestie the most important aids of anatomical science; and we are at a loss to conceive how people can have so far forgotten their own self-respect as to encourage the sale of such a disgusting picture, unless they but it--in the blind ignorance we did--simply to satisfy curiosity.  There is not a single argument that can be put forth in palliation of this shameless irreverence.  The fair way in which to put the matter is,--to ask ourselves if we should feel comfortable at the idea of being thus made the jest of the silly and weak-minded.  If there was a scarcity of subjects, there might be an excuse, which cannot now be adduced' and if the argument is that novelty is wanted, all we can say is, that however great the demand for new picture, that never can be argued as a plea for the extravagant and unwarrantable liberty taken by the composer of this revolting subject.  If such a subject is not everywhere repudiated as an insult to popular taste, we blush for the art taste of our countrymen.

 

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 15, vol. I, #6, p. 63-65:

            Photography in Algeria.  No. II

            My Dear Sir,--For some days after the dispatch of my last letter, I employed myself in taking photographs of buildings and other objects to be found in the streets of Algiers.  I at first thought that I might be interrupted in my operations by the curiosity of the natives, but I soon found that many proceedings excited very little attention.  Whether this indifference on the part of the Arabs is affected or real I cannot say, but certainly one would fancy them to be as familiar with the sight of the camera as they are with the appearance of the parasitic insect addressed by Burns on the occasion of its crawling over a lady’s bonnet at church.  They pass along without paying the least apparent attention to my operations; and if I happen to direct the lens towards a body of them, they are not in the slightest degree discomposed, and I have thus been able to obtain pictures free from the stiffness generally apparent in the photographs of groups of individuals where the figures appear to have been arranged for the purpose.  These Arabs are perfect as models.  I have seen six or seven of them seat themselves on the floor of a coffee-room, and, after lighting their pipes, remain silent and motionless for half an hour at a time.  This silence, I imagine, arises quite as much from a want of ideas as from any other cause; in fact, having nothing to say, they don’t say it; but start an Arab on the subject of his shooting, or his horse, and he will deliver himself of an oration, containing as many superlatives as an article in a Neapolitan newspaper on his majesty King Bomba, with an energy and gesticulation that would induced a bystander to imagine him to be labouring under an access of fury, and with an amount of figurative boasting that leaves a Yankee far behind.  I have myself heard an Arab make a boast, with respect to his horse, which was quite as extravagant as that of the American, who said he had raced his horse against a flash of lightning, and beaten it by three seconds.  I believe it to b e this want of subjects of conversation which makes the Arabs so fond of listening to the professional storyteller, which they do with a profound attention which many of the tales are far from deserving, if I may judge from the translations that have been made to me; some of them, however, are of a more interesting character.  I had sent my camera, &c., to a café in the western suburb of the town, the entrance to which was from a narrow street, being formed by a row of pillars, which allowed a full view of the garden and the summer-house supported on piles over the little river that ran through it.  On the ground, in groups of four or more individuals, were seated numerous Arabs, among whom were many spahis,(sic) whose uniforms gave a variety to the picturesque scene, which made me wish that photography could reproduce colours as faithfully as objects.  I may here mention, en passant, that I have been using the uranium printing process, about which so much was said at Paris at the time Nièpce de St. Victor first suggested its use, though as you know, it was used before then in your laboratory.  When I was in Paris, just previous to coming here, I heard such glowing accounts of what had been done by its means, that, as their manipulations were in some points different from yours, I made a note of them, and I have since being here made some experiments, which have induced me to modify the process as described by them, and with exceedingly good results.  After preparing the paper with gelatine and nitrate of uranium in the usual way, and exposing it to the light, I develop by means of the aceto-nitrate of silver bath, such as is used for paper negatives; and on removing it from this bath I plunge it into a bath composed of 100 parts of water, 9 of proto-sulphate of iron, and 3 of acetic acid.  I have obtained proofs in this way equal for depth and vigour to any I ever saw.  I need not tell you that there is no truth in the assertion that pictures printed with uranium are unassailable (which I was repeatedly assured in Paris was the case); but still I think, until we hit upon some carbon process, we shall find no substance which will give such durable pictures as nitrate of uranium.

            After I had taken three or four negatives, I sent my man with the apparatus to the hotel where I was staying, and then went into the summer-house and called for coffee.  There were about twenty Arabs seated there in a circle, listening to one of these storytellers; and, as several of them had taken their pipes from their mouths and had ceased smoking, I concluded that the narrative was of unusual interest, and I was soon convinced of this by the excitement they displayed as the story drew near its dénouement.  After the raconteur had finished, and “sent round the hat,” I beckoned to him, and desired him to sit down, and relate the story in French for my benefit.  It was, in substance, as follows, and, as he assured me, strictly true, and of recent occurrence:--A young Arab, named Ishmael, became acquainted with a girl belonging to a tribe at enmity with his own, and a strong attachment sprang up between them.  Eventually the girl agreed to leave her father’s house, and to fly with her lover to the douar he inhabited at no great distance, but which was situated on the opposite side of the mountain.  She left her home a little before sunset, and joined Ishmael, who, too poor to possess a horse, was to conduct her over the mountain on foot.  The path was through a wood, and they were well aware that a lion was accustomed to reside there for months at a time; but, as was the case with the “ladye-love” of Sir Richard of Coldinghame, so with them—“love conquered fear;” and they had crossed the mountain, and were actually in sight of the friendly douar, when, right before them, in the middle of the path, lay an enormous lion.  They stood petrified with fear, gazing at the beast, who appeared not to notice them at first, but after about a minute he rose and moved towards them.  The girl uttered the most piercing shrieks, which were heard at the douar, the inhabitants of which armed themselves, and proceeded in the direction of the group formed by the lion, Ishmael, and his bride.  At the moment they came within gunshot, the lion was leading the man, who appeared to be under the influence of a species of fascination, into a thicker part of the wood.  His arm was round the waist of his betrothed, who seemed to struggle to free herself from his hold, but in vain, and the Arabs saw at once, that if they were to save the unfortunate couple no time was to be lost.  Accordingly they all fired at the lion at once, and the beast was probably wounded, for he sprang upon Ishmael, placed a paw upon each shoulder, took his head in his mouth, and crushed it, and then, without tearing the body, dropped it to the ground.  The girl had sunk to the earth in an almost insensible state; and when the Arabs, who had fled immediately they had discharged their guns, again came near the spot, they saw her sitting on the ground, and the lion lying down with his head resting on her knees.  To fire at the animal in the position in which he was, was almost certain death to the girl; but a moment’s reflection convinced them that it offered the only chance of saving her.  They accordingly fired; and, before the smoke had cleared away, the lion was in the midst of them.  He struck one dead with a blow of his paw, crushed the head of another in his mouth, and pursued and caught a third, whom he lacerated in a frightful manner, and then returned to the girl.  Of course, after this, no further attempt was made to rescue her; and how long she may have remained in this valley of the shadow of death before the beast released her from her agony, cannot even be guessed at; but when daylight dawned and the Arabs came to seek the bodies of their friends to bury them, all that remained of her was no more than was left of Jezebel whom the dogs devoured in Jezreel.

            The professional storyteller, among the Arabs, is a man of no inconsiderable talent. He is a good actor, suits his gesticulation to his subject, has great command of voice, and, in narratives like the above, absorbs the entire attention of his audience; consequently, like the minstrels of old in our country, he is well received wherever he may go, that is, among the Arabs, who are not repelled by the extraneous vitality which circulates about him.  With Frenchmen the case is different; for though they are not over-fastidious with respect to their ablutions, they are not to be compared to the Arabs, who regard soap as superfluous as hair-curling fluid to a nigger, or crinoline to a Hottentot Venus.

            I have not been here long enough yet to say authoritatively that there is little love between the French and the natives; but, as far as I have been able to judge, the Arabs regard their conquerors with great dislike and some fear, and with profound contempt as individuals.  The latter feeling arises in part from the arrogance inspired by their religion, which induces them to look upon professing Christians as little better than dogs, but principally from the vivacious character of the Frenchmen, whom they see dancing and otherwise conducting themselves in a manner which they regard as unmanly.  Of course, you have heard and read, what has been so often asserted that it appears to be generally admitted as a fact, that Frenchmen have a peculiar talent for insinuating themselves into the affections of uncivilised people, which Englishmen do not possess.  I don’t believe a word of it.  It may b e true in the case of French sailors, when they are

            “All among the Hottentots,

            Capering on the shore,”

But does not apply when Frenchmen are permanently resident among a less barbarous people, especially if that people is composed of Mohammedans, who, though they may despise the Englishman’s religion, yet cannot but feel a certain degree of respect for the calm and serious man himself.

            In my last letter, I mentioned that I had been partially successful in obtaining certain photographs of the execution of the murderers of pool Gilson and his family.  I am sorry to tell you that my success is not so great as I imagined.  The third and fourth pictures have faded quite away, and the second so much as to be entirely useless; the first alone retains its distinctness.  I am quite unable to explain the cause.  I am convinced, however, that it arose from no fault in the manipulation, and of the goodness of the collodion I have since had ample proof; consequently I can only attribute it to the atmosphere around the scaffold being affected in some such way as that suggested in my last letter.  A similar occurrence once happened to me in the course of a tour in the south of France.  I had selected a view, and fixed my camera in the expectation that I was about to obtain a photograph of a pretty little cottage in the midst of a vine-yard; but, on withdrawing the slide, I found nothing but a bleared and indistinct appearance of the object.  I at first imagined that the pose had been too short, and made a second attempt, which was likewise a failure.  I persevered; but, notwithstanding the adage to the contrary, my perseverance was not rewarded.  I next looked about for the cause of such an effect, and eventually I found, that a building at no great distance was an animal charcoal factory, and I could only impute my failure to the supposition that the atmosphere was, to a certain extent, charged with the vapours arising from this factory.  To test this, I determined to visit the spot at daybreak the following morning, and make a renewed attempt.  There had been a pretty brisk breeze all night, which died away directly after I had planted my camera to the windward side of the factory, and I obtained excellent views; yet, when I tried again in the course of the afternoon, I failed as before, thus proving, beyond all reasonable doubt, that my supposition was correct.

            I have become acquainted with a sheikh who owns an extensive douar near Constantine, and I have partly promised to go with him when he leaves here, and spend a few days in his tents, which will give me an opportunity of getting some interesting pictures for the stereoscope.  He is a bit of a bore sometimes, especially when he gets on the subject of his horse, of which, though it is not much to look at, he tells me wonders, more particularly with respect to its pedigree, which, according to his showing, must date back almost as far as that of the Welshman, who exhibited, about half way down the parchment on which his genealogy was written, a note in the margin:--“About this time the world was created,”  excepting this, and a weakness in favour of Frenchwomen, rather unworthy of an Arab and a sheikh, he seems a very estimable man.  I have not received any copy of your “News” yet, and as I propose leaving here next week, I am afraid I shall not see it until I return.

                                                            --Yours truly, C.A.

P.S.—In the event of your publishing the above letter, pray omit professional details as much as possible.  I prefer rather to amuse than to bore your readers with contrivances, which, if they appear to me ingenious, would no doubt suggest themselves to any photographer similarly circumstances.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 15, vol. I, #6, p. 62-63:

            Questionable Subjects for Photography.

            “Alas, poor Yorick!”

            “To what base uses we may return!”

We were recently attracted by an advertisement to the following effect:-- “Extraordinary stereoscopic novelty!  The Skeletons’ Carouse!”

The feeling we experienced on the perusal of the above was something like that which a man feels on reading the play-bill of one of our transpontine theatres, which seem, as a general rule, to flourish on a class of play that has more or less of the mysterious or horrible in its composition.  We are all acquainted with those large poster announcements which inform the reader that a certain play is received with nightly applause; and the advertisement of “The Skeletons’ carouse” can excite but one feeling—that of curiosity, to see how the subject would be treated, and whether the fact would bear out the strong adjective which informed us that it was “extraordinary.”  As we are particularly desirous of seeing and knowing all that transpires in the photographic world, whether it be useful or ridiculous, we followed the directions of the advertisement, and forwarded twenty-four postage stamps to the depot, for which we received a slide which is, in reality, an “extraordinary novelty!”  It is a picture of six human skeletons, in all their ghastly reality, seated round a table, on which are placed all the necessary accessories of pothouse paraphanalia. (sic)  At the head of the table sits one of the figures, with a presidential air, while the rest are posed as if in the act of conversing.  On the floor is a spittoon and a lantern; the former, no doubt, being requisite, as the whole of this ghostly crew are supplied with cigars and pipes!  We certainly must give credit to the arranger of this group, who has placed the figures in very natural attitudes.  The tout ensemble appears very much like a madcap freak on the part of some medical students, who, we are led to supposed, are anything but reverent to what ought to be considered most sacred—the human body after death.  We cannot find words strong enough to express our disapprobation of the publication of this slide.  There is something about the whole affair so flippantly sacrilegious, that it cannot fail to disgust any right-thinking person.  It is well-known that, even when science demands that a body should be subject to medical examination, there is always a strong feeling against such a proposal; and it is often only by urgent representations that the relatives of deceased persons can be induced to allow the bodies of their dead friends to be thus mutilated.  But what must we say of this gross violation of all the laws of decency and propriety?  Were not all these six skeletons at one time living men, who moved and breathed, and took part in the duties of life as we do now? and though they may, many a time, have repeated the words of Shakespeare,

            “Imperious Cæaesar, dead and turned to clay,

            Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

            Oh that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

            Should patch a wall, to expel the winter’s flaw!”

Yet it is certain that it could never have occurred to them that at some future day their skeletons should be made the subject of a jest in a stereoscopic slide!  What meaning there is in the idea of this picture we are unable to understand:  we are not aware that, even in the extravagant class of plays to which we have alluded, there is any drama which furnished the groundwork of this picture; and, certainly, there is no sense in the idea.  It is, to our minds, the result of a wanton profanity, which would turn into ridicule what ought to be held in religious veneration.  We think that a sense of propriety will at once forbid any more traffic in this disgraceful attempt to travestie the most important aids of anatomical science; and we are at a loss to conceive how people can have so far forgotten their own self-respect as to encourage the sale of such a disgusting picture, unless they buy it—in the blind ignorance we did—simply to satisfy curiosity.  There is not a single argument that can be put forth in palliation of this shameless irreverence.  The fair way in which to put the matter is,--to ask ourselves if we should feel comfortable at the idea of being thus made the jest of the silly and weak-minded.  If there was a scarcity of subjects, there might be an excuse, which cannot now be adduced; and if the argument is that novelty is wanted, all we can say is, that however great the demand for new pictures, that never can be argued as a pleas for the extravagant and unwarrantable liberty taken by the composer of this revolting subject.  If such a subject is not everywhere repudiated as an insult to popular taste, we blush for the art taste of our countrymen.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 22, vol. I, #7, p. 81:

            Miscellaneous:

            Photographic Copies of Bank Notes Prevented.—

            Recently several attempts to counterfeit bank notes by means of photography have been successful; and this fraud has not been confined to bank notes—other valuable documents having been copied in a similar manner.  It was thought that this kind of fraud was rendered impossible by printing the documents referred to in ink of two different colours, so that photography should reproduce them both in black.  It was soon found, however, that while black ink, which ahs carbon for its basis, remained unassailable by any chemical reagent, the ordinary coloured inks could be easily removed form the paper, and a photographic copy then taken of the remainder.  A subsequent operation was employed for printing in the coloured ink, upon this paper, that portion which had been expunged from the original.  It is obvious, therefore, that what was wanted was a coloured ink capable of resisting all chemical agents; and this, it is said, has been found by Mr. George Matthews, assisted by Dr. Sterry Hunt, of Montreal, by calcined oxide of chromium, a substance of a fine green colour, which, manufactured into an ink, known as “Canada Bank Note tint,” is used for printing a geometrical design on the ground of the bank note, upon which the value and denomination is afterwards impressed in black ink in the usual way.  This method of printing bank notes is now in extensive use in Canada and the United States.  The process has been patented in England.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 29, vol. I, #8, p. 91-92:

            Pages from the Note Book of a Travelling Photographer.

            Sir,--I am very glad to see that you do not exclude from the “Photographic News” matter of general interest, even although it does not point out the superiority (often imaginary) of one process over another, or the relative advantages or disadvantages of the dry collodion process.  Of course, as a photographer, I do not undervalue the importance of these subjects; on the contrary, it is because I find so much matter for serious reflection in the “Photographic News,” that it is a relief to my mind to turn to the narratives of personal experience which occasionally appear in it.  Besides, it is easy to perceive that an advantage is derived from publishing these papers, apart from the mere pleasure which your readers may derive from their perusal.  They encourage a man to persevere in his attempts to obtain views of beautiful scenery or monuments, under circumstances of difficulty which would, in all probability, induce him to content himself with obtaining pictures which, if they were less interesting, would have the recommendation of being more accessible, when he feels that, if he has anything to say, there is a channel open to him, by means of which he may address thousands of more or less interested people, instead of those alone, whom he meets by his own fireside.

            I have myself traveled some hundreds of miles with the camera; not simply with the object of obtaining photographs, but sometimes on business which rendered the possession of the camera of great value to me; and, on other occasions, for pleasure, which was greatly heightened by the power of bringing away pictures of the more striking scenes I visited.  Indeed, there are few portions of the continent with which I am not more or less familiar; and I will, with your permission, and with the assistance of my note-book, give your readers some account of a few of my wanderings.  I do not imagine that they will be read with the same interest as those of your Algerine correspondent, who ahs the advantage of being on comparatively untrodden ground; but, on the other hand, they shall not be mere catalogues of collodions, papers, and processes.  It is somewhere related of a Scotchman, that he wrote a part of a tragedy, and took it to Garrick for his opinion; who returned it to the author, and advised him not to finish it, as his talent did not lie in that way.  The author took the advice, and went home and wrote the two first acts of a comedy; when he hastened to submit to Garrick, thinking that he must be successful this time, but was again told that his talent did not lie that way; upon which he exclaimed, in a tone of surprise,--“Why, David, didn’t you tell me that my talents did not lie in tragedy?”  “Yes;” replied Garrick, “but I did not say they lay in comedy.”  “Oh! but,--” exclaimed the Scotchman, “if they don’t lie there, where the de’il do they lie, mon?”  Now I do not, like the North Briton, imagine that I have any particular talent for the grave or the gay; but I merely propose to give a simple statement of what I saw and did most interesting to me, on my photographic tours.

            About four years ago I supplied myself with an ample stock of necessaries for all photographic purposes, and left England, with the ultimate intention of going to Hungary; but, with ample time at my disposal, to visit any places of interest on the road.  My first photographs were made by Bruges; almost every street of which contains a building or buildings capable of tempting one to pitch the camera.  It has also the advantage of possessing a number of idle vagabonds, who swarm about you at the railway station, and insist upon showing you the town, and who can easily be made available for transporting the materials requisite to enable you to gratify the temptation.  I would, however, advise any photography who may follow my example, to adopt the same precautions to guarantee the safety of their solutions as I did.  I had every bottle carefully cased in gutta percha, rising nearly level with the top of the bottle, and with a sliding cover of the same material, both of a sufficient thickness to preserve the bottles from damage, whether tossing about in a railway carriage, or in the careless hands of a porter; and, even in the event of a bottle being broken, little, if any, of the solution could escape.

            The whole of the bottles, camera, &c., fitted closely into a strong leather case, like a portmanteau, with straps, by means of which it could be fastened to the back of a mule, or fitted to a man’s shoulders.  I may here remark, that nothing is so likely to cause vexation to a man who proposed to make a photographic tour in unfrequented parts of the continent as the possession of one of those so called portable cameras, so limited in its capacity that an accident to one of the bottles (irreparable in such a case) may effectually destroy all possibility of his carrying out his intention.  After all, the portability is only a question of degree; if you carry it yourself it becomes heavy before you have gone half a mile, and if you hire a man to carry it for you, it may just as well be ten pounds heavier.  Certainly where a man is in the habit of ‘taking his camera in his hand, and sallying forth in search of the picturesque,’ as a recent photographic publication has it, it becomes an object of importance to reduce the weight of the apparatus as far as possible; but this appears to me a very unsatisfactory mode of proceeding.  The plan I have almost always adopted has been, to visit the neighbourhood of the hotel or inn where I have been staying, and mark the spots which interested me most; and then one day with the camera has generally enabled me to get all the views worth having; and, as I generally hired a horse to carry my apparatus, I have been able, by starting very early in the morning, to take views nearly twenty miles apart on the same day.  Another advantage attending this plan was, that I knew exactly where water was to be found; which, as I almost invariably use wet collodion, some advantage.

            I dare say most travelling photographers have adopted a similar contrivance for carrying water under similar circumstances; but, in cases any of your readers may not, I will just mention that, before leaving England I got made for me a strong waterproof bag, or rather bottle, capable of holding a gallon of water; a narrow strap round the mouth effectually prevented the escape of the liquid, and a second strap and buckle served to suspend it.  In this way I could either take enough water to last me all day; or just sufficient to serve until I reached a spot where I could obtain a fresh supply.  Perhaps, while on the subject, I may as well say that my tent is one of my own invention; and is, in my opinion, infinitely better than those in general use.  In the first place, I abandoned the tripod, and instead thereof, I substituted an upright hollow cylinder of brass, jointed like a fishing rod, with the exception of the second joint, which works up and down like the tube of a telescope, and is fixed at any height by means of a screw.  The bottom joint was furnished with a spike about five inches long, for thrusting in the ground; and the top joint had five thin iron arms, projecting at right angles form its summit when in use, but which could be lowered, precisely in the same manner as an umbrella, when not in use.  From the sides of two of these arms there hung two flat pieces of iron, about half an inch in width, the bottoms of which were curved at right angles, so as to slide under two flat staples at the sides of the camera, which was thus held in a perfectly firm and immoveable position.*  (*We may possibly misunderstand the above description of our correspondent’s camera-stand, but it seems to us a rather shaky concern, and unworthy of Viator’s usual ingenuity.)  The tent covering was a voluminous mackintosh wrapper, lined throughout with a light yellow woolen material.  When I used it as a wrapper, the lower part was looped up, but when I used it as a tent, this was let down, and fastened to the ground by thin steel pegs attached to the tent, about four inches from the bottom.  The advantages of this tent were, lightness, the facility with which it could be put together, its usefulness when not in use as a tent, and its greater capaciousness when in use as such.  I have spent in it, in company of two friends, many hours thoroughly protected from the rain, which was descending in torrents; and perhaps some who read these lines may remember when they, four in number, were indebted to a photographer’s tent, in the lower Pyrenees, for two hours’ shelter from a storm, which would have drenched them to the skin in two minutes.  On more than one occasion I have spent the night in it, from preference; in order to avoid the nasty, close-smelling, vermin-haunted bedroom of an Italian road-side public house.  Nor is it vermin alone one has to dread in these places; I slept, quite recently, in a room at an inn where a guest had first stabbed the landlord, and then thrown his body out of window.  The occurrence was a strange one.  The guest had been drinking freely, and had foolishly shown a considerable sum of money he had in his possession; which so excited the cupidity of the landlord, that he arranged with his son to murder him, and throw his body out of window; the son’s share in the transaction was to be limited to the digging the grave, and burying the body.  From some cause or other the intended victim became suspicious of evil designs on the part of his host, and determined on going to bed without undressing.  About midnight he woke out of a light doze, and saw a dark figure stealing towards his bedside, in whose hand he could distinguish the glimmering of what he took to be a knife.  Without waiting to be attacked, he sprang from the bed upon the would-be assassin, wrenched the dagger from his hand, and, without a word being uttered by either of them, the landlord sunk to the ground, stabbed to the heart with his own weapon.  Fearful that there might be others not far off waiting to assist in his removal, the guest crept quietly to the window, and opened it, with the intention of dropping down and making his escape; but the moment he opened the window, he heard a man who was beneath it tell him to make haste and throw the body out, as the grave was quite ready.  Taking the hint, he went to the bed, drew the sheets off, and wrapped the dead body of the landlord in them very carefully, and then lowered it out of window into the arms of the son.  His next step was to walk quietly to the street door and let himself out, and then to hasten to the police station, where he related what had happened, and was accompanied back to the inn by a party of the police, who found the son in the very act of throwing the dirt in the hole upon his own father’s body.  He was compelled to dig the body out, and was directed to open the sheets; when, to his horror and consternation, he found that he had got the wrong man.  he confessed the plot at once, but had not been hanged when I was there.  Accidents of this sort are rare, as far as we know; but when we consider how many families there are, one of whose members has disappeared, and been no more heard of, the thought naturally suggests itself—what has become of them?  I would therefore advise any photographer who proposes making a solitary trip to an unfrequented part of the continent, to provide himself with a revolver as a means of protection.   It occupies little space, and is “material guarantee” for the safety of one’s property.  I have never found it necessary yet to make use of mine; and, indeed, I am afraid that whatever danger I was in, I should not have the heart to take the life of a fellow-creature.  It is possible, though, that the sight of it may have saved me from the necessity of using it, for when I have found myself in a solitary glen, I have always displayed it conspicuously to many ruffianly-looking fellow I may have observed approaching; and I have met with a few under such circumstances.  Such risks as these, however, are not worth a thought, in comparison with the pleasure to be derived from visiting foreign countries with the camera.  Some of the happiest hours of my life have been owing to my travelling with that instrument.  It has been a passport to many a drawing-room in country houses, which, otherwise, I should never have seen; and on no occasion when I have desired to take a view of an antique château, and have sent in my card to the proprietor with a polite request to that effect, have I been refused; and, no doubt, my experience resembles that of other photographers among my countrymen.  In these cases it is an advantage to be alone, and a foreigner.  Viator.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 29, vol. I, #8, p. 92:

            The Daily News announces that Nadar, the well-known French photographer, is about to take a bird’s-eye view of Paris from a balloon, by means of the camera.

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 29, vol. I, #8, p. 98-100:

            Photography in Algeria.  No. III.

            My Dear Sir,--I have at last received the first number of the “Photographic News,” and am not as little rejoiced to find that it contains the first letter I wrote to you; and I look forward with some little eagerness for the number which may contain my second letter—I presume about No. 3 of 4.  As a photographer I am, for several reasons, extremely glad to see a weekly paper devoted to photography.  In the first place, by giving one an opportunity of becoming acquainted with all discoveries of any importance made on the continent as well as at home, it will save one the possible annoyance of spending hours, or even days, in making experiments which had been previously made:  it will induce some thousands (it is to be hoped) of photographers to study the chemistry of the art, and thus greatly increase the possibility of new discoveries being made in it. The answers to correspondents will remove stumbling-blocks from their paths; and, what is to me personally—and doubtless to all other old photographers—a matter of no small importance, is the reflection that I need not in future compel myself to read foreign photographic publications, seeing that the “News” will keep me au courant as to what is stirring on the continent.

            I have not yet been up to the tents, as I informed you was my intention in my last letter, for a reason I am about to explain.  Shortly after I had returned from the Post-office I received a visit from Sheikh Hamed, who proposed that, instead of going at once to his douar, I should accompany himself and brother in an expedition against a mountain tribe that had recently made several attacks on the Arabs living under French protection.  His brother was an officer of the Spahis Indigenes, who were selected to form part of the expedition, and had directed him to say that there would be no difficulty in finding means of conveying whatever instruments I might require for photographic purposes.  The proposition was, as the sheikh said, séduisante.  It would possibly, give me an opportunity of getting some interesting pictures, and was certain to enable me to get some information which would be interesting to your readers generally, and especially to those among them who may happen to come out here; consequently I accepted his invitation.  The next thing to be considered was, how I could best succeed in obtaining some good pictures.  The most convenient would have been the dry collodion process; but as this had failed me on more than one important occasion, I was reluctant to employ it where a failure could not be remedied.  Considering the interest felt on the subject of dry collodion, both in France and England, when I left home, I may be excused if I offer a few remarks relative to my own experience with this process since I have been here.  The collodion I have been using was purchased in London, half a dozen bottles of which I brought with me from England.  Living in a city I have not found it necessary to test the length of time during which this collodion would preserve its sensibility, my usual practice being to prepare the plate or paper overnight, which I do in the following manner as regards the paper:--I lay the sheet of paper on a table and rub it rapidly, though lightly, with a piece of India rubber until the paper is quite warm—in fact, is highly charged with electricity; I then support it on a piece of glass, pour on the collodion, and allow it to spread itself smoothly over the surface; then sensitise and wash it well in several waters, and when dry, cover it with a weak solution of gelatine.  In this way I have prepared papers 14 x 12, upon which I have generally obtained good pictures.  There are two lying on my table at this moment—one a view of the port of Algiers, and the other a view of the suburbs of the city—which could not, in my opinion, be excelled.  I had my tent with me when I took the latter, and before exposing the paper I wetted its surface with a little water, and while still moist I placed it in the camera; the result was, as I anticipated, the rapidity of the action was much increased, and the picture, when developed, appeared more dense.  The conclusions I drew from this experiment were, that it was advisable to use the collodionised paper as soon as possible after preparation, though not absolutely essential; or, in the event of keeping it for any time, some method of softening the sensitive surface previous to exposure would render the result more favourable.  To test this I adopted the following plan:--I prepared some sheets of paper and put them aside for about three weeks, at the end of which time I brought them out and laid a very thin sheet of damp blotting paper on the sensitive surface of each, and then packed them in my portfolio in such a way that the blotting paper was in contact with blotting paper, and in no case with the back of the prepared paper.  I found this method greatly increased the rapidity of the action of the light upon the sensitised surface, and I generally succeeded in getting good pictures by this process, which I do not doubt could be improved; indeed I propose, if opportunity serves, to moisten the blotting paper with a weak solution of some substance which I hope will act as a stimulant to the dry collodion, and thus render its effects more certain.  Especial care must be taken that the blotting paper does not contain too much moisture, or it will have the effect of dissolving the gelatine and rendering the surface of the collodion rough and uneven, if it does not damage it still more.

            To return to my journey.  I was determined to take with me the means of obtaining pictures; and though the dry collodion offered great facilities, I eventually decided on sticking to the wet collodion, though it involved the possibility of not getting any pictures at all:  for rapidity of movement being the great thing in these expeditions, it was to be feared that, owing to the limited number of baggage animals taken, my camera might be in one place, and my tent where it could not be found.  It was necessary, however, to risk this, so I packed up my apparatus and sent it to the sheikh, taking care to follow it myself and see it packed, for to have done otherwise would have been to have acted with as little consideration as a negro here, of whom it is said that, being told to saw off a bough of a tree, he sat himself on the branch and sawed away at it, between himself and the tree, until he and it came to the ground together; upon which he uttered an exclamation in a tone of the deepest surprise, which being interpreted (very freely) signified, “By golly, massa, who’d tought him come off boff ends at once?”

            There was a faint glimpse of dawn when the soldiers began to assemble, yet, so complete were the preparations, that the sun had risen but a very little way when they commenced their march.  It felt quite cool and pleasant in the early morning, and so pure was the atmosphere that we could see an immense distance across the desert.  The mere motion in it excited a feeling of exhilaration to which I had long been a stranger.  After marching about five hours we halted beside a well, around which a great many Arabs resided, of whom we got mild and a kind of cake very much resembling what in the ‘far west’ is termed damper.  A very few years ago these Arabs were bitter enemies of the French, whereas now they appeared to be without the smallest animosity against them; and certainly if the French have made themselves their masters, they have done more for them than they, the Arabs, could possibly have done for themselves.  The artesian well, around which we halted, was the work of French engineers, and to the water from this well was entirely owing the fertility which the desert around it exhibited, and the dwellings that were so thickly scattered about, where a few months before there had stood perhaps notore than one or two tents.  None but those who have spent days in the desert traversing hot sands which scorch even the bare thick-soled feet of the Arab, who can journey along the roughest mountain road without danger of cutting them, can fully appreciate the blessing of an abundance of water; therefore the Arabs, who are not utterly ungrateful for good done them, are becoming more and more reconciled to the rule of their conquerors.  The opportunity of getting one or two photographs of the halt was not to be neglected now that there was an abundant supply of water, so, with the assistance of my friend, the sheikh, I pitched my tent and took a couple of views, one of the troops, and another of the village.  An amusing circumstance occurred here illustrative of the coolness of Arab thieves.  A Zouave had taken off his baggy trousers to make some necessary reparation, and while in the act of plying his needle he was called by one of his comrades to come and take his coffee.  The trousers were thrown aside for the moment, and the Zouave employed himself actively in discussing his breakfast, which occupation so entirely absorbed his attention that he was unaware of the proceedings of a native, who had quietly crept to the trousers and was making off with them, when a shout was raised by a Zouave who had observed his motions.  Of course he was immediately seized and taken, with the stolen goods in his possession, before the provost, who at once ordered him a flogging; the sentence was no sooner interpreted to him than the fellow, to the great amusement of all present, coolly said, “I suppose, Mr. Judge, I may keep the trousers.”  By the time this little affair had been settled the troops were again under march, and did not halt for three hours, and then only for about an hour, when they resumed their march for three hours more.  In the desert it is the practice, as far as possible, to regulate the marches so that the halt for the night may be near a well; but this is only when there is no especial hurry for a day or two, which was the case with us, inasmuch as we were marching against a tribe in the mountains whom we were certain to find there when we arrived.  Had we been directed against a tribe encamped in the plain, we should have pushed on at a much greater rate, because if we had not “dropped on them,” as M.----expresses it, like a thunderbolt, they would have sent away their flocks and cattle, even if they had stayed themselves for a fight; and, under these circumstances, the number of hours which the troops march is surprising.  A Zouave told me that he had formed one of an expedition which marched forty hours out of the forty-eight, and at the end of that time attacked the tribe of which they were in search, and captured every animal they possessed, and utterly routed them.  It is a pretty sight to see the groups of soldiers scattered about at the bivouac, and the contrasts of colour in the red, baggy inexpressibles of the Zouaves, and the white burnouses of the Spahis, was as pleasing to the eye as anything I ever saw; and it was with no little regret that I was obliged to content myself with reproducing the form only for my friends in England, without being able to communicate to them a part of the pleasure I myself derived from colour.  As it grew dusk fires made themselves gradually visible, and by their flickering light one could see here and there a man sewing up a hole in his clothes, or repairing his shoes; but the grater portion of them were lying down smoking, chatting, and making a tremendous hubbub.  The contrast between the Spahis and the Zouaves was striking.  The Arabs were sitting about in groups, grave, and for the most part, silent.  All of them were smoking, and here and there one of them was holding forth respecting the chances of plunder which the expedition offered—a matter in which they feel a far keener interest, I believe, than in the credit of the government they are hired to defend.  I don’t mean to imply that they are indifferent to the pleasure of cutting a fellow-countryman’s throat, for I certainly think they do that with as much gusto as any Zouave who ahs seen his comrade shot down beside him, but they have an ever-craving appetite for plunder which can never be appeased; an appetite strengthened by the kind of warfare in which they have been gtrained.  It may perhaps appear to your readers that these Spahis are mere hired bravoes who are enlisted by the French Government to fight against their countrymen, but this is not the case; these Arabs belong to tribes which are principally resident in the neighbourhood of the towns, whereas the tribe against which they are generally led by the French is that of the Kabyles, an independent-spirited, courageous race, who mostly inhabit the mountains, and are a terror to Morocco on the one hand, and a pest to the French rule on the other; but before many years are past France will be able to say, with Sganarelle, “Il etait autrefois comme ça,mais nous avons change tout cela.”  (In consequence of the length to which our correspondent’s letter extends, we must defer the publication of the remainder until a succeeding number.—Ed.)

 

1858:  P News, Oct. 29, vol. I, #8, p. 100-101:

            Notes for Alpine Photographers.* (*cont. from page 39)

            Before going further I must say a few words about our baggage.  In addition to our cameras and stands, and prepared plates, we had, of course, our carpet bags.  My camera is what is called a tourist’s camera, made by a good maker, very handsomely got up, very expensive, and, for its size, very heavy.  This latter was not of so much consequence to me on this excursion, as I was not verdant enough to carry all my baggage myself; but I confess to feeling sundry qualms of conscience when I saw our “porteurs” sinking continually in the snow while we were crossing the pass of St. Théodule.  It is quite necessary, whether the amateur carries his own camera or not, to reduce to the smallest possible weight all the metal and wood-work therein.  All the complication of parallel rulers with their screws, can very well be dispensed with.  My companion, Major de R---, a distinguished Russian officer, had the happy idea of carrying his small French camera, and all the rest of his baggage, in a light basket in which the peasants in this canton (Vaud) carry almost everything—fruit, vegetables, bread, meat, and even manure.  They call this useful contrivance for their back a “hotte,” answering to our word “hod.”  We perceived that after we left this canton, this “hotte” was everywhere an object of curiosity; and on the other side of the Alps, it was looked upon with the greatest astonishment, if not suspicion.  At all events it proved a very useful packing case—doing away with the necessity of any other—easily carried on a man’s or mule’s back, and though containing a lot of bottles, for my friend purposed developing some paper negatives each night (which, by-the-bye, he did not), it did not weight so much as my baggage.

            We had never been at Zermatt; and as every guide book, and almost every traveller, tells you that it is the thing in Switzerland, and far superior to Chamouni (though I don’t agree with them), we determined to bend our steps that way.  Now, ‘though on pleasure bent, we had a frugal mind;’ and we, therefore, resolved to do a considerable portion of the journey on foot, hiring a mule to carry our baggage.  Our walking, however, did not commence until we reached the dirty, poverty-stricken little town—if town it can be called—of Viège or Visp, in the Canton du Valais.  This same Visp still bears lamentable traces of what it suffered from the earthquake which played such havoc with this part of the Valais in the autumn of 1855.

            Our starting place was Lausanne, the town and neighbourhood of which afford great scope for the camera.  Indeed, I know but few places so rich in picturesque bits.  Major de R---, as well as myself, had been residing here some time, and we had together rambled about in search of the picturesque.  Probably a note or two of the things to be taken here may not be amiss.  The handsome cathedral of Notre Dame is a very attractive object, as seen from various parts of the town.  It was founded about the year 1000.  It is finely situated on rising ground in the centre of what is called the “cité,” and commands an extensive view over the lake and surrounding country.  A remarkably beautiful view of it can be taken from the Berne road, another from the delightful promenade of Monthenon:  in the foreground are some of the arches of the “Grant Pont,” a handsome modern viaduct connecting two portions of the town.  In the extreme distance you have a south-west view of the cathedral, with its handsome towers, and the middle distance is filled up with quaint-looking spires, houses, and public buildings.  Like our English cathedrals, that of Lausanne is so hemmed in by buildings that it is difficult to obtain with the camera many of its details.  It is, however, just possible to get a view of the South Porch, or “Porch of the Apostles,” so called on account of the carved figures therein; and a very charming thing it is.  You will see, by the little photograph I inclose, that it is not easy to obtain a correct view of it.  You will see, also, that it is well worth taking, even if you are compelled to raise the nose of your camera high enough to throw the lines out of the perpendicular.  It should be taken on a sunless day; the buildings near it throw such a shade over a portion of it all the day.  There is a fine rose window in the south transept, but too high to be obtained unless it is possible to take it from the top of a house just built, I regret to say, within a few yards of it.  The west doorway is very fine—the door itself, abominable.

            The château not far from Notre Dame offers one or two good points of view.  The “Place de Palud” contains a nice old fountain, well worth taking; also the Hotel de Ville.  A fine view of the cathedral from the Place de Riponne, should be taken in the afternoon because of the light.

            The church of St. François has two or three good points for a photograph, especially the apse and spire as seen from the promenade near the Hotel “Belle Vue.”

            For those persons who are staying at Lausanne a few days, there are plenty of short excursions to be made, by the railway and boat, to places abounding in excellent subjects for their portfolio.  Half an hour by boat or rail takes you to Moyes, a little town on the shore of the lake; from thence a pleasant walk of two miles brings you to the noble château of Wufflens, in ancient deeds Wolflens or Wonflenscastrum.  Popular tradition asserts that this magnificent castle was built by good Queen Berthe, wife of Rodolph the Second, King of Burgundy, between 921 and 962; and tradition likewise asserts that the bricks, of which this enormous pile is composed, were cemented together with mortar mixed with wind instead of water:  however this may be, the mortar is remarkably hard, much harder than the bricks.  According to the most probably accounts, the castle dates as far back as the time of the crusades, the twelfth century; and judging from the curious subterranean vaults under the château, it is most likely that the present structure was built on the ruins of one much more ancient.   S.   (To be continued.)

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 5, vol. I, #9, p. 101:

            The Photographic Society.

            On Tuesday evening last the Photographic Society held its first monthly meeting of the season at the Coventry-street Rooms.  We were glad to see such a goodly attendance of members; and if we may judge by appearances, we should say that the forthcoming series of meetings may prove very interesting and instructive.  Mr. Fox Talbot had sent several specimens of his new photoglyphic engravings, which were examined with great interest by the members present, who commented freely upon the present achievements, and the probable future success of this great discovery.  Mr. J. D. Llewelyn had also contributed a complete set of those charming pictures which he has already exhibited.  We need only mention this fact to call to the mind of the reader those very beautiful specimens of the oxymel process—a process by which no one but Mr. Llewelyn can produce such results as are here presented.  Beautifully and clearly developed as the exhibited specimens were, we are almost inclined to think, that those at the Society’s Rooms are still more beautiful.  There was also a set of photographs exhibited by Mr. Sturroch,  some of which were remarkable for the delicacy with which the detail was rendered; this was especially the case with some fine architectural views which, for beauty and clearness, we have not seen surpassed, while others were but very inferior; indeed, there are among these some that may be denominated the best, while, on the other hand, there are some that may be denominated the worst we have seen.  There was also a specimen of, what we have on other occasions designated, “patched” pictures.  Considering what has already been done in this department by Mr. Henry P. Robinson and Mr. O. G. Rejlander, we are really astonished at anybody having the temerity to exhibit a picture which has not a single claim to the attention of even the merest tyro n the photographic art.  There are no grounds upon which we can recommend it, either artistic or photographic.  It is not a picture representing an incident or a sentiment, but simply a family group, certainly not grouped in a manner that reflects much credit on the composer.  The novelty which, we presume, the composer thinks he is presenting to the professors and students of the heliographic art is, that the picture is composed of several negatives.  But what shall we say of the manner in which the joinings are effected?  They certainly are novel.  The wonder of such pictures as Mr. Rejlander composes is, that he disposes the light and shade over his compositions so that the spectator is unable to discover the joinings; but, in the instance before us, we have every negative plainly indicated, not only at the places of junction, but also in the colour of the several negatives—one being light whilst another is dark.  The first or second joining is just passable; but as we approach the middle, the whole composition is nicely varied by a crooked line of white here and there intervening, sometimes a quarter of an inch wide, while a buffet or footstool is pleasantly situated in the idle of the picture, reminding one forcibly of the geographical description of an island, which is “a piece of land surrounded by water”—while the footstool we allude to is a black mass surrounded by a white fringe.  Our object in thus alluding to a worthless picture is, to warn photographers from sending such silly things for inspection at a meeting of the London Photographic Society, where one expects to see, not the simple, first attempts of novices in the art, but the results of processes or some of the multiform adaptations of photography.  There were also some specimens of Poitevin’s process of photo-lithography exhibited by Mr. Malone, which had been brought for the purpose of comparing them with those of Mr. Fox Talbot.  These photo-lithographs were, for the most part, copies of patterns and portions of fine architectural buildings.  It could not fail to be seen, even by the most unobservant, that these specimens were indeed beautiful; yet it is unfair to bring them into comparison with the productions of Mr. Talbot, inasmuch as that gentleman’s views are almost exclusively landscapes, or views of whole buildings, in which it is much more difficult to attain anything like perfection.  While the views by M. Poitevin were selected so as to show to the best effect what that gentleman can do, in the case of Mr. Talbot the reverse seems to be the case.  However, the subject will be treated more at length, as a paper—or, at least, a discussion—has been promised on new processes which have been invented to supersede the engraver.  Mr. Delamotte exhibited a large view of the Crystal Palace, which was remarkable for its large size, the beauty of its half-tints, and the nicety with which the detail was rendered.  When we visited the Crystal Palace recently, we recollect seeing some photographs—or at least what were photographs—of the same subject, if we mistake not, by the same gentleman; and, as far as relates to the correctness with which they represented the sentiment which Mr. Robinson has so ably illustrated in another way, we think that they were still more successful, for they bore the more unmistakable and decided evidence that they were “Fading Away,” a fate which we hope will not overtake the specimen above alluded to.

            Owing to the absence of the Lord Chief Baron, Mr. Roger Fenton occupied the chair.  A paper was read by Mr. Reeves Traer, M.R.C.S., on “The Photographic Delineation of Microscopic Objects;” after which there was a discussion, which lasted until ten o’clock.  We refer our readers to another column for a full report of the proceedings of the meeting, and the discussion which took place after the reading of the paper was terminated.

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 12, vol. I, #10, p. 109:

            Our Photoglyphic Illustrations.  [extracts]

            With the present number of the “Photographic News,” we present our readers with a specimen of Mr. Fox Talbot’s new process of photoglyphic engraving. [section edited out] Most of our readers will perceive that the views are taken from those published by MM. Clouzard and Soulier, the celebrated French photographers, who are almost unrivalled in the perfection of their stereoscopic transparencies; and we do not think we are premature in announcing, that these gentlemen are so interested in this new invention that they are preparing some large views of Paris, expressly for the purpose of being engraved in this manner; and we have the pleasure of stating, that as soon as these large views are ready engraved, our readers will have another opportunity of judging for themselves of the progress with this beautiful and wonderful art is making.

            The titles of the pictures issued with this number of the “Photographic News” are as follows:--

            1.  Bridge over the Moldau, Prague.

            2.  Congress of Deputies, Madrid

            3.  Court in the Alhambra, Granada

            4.  Palace of the Duc de Montpensier, Seville

            5.  The new Louvre, Paris

            6.  The Gate of the Cathedral of San Gregorio, Valladolid

            7.  The Institute of France.

[rest edited out]

           

1858:  P News, Nov. 12, vol. I, #10, p. 110:

            The Stereoscopic Angle.

            Sir,--Your correspondent, Mr. Lake Price, [letter not transcribed] appears not to have seen the beautiful stereographic photographs of the moon obtained by Mr. Delarue, taking advantage of the difference of presentation of its globe to the eye in opposite states of libration, as suggested by Mr. Wheatstone, of whose admirable invention of the stereoscope this must be looked upon as the crowning triumph, being, in effect, a step out of and beyond nature.  When taken on glass, and seen transparent, nothing can exceed the perfection with which the spherical form and unity of object comes out, while the two pictures, viewed alternately with one and the other eye, differ so widely, both in the apparent forms of the spots and in their lights and shadows, that it seems almost inconceivable how they can ever be brought into harmonious consistence.

            The mean effect of the moon’s monthly libration in longitude is, to displace a spot from her apparent centre around six degrees and a quarter of her own surface; and this, taking place in one situation to the east and the other to the west, produces a total apparent change of place of about twelve degrees and a half, which is the “stereoscopic angle” in this case, and which corresponds to the distance of the earth to a lateral shift of the point of view or of the photographic camera of about 6 ½ diameters of the earth, or 52,000 miles:  so that this stereoscope exhibits the moon to us as it would be truly seen by a giant whose eyes were that distance asunder, if stationed at our distance from it. 

            As the sun turns on its own axis absolutely in about twenty-five days and a half, and relatively in about twenty-seven and a half, a spot on its surface will shift its place in twenty-four hours about thirteen degrees on that surface.  Two photographs, therefore, taken about the same hour on consecutive days, ought to give an equally perfect stereograph with that of the moon above mentioned; and as the spots very often remain but little altered in size and figure during that interval, it can hardly be but that such stereographs taken in favourable opportunities, when large spots are approaching the edge, will suffice to decide by ocular inspection the long mooted question, whether they be really depressions or pits in the sun’s photo-sphere or not.

  [rest, different subject, edited out]   …. signed, J.F.W.H. Collingwood, Nov. 6, 1858

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 12, vol. I, #10, p. 110-111:

            Photographic Atlas of the Moon, by P. Secchi.

            At a recent meeting of the Academy of Sciences the gentleman, whose name appears at the head of this paper, presented an atlas of the phases of the moon, photographed by means of the great Mertz telescope, at the Roman college.

            “The diameters of the moons,” he says, “are twenty centimeters.  The manner in which they were obtained was, by taking a negative proof on collodion forty-five millimeters in diameter: the images was afterwards enlarged with the assistance of a great solar microscope, and in this way a positive proof was obtained on albumenised glass of the desired size.  From this positive proof a negative was obtained for printing the picture on paper.  The actual dimension represents the moon as it is seen in a telescope magnifying 90 or 100 times, and this size was not exceeded, because if it were, the irregularities in the surface of the paper would equal the inevitable irregularities of the picture, produced by the inequalities of the albumenised and collodion film.  These photographs produce an excellent effect when regarded with a glass, magnifying eight or ten times, under a rather powerful light.  The conclusions which science may draw from these pictures appear to me very interesting:

            “1.  I remarked some time since, the enormous difference in the time of exposure required to obtain the moon in its different phases:  thus, seven minutes is necessary for the phase of four days, and only twenty seconds for that of the full moon.

]           “2.  The difference of the luminous intensity in the different parts is very great.  In the full moon, to have a sufficiently sensible distinction between the different regions of the surface, we limited the time of exposure, as I have already mentioned, to twenty seconds; but while the mountains are white the seas are black.  This effect, which is very visible in the moon at night, disappears in the moon seen by daylight; in fact, looking at this luminary while the sun is still on the horizon, the mountains will be seen very clearly on the blue ground of the firmament, while the seas have the same intensity as the terrestrial atmosphere, and, owing to that cause, are invisible.  From thence flows a result, perhaps, unexpected in photometry, which is, that the light of our atmosphere, enlightened by the sun, is equal to that of the more somber parts of the full moon during the night.  The same effect reproduces itself in an almost equal degree in the phase of the tenth day, when the crater Copernicus appears isolated from all the surrounding parts, which, nevertheless, were enlightened, but the chemical intensity of which is rather feeble, because they belong to the smooth parts.

            “3.  The lunar images were taken in the months of March and April; in the summer months it was impossible to obtain anything satisfactory, in consequence of the great vividness of the light of the sky, which sometimes even produced reversed images.  Hence a very great difficulty in the way of taking pictures of the moon in its earliest phases, the moon being then always immersed in crepuscular light.  The atlas gives the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 10^th, 12^th, and 14^th days.  We have omitted some days because the details of the lunar surface are obtained much better in her diminishing phases on account of the great quantity of the smooth and ineffective parts.

            “4.  These details are interesting as applied to the theory of lunar formations.  We shall observe, and not without interest, the vat radiations which spread from the principal craters—especially Tycho, Copernicus, and Kepler.  The first is so marked that it gives to the moon the aspect of a globe divided by meridians, the pole being in the centre of the crater itself.

            “5.  A very remarkable circumstance presents itself in the photographs, which at the first glance appears to arise from imperfection in the execution:  it is a kind of indecision of the pictures, and a dispersion of the light in the neighbourhood of the spots, which one is inclined to attribute to a movement of the image, especially in the full moon—but to do so would be erroneous.  In fact, this diffusion around the clear parts commences from the tenth and twelfth days, when the well-defined, small craters prove the precision of the image.  It appears, therefore, that this arises from a stronger illuminating action, which has its source in the asperities which necessarily surround each crater.”  (The author here appends the following note:  --“It would indeed be impossible to obtain an exact phase without the other, for after having found the chemical focus in the lunette, a point of datum was fixed to find it immediately.  This focus was seventeen millimèters more distant than the optical focus.  If there is some indecision in the image, that arises from the agitation of the air, and to the movement of the image which ensued, which produced an extreme difficulty, and we were obliged to reject many proofs made on the evenings when the atmosphere was agitated.”)

            “The photographic execution of the lunar pictures was performed by M. François Barelli, a Roman pharmacien-chemiste, and a distinguished amateur in photography.  To insure the success of so many phases, it required extra-ordinary perseverance on the part of the photographer, as well as great intelligence.”

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 12, vol. I, #10, p. 112-113:

            Photography in Algeria.  No. III (continued).

            No opportunity of getting any picture worth preserving occurred after this until we reached the immediate vicinity of the mountain where the Kabyles had taken up their position.  By this time the soldiers were very tired, for though the weather was not nearly so hot as it was two or three months ago, yet it was still hot enough to tell upon one in the desert; and their commanding officer therefore decided on deferring the attack until the following morning at daybreak, notwithstanding the impatience of the men to “go in” at once.  The mountain was not of any great height, nor difficult of ascent at the lowest part; but we could easily see, that as swoon as the first sixty or seventy yards had been got over, the sides of the mountain would be rugged and difficult to ascend.  Fragments of rock lay loosely about the sides, which were pretty thickly covered with low shrubs, forming an excellent cover for the natives, and admirably suited for their mode of fighting, which resembles the method practiced in the mountain warfare during the peninsular war, and doubtless suggested to them by these very facilities.  We saw no indications of any living being on the mountain when we arrived near the foot of it, but the men had no sooner commenced to pitch their tents, and thus reveal their intention not to attack that night, than I noticed a figure rise up here, and another there, and very soon there were so many visible that if every bush had been as prolific as the wooden horse of Troy, they could not have brought forth more ready-armed warriors.  Derisive shouts were uttered by them, and every now and then a fellow, more of a fanfaron possibly than his comrades, would descend the mountain, so as to come somewhat nearer to us, and pour out a volume of defiant language, in which the opprobrious terms Kaffir and Roumain were alone intelligible at the distance we were from him; and when he had finished, he would discharge his gun towards the outpost, go through a considerable mount of pantomime, expressive of his contempt for us, and then rejoin his comrades.  The whole thing reminded me of the scenes before the walls of Troy.  The soldiers were all this time busy in pitching their little tents and getting their food ready, and paid not the least attention to this vapouring of the Kabyles; and though it would have been easy enough, I have no doubt, to have knocked over one or two of the most boisterous of these gentlemen, no attempt was made to do so, and I did not notice any desire on the part of even the youngest soldier to engage in such petty warfare.  I noticed a surprising difference in the conduct of the men on this evening to their behaviour on the march.  There was no noisy levity, but a grave and quiet manner about them which impressed me strongly, and inspired me with more respect for them than I had entertained previously.  As soon as the meal was ended, the men lighted their pipes, and employed themselves in cleaning and examining their funs and bayonets; some conversing on the approaching conflict, and others occupied in thought, probably of relatives and friends at home whom they might never see again.  As for the Spahis, they behaved themselves much as usual.  They were not likely to have any share in the fighting, unless the Kabyles were driven into the plain, and there was little likelihood of their getting any spoil in the affair, which, perhaps, might account for the rather discontented expression of their dark faces.

            In the course of the evening I rode with Hamed round a mountain to the east of that occupied by the Arabs, and we ascended it by a long and rather steep path, which eventually brought us out on a plateau, from which we had a full view of the Kabyles opposite, who were certainly not more than three hundred yards distant, and from whom we were only separated by a very deep ravine.  It at once occurred to me that if there were no danger of a surprise by the natives, I might watch the whole action from this spot, and possibly get some pictures.  I asked Hamed if there was any danger of the Arabs attacking me here; but he assured me that there was not the least, as every man they could muster would be engaged in the contest.  I did not like the idea of being up here alone, but the thought of my friends in England, and  possibly the desire of making some sensation among photographers by the display of photographs which might be said to have been taken on the field of battle, had something to do with my decision; but I did not stop then to analyse motives, but came to the determination that I would make the attempt.  It was nearly ten o’clock when we returned to the camp, and it was requisite that I should start before sunrise, consequently I had to bestir myself to get things ready.  I was so anxious, that I woke very soon after midnight, and though my enthusiasm was not so warm as on the preceding evening, yet I would not admit a thought of drawing back; and as soon as I had called up the Arab who was to accompany me, and had warmed some coffee over a spirit lamp, I helped to pack the material on the back of a horse, and within an hour I was on my way, followed by the native leading the horse.  I felt extremely cold, but the air was quite still; had it been otherwise, and at all boisterous, I believe I should have availed myself of this excuse to have returned to camp.  I was obliged, too, to ride slowly, for fear we might miss our way, and this added another item to my discouragement.  It is one of the greatest bores imaginable to be compelled to proceed at a restrained pace in the dark, when you cannot tell any instant but some individual may spring upon you who would like to cut your throat for the mere honour and glory of the thing; and though it was twilight on the plain it was almost dark as I rode along between the trees which thickly covered the lower part of the mountain.  Happily, once entered on the path, there was no danger of missing my way, and after a ride, which seemed ten times as long as it did on the previous evening, I found myself on the same plateau.  In order to operate successfully, it was necessary that I should place my camera in advance of the tall shrubs which were growing all over the plateau; on the other hand, if I did so, there was almost a certainty of my being noticed by the enemy, who might possibly imagine that I had got some new instrument with which I was about to do them some damage, and therefore send a party to anticipate me by putting a bullet into me, or by some other violent and sanguinary measure.  After a little thought, I adopted means for concealing my proceedings similar to those employed by the Thanes in their attack on Macbeth’s castle:  I cut some bushes, and sharpened the points so that they might run easily into the ground, and then planting my camera so that it should command the side of the mountain opposite, I arranged the bushes so as to conceal it until I should find it necessary to commence operations.  By this time the sun had risen sufficiently high to enable me to distinguish our camp in the plain, but there was as yet no sign of movement.  I therefore went to the edge of the wood to se whereabouts and in what manner the Arab had provided for the two horses.  I found them hobbled, and, as an additional precaution against their wandering, fastened to a couple of saplings by long ropes.  The Arab had gone to the camp to his master; and though he would have been of no use to me had he stayed, I wished him back.  To wile away the time, I lay down and ate a biscuit I had brought with me, and when that was finished I lighted a cigar and crawled to the edge of the ravine, from whence, screened by a shrub, I could see both the camp and the enemy.  Soon I perceived the only two guns we had with us brought to the foot of the mountain, and the Zouaves assembling in order, waiting the signal to charge.  Then came a puff of smoke from one of the guns, and almost simultaneously with the sound reaching me I saw splinters of rock flying about on the mountain opposite.  I was rather surprised that all this time the enemy had shown no signs of their presence, and I began to fancy they had stolen away during the night; but a second shower of grape, directed among some bushes lower down, showed that they had been stung into existence, and they at once began an irregular fusilade, which, though they are excellent marksmen, was too distant to do us any harm.  A few more reports, and the enemy swarmed from behind rocks and bushes, and added by their shouts and firing to the uproar which filled the air.  This appeared to me a good opportunity of getting a picture, before the atmosphere became too much obscured by smoke; and I accordingly shut myself in my tent, prepared and inserted the plate, which I exposed for perhaps half a second longer than I should have done under other circumstances.  To make sure of the picture, I developed and washed it at once, and placed it against the edge of the tent to dry.  These operations were not performed without some trepidation on my part, as you may well imagine, seeing that the firing of funs and the shouts and cried of the Arabs were ringing in my ears the whole time.  When I had again reached my former post I found the Arabs had descended lower down the mountain; but when they found that, in proportion as they were massed together, the bullets from the French guns killed and wounded more of them, they dispersed themselves behind the pieces of rock and the bushes.  There was now a movement among the Zouaves.  They moved at an ordinary pace until they had fairly commenced the ascent of the mountain; then they dashed upward with an unwavering purpose, which was so manifest in their advance, that I should not have been surprised if the Arabs had fled at once, although they enormously exceeded the French soldiers in number.  Upwards and onwards, with the steady determination of the youth of whom Longfellow says “Excelsior,” came the white-gaitered, white-turbaned, swarthy soldiers.  They did not fire a shot, though bullets were flying thickly about them, but came on with the bayonet, resistless as fate.  The Kabyles, who, as marksmen, might compare with any troops in the world, and who are naturally as brave, could not withstand the contact of the gleaming steel; they fell back as the Zouaves pressed upon them, though some of them kept up a continual fire from under cover.  I chose this moment to take a second picture, and from this time until the termination of the firing I renewed the plates, until I had exhausted the supply I had brought with me.  Fortunately, as I thought, the battle was by this time at an end, and the French soldiers had possession of the heights, though parties of them were still engaged in driving off isolated bodies of Kabyles.  The outposts were placed, and soon fires were lighted; and the wounded, of whom there seemed to be very few, were conveyed down to the camp; while those who had escaped sat down to a meal which they had well earned.  By the time I had arranged my negatives in the box, and put the utensils I had made use of into their proper places, I found that the sun was setting, and I began to feel anxious for the return of the Arab who was to lead the horse carrying the camera and other things down to the camp.  It suddenly occurred to me that I would go and see after the horses; but when I got to the spot where they had been tethered they were not to be seen; the ropes by which they had been fastened had likewise disappeared.  I was now in a predicament which caused me no little alarm.  I could not doubt that the horses had been stolen; the only question in my mind was whether the thief who had taken them had discovered my presence on the plateau or not.*  (*The conclusion of this letter will be published next week).

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 12, vol. I, #10, p. 113:

            The Ladies of Japan in the Stereoscope.

            A gentleman, who returned not long since from Japan, called upon us a few days since for the purpose of showing us some sketches of Japan and its people, which he had mounted for the stereoscope according to the manner described by us in the article on Mr. Sang’s invention.  One of the sketches gave an exceedingly pretty view of Nagasaki, but the more interesting pictures were those of groups of females.  Their faces are very attractive, from the expression of gentleness which is their chief characteristic.  We are sorry, however, to have to destroy the pleasing illusion which exists as to their innocence.  If we judge them by our standard, they are among the most immoral on the face of the earth.  The gentleman referred to assures us that the women who bring you your tea in the public gardens—which abound—are, without any exception whatever, women of loose character.  At Nipon it is difficult even to guess at their number, so numerous are they.  This class of women are not looked upon in Japan with the same contempt as here; on the contrary, they very frequently make good marriages, and are invariably well and kindly treated; and in cases where they have been purchased by the keepers of these houses fro their parents when very young, these men, if the girls give promise of beauty, expend considerable sums on their education, and in teaching them various accomplishments.

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 12, vol. I, #10, p. 117:

            Views for Photographers Near London.

            Dear Sir,--D.E., or other  subscribers to the “Photographic News” who wish to take views near London, would do well to visit Woodford, where beautiful photographs might be obtained.  The village of Chigwell, three miles from Woodford, has also some very pretty scenery.  Woodford is about ten miles from London, and may be easily reached by the Eastern Countries Railway, either from the terminus at Fenchurch-street or from Shoreditch.  F.W.B.

 

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 19, vol. I, #11, p. 121-122:

            Approaching Exhibitions.  No. II.

            The season for photographic exhibitions is fast approaching; and, judging from the reports which we have from all parts of the country, there is a likelihood of a greater number being held this season than at any time since the discovery of Photography.  The exhibition of the London Photographic Society will be held in the Gallery of the Society of the British Artists, in Suffolk-street, Pall Mall.  In our fourth number we took occasion to remark upon a somewhat strange resolution passed by the council of the Photographic Society.  We did this the more readily because many photographers had addressed us on that point; and not having space to insert the numerous letters, we made the subject one of more special remark.  Not only were “remonstrances” addressed to us personally, but, we believe, to the Council of the society, who then modified their resolution by announcing, that it was “not intended to exclude the works of our photographic brethren exhibited at the exhibition in Edinburgh, which opens in December.”  We were glad to perceive from the foregoing that the Council had seen the sense and justice of our remarks, and therefore we are not a little astonished at hearing what is tantamount to a repetition of the original resolution.  They intend to abide by their former resolve.  We cannot help differing from them in regard to their opinion, that the resolution is one “which is conservative of the dignity and professional interest of the photographer.”  In our fourth number we plainly showed that it certainly was not promotive of the photographer’s “interest;” as, on that occasion, speaking of the resolution, we said, that “It seems to us to be a most effective attempt to defeat the objective of exhibitions, because it will easily be seen, that to exclude a photograph from an exhibition simply because it has been exhibited in shop windows is a most arbitrary regulation, since many of our leading photographers have their respective publishers; and it is not likely that a publisher would so far forget his own interest as to withhold the publication of a photograph until it has been exhibited at the society’s exhibition.”  Nothing can be more apparent, that it would not be p with which it is now proposed to cover the walls of the Photographic Society’s exhibition.  It remains to be seen with what amount of impartiality previously-exhibited photographs will be excluded.

            We are glad that the exhibition at the Crystal Palace is to be reinforced with the collection after the Suffolk-street rooms close.  We showed very plainly, in our review of the Crystal Palace Photographic Gallery, that it greatly needed something worthy of the place and the art.  It has been suggested, that, at the forthcoming exhibition, an effort should be made to obtain a complete series of photographic engravings.  This suggestion is well worth the consideration of those who may be appointed to superintend the exhibition;  and it ought, we think, to be carried out in a similar manner to that in which the Manchester Exhibition was arranged, viz., chronologically.  That was, probably, one of the greatest charms of that noble collection, as the art student was thus enabled to see and study the early works of the masters of each country where the arts had flourished, and continue his study of chefs-d’œuvre representing a space of many hundreds of years, in the gallery of ancient masters.  While in the modern, or English school, there were specimens of almost every mater of note from the time of its foundation.  This arrangement was carried out uniformly in every department except the photographic gallery, where, we are sorry to say, not the slightest arrangement, as regards chronological order or the classification of subjects, was observed.  This is to be regretted, as a great opportunity was thus lost of displaying the wonderful resources and progress of photography.  In the present instance, the suggestion of forming a gallery of photographic engravings might be carried out with very little effort, by collecting the earlier attempts of Mr. Fox Talbot; the photo-galvanographic prints; the productions of M. Poitevin and other French photographers; and, lastly, some specimens of the more elaborate and beautiful photoglyphic process, which we have recently given out readers an opportunity of inspecting for themselves.

            The Architectural Photographic Association open their exhibition in December, in the gallery of the Old Society of Painters in Water Colours, in Pall Mall.  The display, we have reason to believe, will greatly exceed that of last year.  We shall revert to this subject in a future number.  The object of this association is to present to its subscribers a number of photographs of the finest specimens of architecture in the world.  It is carried out upon the Art Union principle.  The late exhibition was the first that the association has held, and hence the inexperience of its managers may account for some apparent irregularities which characterised their proceedings.  The committee who had the management of the association had first to obtain subscriptions to a certain amount before operations could be commenced; and the advantages which were held out to the members were, that they would be entitled to a number of good photographs in lieu of their subscription.  As they obtained a large amount of money, thus subscribed, in advance, the committee were enabled to contract with photographers for a number of copies of their photographs at a low price.  Taking into consideration probably expenses, a little additional charge was placed on the photograph, which was marked accordingly.  The irregularity is as follows:--A visitor might enter the exhibition, and purchase a catalogue; he had then an opportunity of seeing whether there were really any pictures which he would like, and which would make up the value of his subscription before he subscribed; and, by this means, the stranger who saw before he bought, was placed upon a better footing than one who had some time previously subscribed in order to carry on the undertaking.  Unless it is stated that this will be remedied this year, it will most effectually lead to the extinction of the society, as nobody will care about subscribing before he sees whether he can really obtain the value of his subscription; and thus there will be, eventually, no funds in advance with which to carry on operations.  It is clear, that some decided advantage should be held out to the public in order to induce people to subscribe beforehand.

            A reference to our advertising columns of last week would enable our readers to perceive, that the photographic society which has recently been formed in Nottingham, under the presidency of his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, contemplate opening an exhibition about the 20^th of next month.  This society, during its short existence, has been carried on with some vigor; and we have no doubt that the first exhibition of the society will be creditable to them as a beginning.

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 19, vol. I, #11, p. 123-124:

            Photography in Algeria.  No. III.—(continued.)

            I was obliged to admit to myself that there was very little chance of my presence on the plateau being unknown, the presence of the horses, and their being tethered, would have told the thief that somebody must be in the neighbourhood, and there was no difficulty in the way of anybody seeing my tent from the wood without my seeing him; besides, he might have come close to the tent while I was inside without my being aware of it.  There was one source of consolation, and that was in the thought that the thief might have no friends within reach, and might be so well satisfied himself with the spoil he had already got, as not to return.  Of course I had not ventured out without that light revolver of Tranter’s with which you are familiar.  The sheikh had especially cautioned me on that matter; some of the Arab tribes looking upon it as an honour to take a man’s life without the slightest provocation, and from precisely the same motive as inspired Cooper’s noble savages in their hunt for scalps, whether of men, women, or children:  the estimation in which such an Arab is held among his tribe being in proportion to the blood he has shed.  But though I was armed, I had not the least inclination to take the life of any human being; on the contrary, the intense dread I have of giving pain to any living thing is such that I should be ashamed to acknowledge it to the people among whom I am now living; but I soon found the justice of the observation made by the French lady when the priest told her, with emphasis, that Saint Denis had walked two whole leagues with his head in his hand,--that is such cases “the first step is the only difficulty,” as you will see.

            If there had been a certainty of my reaching the camp in safety by walking, I would have hidden my camera, secreted my negatives in the best way I could, and have started off; but the chances of my doing so were very problematical, as some of the natives who had been dispersed by the French troops were pretty certain to be prowling about as near the camp as they dared, in the hope of picking off a straggler.  It was already dusk, and would be dark before I could get clear of the wood, so I was obliged to give up the idea, and wait, with as much patience as I could command, for the return of the Arab, who I felt certain would be accompanied by the sheikh.  As an additional means of sustaining my equanimity I did what every man who is accustomed to be much alone is sure to do—I filled a meerschaum, and commenced smoking.  I was sitting inside my tent, which was partly open, my revolver lying on my knees, when I heard a report, and almost simultaneously there was a commotion among my teeth, and a jingling among my chemicals.  The shock I received was so sudden, that, from some cause or other, probably fear, I did not stir; nevertheless, I had presence of mind to take up my pistol, and, in what was probably a few seconds, but which seemed to me a very long time, I saw the muzzle of a gun projecting from behind a bush, and then the figure of what appeared a naked man came cautiously forward in the direction of my tent.  I was even at that moment undecided what to do; I did not like the idea of shooting him, and if there had been any hope of making myself understood by him, I believe I should have tried the effect of a parley.  He cam sneaking along—in this respect also resembling the noble savage—thinking, no doubt, that his shot had taken effect.  The mouth of the fun was within a yard of my body, when, almost mechanically, I raised the pistol and fired.  The fun fell to the ground, and I had just time to move my legs a little aside out of the way of the body when it fell heavily to the ground beside me.  I was seized with such horror that I sprang up and ran off towards the ravine.  Soon, however, other thoughts—thoughts as to my own safety—made me think with indifference on what had just occurred; so powerful is the feeling of self-preservation.  From what I had heard of the manners of the Arabs, I knew there was a possibility of the man whom I had just shot being alone, and that he was the thief who had stolen the horses, and whose greed had induced him to return alone, that there might be none with whom he would have to share the plunder, thinking, probably, there would be little difficulty in shooting a man whom he might attack unawares; and certainly, if I had been sitting outside my tent instead of inside, where it was impossible to see me at a few yards distance, I should not now have the pleasure of writing to you, nor would you, or any of my other friends, have ever known that my bones were bleaching on a mountain in Africa.  At the same time there was the knowledge that the recent defeat of the Arabs had scattered them about in the vicinity, for these men when defeated never go right away at once, but hang about the spot under shelter of the bushes and rocks until the victors have retreated, and there was every probability of the report of firearms bringing them to the spot.  There was no way of escape open tome; the small bit of table-land on which I was, was bounded on one side by the deep ravine, the side of which was almost perpendicular, and, with the exception of two or three little shrubs at considerable distances from each other, offered no salient points for the hand or foot; and on the other by the thick trees, which included me in a semicircle.  My feelings, as I waited in the momentary expectation of an attack, were in truth indescribable, for I really do not remember what they were.  I recollect that I felt an intense dread of dying, not so much, I fancy, at the thought of death and its consequences, as of the pain I must suffer before death.

            My pen is not that of a ready writer, or I might describe what followed in the style of an author with whose works you are familiar, thus:--I placed myself with my back to the ravine, and determined to sell my life dearly.  In that moment, with death staring me in the face, the image of the old house rose up before me, with my kind old father sitting beside the fire in the familiar room he called his study.  There hung the well-remembered whip with which, when a boy home from college for the holidays, I had thrashed the biggest bully in the county.  There, too, &c., &c., &c.

            Or, perhaps, a graver style would be better suited to the occasion—dropping the first person and assuming the third, thus:--Darkness was spreading her sable wings over the earth, and the dazzling orb that bears the name of her who erst on Ida’s mount received the golden apple, prize of the fairest, gentle Aphrodite, shone with a luster unknown in colder lands and more cloudy skies.  The bold and daring photographer Z(the real Prometheus, who seizes heaven’s light and devotes it to his will) gazed at the lifeless corpse from which the soul had been divorced by his hand.  A solemn awe stole over his spirit—the awe which the living feel in darkness beside the bodies of the dead;…. And so on ad lib.

            Perhaps you may think I speak of the matter with too much lightness; but believe me I feel as deeply grateful to the……… (sic)

            In plain language, what really passed was as nearly as possible as follows:--I prepared myself as well as I could for the encounter, which seemed more imminent every moment.  I wished myself at home, or anywhere than where I was; and altogether I passed a “mauvais quart d’heur,”*  (*For the benefit of our younger readers we may mention that “un mauvais quart d’heur” is an idiomatic French phrase, the meaning of which will be sufficiently evident from its literal translation—“a bad quarter of an hour.”—Ed.) before I distinguished six or seven half-naked Arabs creeping along through the bushes.  It was very difficult to make them out, in consequence of the trees in the background; but one’s eyesight, as well as some other faculties, are rendered much more powerful by peril, and certainly, I fancy, I was never much nearer death than at that moment.  I lay perfectly still behind a bush, and watched their gradual approach to where I was concealed.  At one time they drew together and held a conversation, and I began to entertain a slight hope that they were about to give up the search; but just then one of them appeared to draw attention to the tent, and there was a hasty move towards it.  I guessed they had discovered the body; and a minute or two afterwards I was convinced of it, for one of them flashed some powder in a pistol, and set fire to a piece of rag, I presume for the purpose of examining the face.  They were in the act of conferring together, when I heard the trampling of horses; and forgetting that these fellow might have companions on horseback, I concluded at once that it was my friend the sheikh, and jumped up from my hiding-place and moved in the direction of the sound, and was very near losing my life in consequence, for the natives round the tent caught sight of me, and there was a pretty general discharge of firearms.  Fortunately I was not mistaken in supposing that it was the sheikh, who, together with his brother and three of his men, had come to seek me.  There was a good deal of firing for two or three minutes on both sides, and my revolver was not silent during that period; but less mischief was done than I expected.  On our side there was one man wounded, and on the other there was one shot dead, and another left on the ground unable to escape, and who, I am afraid to say, was disposed of quietly by one of the Spahis.  My camera and the other apparatus was divided among the party, and I mounted behind Hamed en croupe.  Of course I had to relate all that had taken place, an d they listened to the tale with as much of coolness as if it had been a matter of everyday occurrence.  In the matter of coolness I imitated them; but I made a resolution my own mind—and I don’t think I am likely to break it either—that if ever I accompanied another expedition, I would take care never to place myself in a similar position.

            My first thought on reaching the camp was of my negatives.  I opened the case, and—not to my surprise, certainly, for I rather expected to find something of the sort—but, to my great vexation, I found that the ball had cracked three of the negatives, and had finally lodged in the collodion bottle, the contents of which slightly injured some others.  I think now that I have cause to rejoice in having saved any, and I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing them at the Photographic Society’s rooms, in your company, when I return to England—that will be some compensation for the peril I incurred in getting them.

            Long before you receive this letter I shall be on my way to Hamed’s douar.  Whether I shall be able to send you a letter from there is doubtful; but if it be possible, you shall hear from me.

            Remember me to ……. (sic), and if there is anything in this letter which strikes you as being egotistical, pray don’t publish it.  There is, as you know, nothing I dread so much as being even suspected of boating.—Very truly yours, C.A.

            P.S.—If you know, of hear of, any photographer coming out here, will you endeavour to send me as much collodion of -------‘s make as he will be kind enough to take charge of?

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 26, vol. I, #12, p. 135-136:

            Questionable Subjects for Photography.

            In a recent number of this journal we noticed a stereoscopic slide, published under the attractive title of the “Skeletons’ Carouse,” which was not only revolting as far as the desecration of human skeletons goes, but was positively disgusting as beheld in the stereoscope, which of course added much more to the ghastly effect of the whole picture.  We have often pondered upon the subject of the present degraded state of stereoscopic illustration, and are again induced to revert to the subject, because we feel that not only do the cause of Photography and the claims of Art demand it, but, we are ashamed to add, decency calls for it.  We observe with regret that there is every day a more perceptible tendency to debase that really useful and instructive instrument, the stereoscope, not only by the production of tasteless and insipid compositions, but of positively improper pictures; and from the increase and variety which almost daily present themselves in the shop windows of even respectable traders, it is evident that the demand for this sort of thing is on the increase.  The enormous run which silly “Christenings,” sentimental “Weddings,” and namby-pamby “Broken Vows,” have, is really astonishing.  If the subject, however, be carefully studied, there will be found to be a reason for it all; and the one at which we have arrived is this, that the stereoscope is “the poor man’s picture gallery,”: and that owing to the present comparative cheapness of the instrument, many who have indulged in the luxury have felt such a pleasure in beholding objects stand out in relief, that they have become enamoured of anything stereoscopic, and in their anxiety to procure something which should present the same novelty, they have not cared to be over particular in the selection of subjects; and as weddings  and that class of composition have appealed to the sentimental feelings of the young-lady portion of the public, there has arisen a great demand for that class of picture.

            The composers, having exhausted all their ingenuity n discovering new subjects of this class, at length turned their attention to the production of another class of picture.  The specimens exhibited were at first so mild, that it would have appeared straight laced to have objected to them; then by degrees they became more and more vitiated, and now they have arrived at a pitch of impropriety which calls for the interference of the police authorities.  There is nothing so palpable in these slides as the fact that they, like the Pindaric razors, are made “to sell;” but there is this consolation, in addition to the almost certain fact that the demand must surely fall off, that the slides so printed will fade; so that what was once a stupid or improper picture will, in the course of time, become something infinitely better—a slide of white paper.

            Although we may be called “ill-tempered,” we nevertheless persist in the opinion that composition is scarcely applicable to photography.  The perpetrators of these stereograms of course are opposed to this, inasmuch as stereographic composition enables them to produce pictures which stand out in relief; but in any case, no one will, we presume, deny that composition is the most difficult department of photography; and does it not therefore follow that it should only be practiced by those who have a true artistic feeling?  Now, it is not a little surprising that the leading compositive photographers—Rejlander, Robinson, and others—seldom attempt (as far as we know) the composition of a stereogram?  A fortiori, then, is it not the height of absurdity for men who have not the least sentiment or poetry about them to attempt to illustrate either an incident or compose a picture?  If these would-be artists wish to display their cleverness, why not turn their attention to the hundreds of other subjects which might be mechanically done, and leave that department, which is acknowledged by all to be the most difficult, for those who can do it?

            Our more particular object in this article is to call upon all who deserve the name of photographers to take some means to put down the publication of improper pictures—that class which has earned for itself the title of “Holywell-street revived.”  Lord Campbell’s famous Act had for its object the suppression of demoralising  works and pictures, which were notoriously sold, more especially in the above-named street; but in the case of those lithographs which were a disgrace to human nature, there was at least the consolation of knowing that they had no existence except in the salacious imagination of some immoral draughtsman, who prostituted his talents to so vile and degrading a purpose; while in the slides we are alluding to we have the full assurance that a woman has been the model.  One remarkable feature in the majority of this class of stereogram is, that they seldom or ever include any female who approaches in the remotest degree to a Venus; they are always characterised by more or less of a coarse ugliness, and certainly neither the demand nor the pecuniary value will be enhanced by admiration for the intrinsic beauty of the figures.  The Saturday Review some time ago called attention to this subject in a very able article.  Speaking of the effect of Lord Campbell’s act, it said:--“How far the filthy commerce which Lord Campell proposed to check has been subverted we have no means of knowing; but we do know that exhibitions, which do not exactly fall within the scope of his bill, but which are perhaps better calculated to effect the infamous objects which it attempted to discourage than indecencies of a coarser description, are extremely common; and unless we are much mistaken, have recently increased to an enormous degree.  There is hardly a street in London which does not contain shops in which photographs, and especially stereoscopic photographs, are exposed for sale, which are certainly not positively indecent, but which it is equally clear are expressly intended for the gratification of that pruriency which Parliament tried to deprive of its coarser stimulants.”  Our contemporary may not have seen exhibited photographs which were positively indecent, but we have seen some which ought at once to be consigned to the flames—there are many such published.  it goes on to say:--“We cannot, of course, enter into particulars upon such a subject; but if any of our readers will walk down the Strand he will see numerous shop windows, in other particulars of the most respectable character, which are studded with stereoscopic slides, representing women more or less naked, and generally leering at the spectator with a conscious or elaborately unconscious impudence, the ugliness of which is its only redeeming feature.  There is a brutal vulgarity and coarseness about some of these pictures which are as surprising as they are disgusting.  We have seen publicly exposed, in a shop of decent appearance, a slide representing a woman in bed, with a man in his night-cap and night-shirt seated in a chair nursing a baby, and underneath written “My Last Edition.”  To call such things indecent is perhaps in some cases unjust; but even when they are not open to that imputation they show a stupid, coarse vulgarity of taste and sentiment which is a natural introduction to indecency of every kind.  The more we think of the way in which such things are made, and in the use for which they are designed, the more apparent does their offensiveness become.  Decency is a matter rather of sentiment than of fixed rule, and there would be far more indecency in sitting a single time for any one of many dozens of the photographs in the Strand than in adopting the profession of an artist’s model.”

            As our weekly contemporary very properly remarks—“It must be remembered that a picture is always to some extent idealised.  A Grace, a Nymph, or a Venus, is an unreal, conventional being, whom we associate only with picture galleries; but it is the very merit and object of these photographs to reproduce the real actual woman in the very attitude in which she agreed to pander to the vulgar tastes of mankind.”  We regret extremely that our space will not allow us to give in full the admirable article from which we have quoted; but as the Photographic News circulates amongst that class who produce these slides, we therefore call their attention to the question, and we think that they will at once see, unless their sense of decency is too far vitiated, that they are bringing upon our favourite art a scandal which it is highly desirable to have removed at once.  To our mind there is something positively sacrilegious in the idea of prostituting the light of heaven to such debasing purposes.

            To show that we are not taking too extreme a view of the case, and that what we have just said is not too strong, we cannot do better than extract the following lines from an article on the subject which appears in the Morning Post:--“On behalf of public decency we implore the authorities whom it may concern to direct a scrutinizing eye at the windows of photographic salesmen.  Holywell-street is fairly out-rivalled, and fast-going tobacconists are cast into the shade by the more outrageous displays of men who would sadly grumble if their pretensions to art and science were not allowed.  It is needless to particularise—it might be imprudent  to do so; but most observant wayfarers through London streets during the last few days must have seen in the windows of certain photographic shops, much to their disgust, outrages against common decency endeavoured to be palmed off under the specious pretence of their being works of art.  We are not squeamish.  Our principles are compatible with the fullest legitimate scope of the pictorial and sculptured art.  We do not feel called upon to clamour for a general investure of such figures with togas and fig leaves; we are not shocked at the sight of a Cupid without pantaloons—not hypercritically fastidious about the pose of a Venus or a Hercules; but to see a too life-like representation of courtezanship transferred in all its faithful hideousness to picture tablets by photo-actinism—a very microcosm of impurity—this is one of the things we cannot look upon without disgust.  To our apprehension no sort of pictorial offence is so utterly bad and abominable as is perpetrated by these too faithfully-rendered stereoscopic pollutions.  There can be no surer dictum of Art than that which insists upon the existence of traits and markings in nature unfit for literal rendering.  The very essence of Art resides in the poetry of it, and without imagination there is an end of poetry.  It should be enough, in respect to the photographic abominations of which we speak, to call them abominable.  Unlike ordinary pictures, where models supply the mere ideals, the photographic slides are the very models.  Every  one of those startling poses had its representative in nature.  Every trait of the original is there.  Just fancy the organisation of vice which it implies—vice under the garb of Science and Art.”

            We have been betrayed into greater length than we had at first contemplated, but it is solely owing to our anxiety to see this scandal suppressed.  The morning journal from which we have quoted the above calls upon the police for a “razzia” against the demoralising exhibition.

            While on the subject of improper photographs, we may state that we were recently scandalised at seeing two or three very questionable photographs, but more especially one, exposed in a place where we should above all others least have expected it.  It is a coarse, vulgar photograph of a nude female figure seated on a couch in anything but a graceful attitude—indeed the photograph is quite as bad, if not worse, than the majority of those which we have condemned above.  We have felt it our duty to allude to this subject; and, “although it is not an agreeable theme to refer to, we would recommend to those gentlemen who do not wish to see the degradation of Photography, not to allow their own productions to be exhibited side by side of such degrading associations,”* (*Quoted from the official organ of the Photographic Society, Vol. V., p. 19) and to use their influence in endeavouring to remove the disgusting photograph to which we have referred from the walls of the Photographic Society’s rooms in Coventry-street.

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 26, vol. I, #12, p. 140-141:

            Correspondence.  [selection]

Pages From the Note Book of a Travelling Photographer.

Sir,--In the note you appended to my last communication, I presume it was not your intention to question what I stated as to the immovability of my camera, but simply to suggest that it might be shaky under certain circumstances—such as a rough wind, for example.  No doubt, in this sense, the idea suggested by your experience is quite correct; but then I never meant to say it was immovable, or even the strongest tripod is susceptible of vibrations in a rough wind, as my experience taught me long ago.  All through life I have been influenced by a maxim, impressed upon me by my grandmother in my childhood—“of two evils to choose the least;” and I acted under this influence when I invented a new support for my tent on going abroad.  For the sake of lightness and capaciousness I took my chance of occasional annoyance from instability, which could only occur now and then, whereas its advantages would be continual.  I do not recommend it to photographers who propose remaining in England, because in this country there is no difficulty in obtaining conveyances from one place to another; nor, indeed, did I recommend it to those going abroad.  I merely stated a simple fact of my own experience, which other photographers might benefit by if they thought proper.

            I believe I concluded the last communication I sent you with a reference to the advantage that an English photographer would enjoy in the French provinces, from the fact of his being a foreigner and alone.  I presume, of course, that the photographer is a gentleman, and of good manners, as all those whom I have seen or spoken to on the continent have invariably been.  His presence at a country house is, in that case, looked upon very frequently as an agreeable excitement, which amply compensates for any trouble his presence may occasion; and though it is a fact that many Frenchmen speak ill of Englishmen in general, yet I have invariably found them kind and amiable to the individual, as much so as we should be to a Frenchman under the same circumstances.  At all events I have reason to thank many among the class of Frenchmen I have referred to, as well as their fascinating wives and daughters, for some of the best spent hours of my life; and I am happy to have this opportunity of publicly acknowledging the debt of gratitude I owe them through the medium of the “Photographic News.”  Perhaps, however, my visits have not been without effect in extending the practice of the art of photography; for, on more than one occasion, my host has been smitten by a most intense desire to become an operator; and when, by closely imitating me, he succeeded in getting a picture of his house not altogether unlike what it was in reality, he regarded it with as much enthusiasm as the boy did his bullpup, of whom it is recorded in the diary of the P.C.,--otherwise parish clerk:--That mischievous boy, Tommy Styles,  “having trained a bull-pup to the intent that he might join in the baiting of the bull at Easter, did desire his father, as he one day entered the yard, to fall upon his hands and knees and bellow like one bull, which, he doing, the boy did loose the pup, and the brute did seize the silly old man by the under jaw, and did hang on thereby, he trying to shake him off, and the boy to dance and cry, ‘Bear it like a man, father, ‘twill be the making of the pup!’ ”

            There is one piece of advice which I may give to those whom I am now addressing, who, if they are not accustomed to French society, may misconstrue the meaning of the frank and cordial bearing of French ladies—and that is, to banish from their minds any ideas respecting them which they may have derived from French novels and plays, the writers of which represent inconstancy in a wife as almost a virtue, and their countrywomen as being in the habit of practicing it very extensively.  Let them be assured, that women in France are much the same as women here; and that the conduct which would give offence to a sensible Englishwoman, would be not less likely to do so in the case of a Frenchwoman.  I am the more anxious to impress this on the minds of my travelling countrymen, as I once had to spend three weeks at an inn with a friend, who had had the flesh on his breast ploughed up by a bullet, which had been fired by a justly-incensed husband in return for too pointed attentions paid to his wife—an indiscretion of which I am well assured my friend would not have been guilty but for the erroneous opinion he had formed of French women from the cause above stated.

            After this long digression, into which I have been led from the consideration, that the majority of photographers who go on the continent for amusement, and who take their camera with them as an additional means to that end, will prefer France to Belgium, I return now to the latter country; and I would strongly advise any photographer whose primary object is to obtain pictures, to visit Belgium in preference to any other country.  The proximity of the various towns, and the railways that connect them, render travelling easy and inexpensive:  neither is there any difficulty in getting chemicals from Brussels, in whatever part of Belgium one may be.  Moreover, the communication with England is so constant and frequent, that there is no necessity for a man to carry about with him a lot of plates.  When a sufficient number of negatives have been obtained in any town, they may be securely packed and transmitted to England, wehre they may be printed from at once.

            I have already remarked, that Bruges offers very many objects worthy the attention of photographers; at all events, I found many more than I was able to photograph.  The first which I took was of the market-place, at an early hour in the morning, when it was crowded with country people, who had brought in their fruit, vegetables, butter, &c. The curiously-shaped caps of the women, their short petticoats, and the picturesque character of one or two of the buildings, make it a very pretty picture, and one well worth preserving.  The principal objects of interest to the photographer in Bruges are, the churches of St. Jacques and Notre Dame.  The Hotel de Ville is a handsome specimen of Gothic architecture, and is of a size which renders it easy to be taken in a camera of ordinary dimensions.  The Palais de Justice offers a subject which is pretty from one point of view; but a larger and more interesting picture may be obtained of Les Halles, including the celebrated belfry.  The lower part of this structure is used as a flesh market; and if the early morning be chosen for taking the photograph, this circumstance adds to the interest of the picture, as it gives it an amount of animation not to be obtained under other circumstances—the streets of Bruges, formerly so populous, being now almost deserted; this, however, is an advantage, rather than otherwise, to the photographer.  I have frequently planted my camera in the middle of a street without having ever found it necessary to remove it on account of vehicles.  Besides the buildings I have mentioned, there are very many others which, although they have no historical celebrity, make exceedingly pretty picture.

            The photographer, who necessarily possesses a certain amount of taste, will here find much to gratify it.  Most of the churches, as well as one or two other buildings, contain fine paintings by Rubens, Van Eyck, Hemling, or other painters or note.  During my operations here, I did not attempt to take the interiors of the churches, and therefore cannot say that such a proceeding would be allowed; but I am of opinion, that a polity note to the proper authority would obtain permission to do so; and, in this case, many pictures of great beauty might be obtained.  Viator

 

1858:  P News, Nov. 26, vol. I, #12, p. 142:

            Correspondence.  [selection]

            Stereograph v. Stereogram.

            Sir,--Will you suggest that stereogram is incorrect?  Telegraph has, in our day, been properly altered to telegram, being a thing of words; but stereograph is a delineator as is photograph.  Were gram correct it might, with equal propriety, be called photogram; which, if attention be not called to the point, we may not be unlikely to see.

                                                Yours, etc., Sol. Hypo.

[Editorial reply]

            We have purposely introduced the word “stereogram” to designate a stereoscopic picture, instead of stereograph, as this latter word would more properly belong to an instrument whereby stereograms are taken (in fact such an instrument has been described under that name), and the analogy of other English words, such as telegraph, perspectograph, &c., would thereby be preserved.  With respect to the word photogram, the introduction of which our correspondent seems to regard with such horror, we can inform him that some of the first scientific men in England have, for some time past, been in the habit of using that word.  We fear that photograph is too strongly rooted in the language to be supplanted by photogram, but we should not be sorry to see the barbarism stereograph nipped in the bud.  In all words compounded of a substantive and a derivative from the Greek word γραφώ, it should be borne in mind that “graph,” the derivative from the present tense active of γραφώ, cannot be properly applied except as signifying the agent or instrument that performs the act.  Anemograph, from ανεμος, wind, and γραφώ, to describe; actinography, from ακτιν, a ray of the sun; thermograph, from θερμος, heat, &c., &c., all signify the indicator and not the thing indicated.  “Gram,” on the other hand, a derivative from γεγραμμαι, the perfect passive of γραφώ, should always signify the thing described or indicated, as: telegram, the notice given by the telegraph; photogram, the likeness described by the photograph; stereogram, the effect produced by the stereograph.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 3, vol. I, #13, p. 146-147:

            Balloon Photography.

            Pending the reproduction of colours by means of photography, a mode of accomplishing which has been said to have been discovered five or six different times already, pending also the vulgarization of the different economical printing processes guaranteeing their permanency, which are yet but in the condition of laboratory experiments, processes which shall advantageously replace, at a given moment, engraving and lithography,--novel experiments are rewarded by the most curious results.  Not a very long time has elapsed since the English journals announced the chef-d’œuvre of photographic instantaneity—a shell taken in the air at the moment of its explosion.  Bird’s-eye photography had not yet been attempted, although it is about to be.  M. Nadar, who, by dint of care and ability, has succeeded in producing those magnificent proofs which have the appearance of Rembrandt etchings, made on Sunday a preparatory ascension in the Godard balloon, in which he studied the necessary conditions requisite to insure the success of this first attempt at what may literally be termed “bird’s-eye” photography…….. (sic) M. Nadar proposes to make attempts alternately in free and captive balloons.

            Balloons have been, as is known, employed for purposes of strategy during the wars in Germany, Belgium, and Egypt.  Photography, hereafter aerostatic, may render great services in the taking of ground plans, hydrography, &c.  There is no necessity for us to insist on the importance of this scientific event. --Moniteur

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 10, vol. I, #14, p. 166: [extract from annual meeting of the Manchester

Photographic Society in re impact of photography on art and science]

…The art position of photography is daily becoming one of more and more importance.  Private enterprise, unfettered by connection with any society, has been led to establish an independent journal for its especial behoof [sic].  No exhibition of art-manufactures is complete without its photographic department.  Books and newspapers are daily becoming more indebted to photography for illustration.  The landscape painter is often under the necessity of resorting to the camera for accurate information of details attainable by no other means.  of portrait painting a recent critique says:--‘Indeed portraiture has long ceased to be a distinctive school among us, and the recent inroads made upon its rewards by the wonders of photography, encourage but little hope for its future.’  It is also of increasing utility to the scientific man in a variety of ways; to the chemist, as a test; to the meteorologist and astronomer, as a faithful recorder; and to the literary man, as an accurate copyist.  It has made itself useful to the anatomist and surgeon; and to the microscopist it has laid open an entirely new field; whilst to the engineer and mechanic it has become no less indispensable.

It seems incumbent, then, upon all practicing the art, whether as amateurs or professionally, to do all in their power to advance its progress.  Every scrap of information should be carefully stored up, and laid open for the use of all; the greater the freedom with which this is done, so much more rapidly will photography advance to its proper place in the list of useful arts.  it will be the duty of your council to further us as much as possible in this object; and they believe that by a combination of energy such as the society affords, much may be accomplished.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 17, vol. I, #15, p. 173:

            Photoglyphy. [sic]

            The readers of the “Photographic news” have already had an opportunity of seeing the last discovery of Mr. Fox Talbot, and we have now to announce that a still greater advance has been made by that gentleman.  We have been favoured with some new pictures, which are indeed a great step in advance of those which our readers have already seen.

            A view from “Munich, Bavaria,” is an exceedingly beautiful and elaborate picture, and one in which there is more half-tone than we have yet seen in any of Mr. Talbot’s productions.  A view of “Notre Dame, Paris,” is remarkable for the softness which pervades the piece, and for the very delicate manner in which the shadows are rendered.  There are a number of other pictures more or less different in character, but all bearing the decided mark of progress.  An architectural view entitled “The Schools, Oxford,” is even more beautiful than any of the preceding.  In it there is absolutely all the half-tone which the most fastidious critic could desire.  If we may judge of future success by the progress which ahs been accomplished with the last few pictures, we may with safety predict that Mr. Talbot will soon obtain by photoglyphy alone that which many think is only to be obtained by the help of the engraver.  We are the more convinced of the truth of this from the fact, that we have now before us some of the specimens executed by Mr. Talbot in 1813, and the progress from that time to the present is indeed marvelous.  Instead of the airy and sketchy pictures then produced, we have now almost perfect engravings.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 17, vol. I, #15, p. 173-174:

            Critical Notices.

            Stereographic Pictures—English and Welsh Scenery.  Illustrated by William Russell Sedgefield [sic].

            We have been favoured with some specimens of the above-named stereographic pictures, which we are happy to say cannot be concluded in the category of “Questionable Subjects.”  Photography—and especially stereographic photography—is here in its legitimate sphere, and in its proper application.  The views are instructive and entertaining, while, at the same time, there are around them associations of a pleasant character.  We scarcely know which to admire most, the landscapes or architectural pictures, because they are both the best in their respective departments.  The care with which they are printed, the clearness of the negatives, the nicety of tint, the beauty of the half-tone, and the happy-selection of sites, are all characteristics of these stereographs.  “The Tubular and Suspension Bridges at Conway, from the Castle,” is a most interesting view of this gigantic piece of engineering—one of the boasts of the nineteenth century—which is here given with a striking reality.  “The Suspension Bridge” is rendered with all the delicacy of fine wirework in this small picture, while the land beyond the bridges forms a good background.  Glen Lledr, so well known through the large pictures of Mr. Fenton, is equally clearly given in the stereoscope.  The boulders, which jut out in the bed of the river, are seen to great effect.  “Pont Aberglaslyn, North Wales,” is a charming little morceau of scenery.  The rendering of the foliage and the background scenery is extremely interesting; while, almost secluded, we catch a glimpse of the rustic bridge, which materially adds to the general effect.  The indentations which floods have caused in the banks of the river are so regular, that they almost call to mind a theatrical scene from the Brush of Beverly.  Of all the spots about Pont Aberglaslyn, the view selected by Mr. Sedgefield for this picture is, we think, the best.  But the most wonderful of all the views is “The Summit of Snowdon”—not a view from the lowlands, when that king of mountains happens to be clear of the almost perpetual mist which envelopes him, but a view taken not far from the top—showing, in great reality, the dangerous height to which the photographer has attained.  On the top we are enabled to see figures standing near the erection which crowns the summit of this lofty peak—the figures, no doubt, of some adventurous spirits who have accompanied Mr. Sedgefield on his photographic tour.  This scene is, to us, a striking instance of the great applications to which photography may be put.  The view is one of which almost everybody has heard, but which very few have ever seen, except in the fanciful sketches of tourists, or in the still more crude attempts of elementary geographic illustrations we have given our readers an opportunity, in the pages of the “Photographic News,” of seeing some of the difficulties attendant upon the photographer abroad, both in India and Algeria; but here we have some of the difficulties of our own land more forcibly depicted by the camera than they could be by the pen.  The last landscape view that we will mention is of a place with which everybody who has ever had a drawing lesson will be acquainted.  Who has not heard of the numberless prizes which have been gained for views of “Tintern Abbey,” by all kinds of light, from early dawn to brilliant moonlight?  The position from which this view is taken is from the Chapel Hill, so that the abbey lies at the foot of the hill; and directly facing is another hill, which is covered with trees, the most remarkable feature of which is the nice gradation of tint which marks the distant perspective.  The details of the Abbey are admirably given.  Altogether the picture is an extremely pleasant one.  Many of these scenes forcibly recall to our minds a series of admirable views which were taken in Ireland some time ago, and published by the London Stereoscopic Company.  The architectural subjects are remarkable for the delicacy with which detail is rendered, the more so as all the views before us are interiors.  Every photographer who has attempted in-door photography in any of our ecclesiastical buildings in this country knows, that the “dim religious light,” about which poets sing, is anything but favourable to the photographic art, while the too glowing light is quite as objectionable.  “The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, with the Minstrels’ Gallery,” is a nice picture; and the shadows, so difficult to catch in such a way as to balance the colour of the picture, are well given.  The same remarks apply to the view of “The Transepts, Salisbury Cathedral;” while in this picture there is an absence of a defect which we have frequently seen in other views of transepts, viz., the strong light which shines in through the window, and causes an unpleasant glare to pervade the picture.  “Bishop Fox’s Chantry Chapel, Winchester Cathedral,” is a carefully executed picture, and shows, with great minuteness, the elaborate architecture of this noble pile.  “The Choir and Altar Screen,. Winchester Cathedral,” is about one of the finest.  It strongly reminds one of David Roberts’ delightful interiors; all that it lacks is colour, to make it a picture by Mr. Roberts.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 24, vol. I, #16, p. 184:

            Photography Applied to Military Purposes.

            We are indebted to Mr. Spiller, a gentleman whose name must be familiar to all photographers, and whose experimental skill and rare scientific acquirements have acquired for him the honourable post of photographer to the Royal Military Repository, Woolwich, for an opportunity of inspecting a series of photographs illustrative of a part of the course of instruction given to the non-commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery.  The photographic album, lately transmitted to the War Office, includes a number of illustrations, in a complete series, of the successive operations gone through in working heavy ordnance; such as the serving of guns, mounting and dismounting, the use of sheers, gyns, [sic] and cranes,. for raising, lowering, or otherwise disposing of the ponderous masses of iron which constitute the 56 and 68 pounders of the present day.  The several processes of embarking and landing guns, and the mode of adapting the tackle for these purposes; together with the construction of the heavy gun raft, represented in four different stages, are clearly shown; these, together with some of the various forms of military bridges, constitute the principal objects which have, during the past summer, been brought within the scope of photography.

            Considered as photographs merely, these pictures are of the very highest order, many of them have the advantage of a picturesque back-ground of fine foliage, which, combined with water, has in no small degree contributed to the general effect; while, in a military point of view, it cannot be doubted that much value will be attached to the accuracy of detail; such, for instance, as that shown in plate 34 of the new pattern triangle gyn; which proves that, on account of their fidelity, photographs must eventually supersede even the most carefully-executed drawings.  As an aid to instruction at the Royal Military Repository, photography must be regarded as of the highest value; serving, indeed, the same purpose as the diagram to the lecturer.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 24, vol. I, #16, p. 184-185:

            Critical Notices.  Stereographic Illustrations of Compositive Photography.  By J. Elliott.

            We have, on several occasions recently, animadverted upon a department of compositive photography, which we thought called for a remonstrance on our part.  Since then we have pushed our inquiries further on the subject, and have made it a special point to watch the progress or retrogression which might be perceptible.  We have before us an almost complete history of the art in a series of the chief stereoscopic slides which have been published up to the present time.  Amongst them we have, what we believe to be, the first of the kind ever issued, and this decidedly is of the class spoken of in our twelfth number as being sentimental, &c.  Then follows the series of “My First,” “One too Many,” “Five weeks after Marriage,” “Broken Vows,” &c. &c.  These are too well known to need more then the mention of their titles, and our opinion of them has long since been recorded in these pages.  It is, however, but fair to mention, that those just enumerated are among the very first attempts in this branch, and as such, although they bear sufficient evidence of a want of thorough artistic skill, there is, at the same time, no little credit due to the ingenuity of the composer; this, in fact, we have ever been ready to acknowledge in all our notices.  Taking, then, the new subjects which have been more recently published, we can still see traces of the imperfections which are so evident in the earlier productions; while, at the same time, there is a great advance in ingenuity, and a decided improvement in the powers of arrangement.  For instance, a new slide of a new slide of a wedding is much more naturally and yet elaborately grouped; and, instead of a Protestant clergyman, we have a Roman Catholic priest, and, as a matter of course, the elaborate furniture of a Roman Catholic altar, which gives greater facilities to the compositive talent of the arranger.  Still it is but a transposition of the original idea; and a wedding is a wedding, whether the ceremony be performed by Catholic priest or Protestant clergyman.  “The Orphan’s Dream” is well grouped, and the representation of the floating dream is most ingenious; but yet there is scarcely be touched by photography.  “Homeless and Friendless,” a slide not yet published, is well worked out as far as the placing of the figure goes, but the falling snow has a painful, dazzling effect, and the fallen snow is decidedly woolly.  “The Fairy” is perhaps, a still more ambitious effort than any of the preceding.  It is the figure of a female floating in mid air, and behind whom is a background of stars.  The pose of the figure is easy and graceful, but the astronomical background is rather out of place.  We have puzzled our brains to find out in what exact constellation the brilliant group of stars which adorn this picture is to be found.  They have evidently been stuck on by a non-astronomical photographer, while, unfortunately, the sky has a series of wrinkles, more suggestive of a stretched sheet than of the fair canopy overhead.  Those last mentioned are, in our opinion, the lest successful of the new series; but while we say this, we would acknowledge that there is a decided improvement upon the earlier and more crude attempts in this department, and in them there is hope for still greater success.

            “The Reception and Profession of a Sister of Mercy,” illustrated in two slides, are interesting, on account of the announcement that they “have been prepared with every regard to correctness of detail”—the artist acknowledging his thanks to those who assisted him in the composition, including “a venerable ecclesiastic, and an archbishop’s lay secretary.”   The arrangement is very effective.  The series, including “The Money-lender,” “The Inventory,” and “The Sacking of the Jew’s House,” are very decided steps in advance of any that we have yet seen.  The manner in which they are respectively treated is very interesting; and, judging from the difficulties which must be overcome—such as the impossibility, we had almost said, of getting so many figures to be steady while the picture is being taken—the ideas are very well carried out.  It is the above-mentioned difficulty which so mars the effect of these compositions; for, short as the time may be in which the negative is taken, it is sufficiently long to cause the models to become rigid and expressionless.  Hence, in the series entitled, “The Sacking of the Jew’s House,” though the grouping and arrangement are almost faultless, yet there is an apparent want of earnestness of expression on the faces of the principal characters.

            These remarks are not made in any hostile spirit.  It will be seen from the above, that we mark a gradual and decided progress in this department; and the faults pointed out, are not so much those of the composer as that they are inherent in this branch of photography, and we are glad to see that some of our most eminent photographers take an interest in elevating rather than degrading our favourite art.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 24, vol. I, #16, p. 185-186:

            Exhibition of the Architectural Photographic Association.

            The second annual exhibition of this association opened on Friday last—the “private view” being held on the previous evening—the attendance on that occasion was not large, and the show of pictures, both in quantity and quality, was below that of last year.  Indeed we cannot see how it could be otherwise, for if the association has merely for its object the illustrations of architecture, and monuments to be found here and there, it must be limited in its scope; and no better proof of this can be given than the present collection.  In it there is scarcely a picture which the regular visitor to photographic exhibitions has not seen attempted some time or other.

            As yet the association is but an experiment, and it remains to be seen whether repetitions, or even new architectural subjects, are of sufficient interest to the majority of visitors to sustain it in existence.

            Macpherson has illustrated Rome in one hundred and twenty views.  Cimetta, Venice in thirty-three views.  Melhuish, London in two views.  Robertson and Beato, Cairo, in thirty-one views.  Lousasa, Spain in twenty views.  Lowndes, Cocke, Frith, Bedford and Cade, in England, and Baldus, Paris, are also contributors with several other minor artists.  Among whom our readers will be as much astonished as we were to find the absence of Fenton; this is to be regretted, for there are very few who will not remember with pleasure such choice specimens of architectural photography as his “Galilee Porch, Ely Cathedral,” “The West Porch of York Minster,” and pictures of that class.

            There is something novel in the mode of the arrangement of the collection.  There are no glazed pictures; the photographs are mounted on plain cardboard, after which they are nailed to the walls, and then a length of beading is laid along, and every set of four pictures is enclosed when convenient.  By this means a great deal of space is saved.

            We were much gratified to see that the managers had availed themselves of the hints we threw out in a former number with regard to the pricing of pictures, which gave so much offence last year.  The manner in which the pictures are priced this year is by a series of numbers; each picture has a numerical value varying from 6 to 15, and any person who pays his subscription is entitled to as many pictures, of which the total numerical value shall not exceed fifty.  This system, it is thought, will obviate much of the difficulty and dissatisfaction felt last year.  The mode of placing all the work of each artist together, is one which has many advantages to the visitor, and which has been pointed out with regard to other exhibitions in the “Photographic News.”

            In noticing the pictures, the arrangement enables us to proceed with all the works of one artist; Rome, as we before stated, is illustrated by Macpherson, in one hundred and twenty views.  In this number there is more diversity in the negatives, and more inequality in the printing than we ever noticed before in one artist’s productions; and not only does this inequality occur in subjects of different classes, such as architecture and landscape, but also in subjects which ought to have been treated alike.  There is, besides, on the average, a great want of halftone in these pictures; the blacks and whites are too intense even when the picture is only moderately printed.  In some instances, owing apparently to the inferiority of the lens, there is a violation of all received notions of gravitation, and certainly a great want of that which we are always led to expect in architectural drawings—mathematical precision; while, on the whole, these pictures lack that brilliancy which we have seen in other pictures of this city.

            No. 1 “Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli, seen from the opposite side of the Ravine,” is a vigorous picture, in which there is a nice definition of light and shade, with here and there a good deal of detail.  The picture of the “Temple of the Sybil seen from the Bridge” (2), is a great contrast to the one just named, there is scarcely any half tone, and an almost entire absence of perspective effect.  “The view of the Temple of Pallas” (3), “Temple of Vesta and the Fountain” (5), “Columns of the Forum of Nerve” (9), “Arch of the Goldsmiths” (11), are all printed too dark, and thus prevent anything like a minuteness of detail.  “Easter Benedictions at St. Peter’s” (7), has all the characteristics of instantaneous photographs of crowds, confusion and indistinctness.  “Interior in the Vatican,,” styled the Philosopher’s Hall (8), is as bad an attempt at an interior as we have ever seen.  Interiors are at all times difficult subjects, as most photographers know, and therefore they should never be attempted unless the artist has full confidence in his powers.  In “The Base of the Column in the Forum of Trajan” (12), we have a striking instance of the violation of the laws of gravitation above alluded to.  We are only allowed to see the base of the column, and so we can form no correct opinion as to the degree of inclination of the column.  But it strikes us as being several degrees greater than that of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is looked upon as one of the wonders of the world.  “The Tomb of Cecilia Metella, with a distant view of Rome” (13), is a subject in which there is room for a great display of detail and half tone, but the artist has evidently failed to catch or treat it in accordance with the manner in which we are accustomed to see similar subjects treated.  “The Castle and Bridge of St. Angelo, with the Vatican in the distance” (14), is a curious picture, as in it we see combined many of the faults of the whole series, but more especially inequality.  The bridge and water, with the distant view of the Vatican, are printed extremely light, while the castle is very dark.  “The Statue of Moses” (16), and the “Equestrian Bronze Statue of Marcus Aurelius” (17), have many good points about them, but as specimens of statue copying they are far below what we have seen.  “Large view of the Claudian Aqueduct” (19), has many faults; the ruins are given with great distinctness and clearness, while the foreground is black and indistinct, and the back ground is not perceptible, “View over Rome from the Janiculum” (21), is far inferior to Mr. Fox Talbot’s photoglyph of a similar view of Paris.  “Forum Romanum, general view” (22), is much less brilliant and vigorous than the same subject treated by an exhibitor at the last exhibition of the society.  “The Church of San Bernardino, Perugia” (25), “Cathedral of Orvieto” (26), are two of the most successful in the series, more especially the latter, in which we are enabled to trace with the greatest minuteness the whole of the architectural detail, and inspect the beautiful frescoes with which the front of this building is decorated.  “A Group from a fresco by Luca Signorelli, at Orvieto” (27), is much inferior to the same subject as treated by Alinari Brothers, “The Garden in the Vatican” (44), is a subject well calculated for a good picture, as there is great scope for showing to perfection the foliage of the trees, but in this instance they are rendered in black masses, with very little detail.  We omit noticing a great number of this series, as it would only be a repetition of the faults and blemishes we have already pointed out.  We may just mention that in “The View of the Aqueducts—Agua Claudia” (87), there is the same degree of uniformity of colour, the same absence of light and shade, the same smudginess and sootiness, which characterise the prints produced by the celebrated carbon process, as practiced by Mr. Pouncy.  We are at a loss to decide which of the two are the worst.  Having thus impartially noticed this series and pointed out the most glaring defects, we would state that we do not speak with any bias on the subject of these productions; the foregoing are our honest convictions of the merits of Mr. Macpherson’s pictures.  (To be continued.)

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 24, vol. I, #16, p. 190:

            Illuminated Paper Stereograms.

            Sir,--Noticing in your last number a query as to the best mode of procuring “Illuminated Paper Stereograms,” I would suggest the following method as being at once easy and successful:--Print as usual on thin albumenised paper; then take a piece of thin, foreign negative paper of the same size, and fasten it slightly at the corners to the face of the print.  Hold it against a window, and trace on the paper the outline of the object.  Then separate the papers, and paint the paper a dark blue for the sky, filling in the other parts with the proper colours, then colour the back of the print in the same manner with rather paler colours, and when dry fasten the papers (painted side inwards) together.  If a moon is required, cut through the double paper, and put a piece of thin gelatine at the back; if clouds are wished for, colour the sky with some dark colour, and the side towards the light must be touched with white wax, or light clouds may be waxed only.  The method I adopt is to hold the paper over a lamp, and just touch it in the places where I want the clouds with the wax.  Of course I only wax the paper so that it does not spoil the print, and it must b done before they are fastened together.  For an illumination the coloured lamps must be pricked with a fine needle, and strips of gelatine placed behind.  For a room, or like subject, I only paint the back of the print, and place a piece of thin paper behind to hide the colour.  For a fire, I cut with a penknife through the picture, and put gelatine behind.  C.H.P.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 24, vol. I, #16, p. 198:

            Approaching Photographic Exhibitions.  No. III

            Under this heading we have from time to time acquainted our readers with the progress made in the formation and collection of various Exhibitions.  Already the Architectural Photographic Association have opened their Exhibition, in the Rooms of the old Society of Water Colour Artists; for an account of which we refer our readers elsewhere.

            It will be recollected that, on previous occasions when we have alluded to “Approaching Exhibitions,” we have thrown out hints, and commented on the best mode of furthering their interests.  In some quarters these suggestions were at once seen to be practicable and sensible, and were accordingly acted upon.  In one, however, our comments upon this the strangest of resolutions seemed only to have a tendency to confirm, rather than to relax, a stringency which was so fraught with danger.  We need hardly say that we refer to the resolution which the Council of the Photographic Society passed, in August, to the effect—“That no Photographs would be admitted that had been exposed in shop windows, or otherwise publicly exhibited in this country.”

            On that occasion we called the attention of the Council to the matter, and said—“The Council have passed a resolution which has astonished not only us, but many others. . . . . We are sure that, if they will only reconsider the subject, they will see that there has been a degree of precipitancy in passing the resolution, which will not stand the test of deliberation.”  We then proceeded to say that we had received remonstrances on the subject, and that “the resolution could excite but one feeling—that of disapproval; that it seemed to us, indeed, to be a most resolute attempt to defeat the object of Exhibitions, because it would easily be seen that to exclude a photograph from an Exhibition simply because it had been exhibited in the shop windows, was a most arbitrary regulation, since many of our leading photographers had their respective publishers, and it was not likely that a publisher would so far forget his own interest as to withhold the publication of a photograph until it had been exhibited at the Society’s Exhibition.”  We feel it due to ourselves to re-copy what we had urged so far back as October the 4^th, in order to show that we were anxious that the Society should not suffer on account of a stupid resolution, and that the error should be rectified ere it was too late.  The result of our remonstrance was a modification of the original resolution, stating that pictures exhibited at the Edinburgh Exhibition would be admitted.  This we deemed insufficient, and again we urged a reconsideration of the subject, asking for either a rescinding of the resolution, or a very great modification of it.  The Council, however, persisted in their resolution, on the plea that the step which they had taken was one “which was conservative of the dignity and professional interest of the photographer.”  We clearly showed the fallacy of this argument in a former number, but apparently to no purpose.

            What now is the result?  At the last moment they find things taking a turn which is not “promotive of the Society’s interest,” and, just as we had predicted, contributions are not found to flow in; the consequence is, that the Council have just rescinded the resolution as far as regards the present Exhibition, and we strongly suspect in regard to future Exhibitions also.  It is, however, now too late to remedy the evil; already the schedules have been issued with the fatal resolve, and the hanging committee, panic stricken, are running hither and thither, bearing for their motto, “The smallest donations thankfully received.”  It remains to be seen who has most at heart the Society’s welfare—the “Photographic News,” or its own Council?  Indeed, by the insertion of this notice, we are doing more to destroy the ill effects of the resolution, than could possibly be done by any other means.  We fear, however, that even the publicity of the enormous circulation of the “Photographic News” will hardly save the Society now from the prejudicial effects of this ill-advised resolution.  We have, however, done our best, and if the collection of photographs at the next Exhibition of the Society be poor and scanty, the public will not have much difficulty in finding out the parties really in fault.

 

1858:  P News, Dec. 24, vol. I, #16, p. 198-199:

            Critical Notices.

            Exhibition of the Architectural Photographic Association.

            The series of Venetian views, by Cimetta, is interesting on account of the associations connected with that city.  We are not inclined to go into such ecstasies as some of our contemporaries have done on the subject of these photographs.  We are inclined to look at them more from the photographic point of view, and to examine the pictures apart from their historical associations.  There is a good deal of breadth in the style in which they are taken, and also great depth of colour.  In fact, that is one of the drawbacks of the series.  They are mostly printed too dark; this, of course, tends to destroy the detail which would otherwise be observable.  Anybody acquainted with the peculiarities of Venetian architecture, will know that it is full of elaborate and intricate detail, to which photography alone can do justice.  These views are larger than any before published of Venice.  We recollect seeing a series executed by Perini, not quite so large as the views of Cimetta, but far exceeding the latter in equality of tint, in half-tone and minuteness.

            “The Palazzo Passi” (121) is wanting in clear definition, and there is scarcely any detail to be found in it.  “The Bronze Gates of the Logetta of the Campanile of St. Mark” (123), is a subject well adapted to the massive character of these photographs, and the deep brown tone, which is unsuitable to many of these pictures, is singularly well suited to the subject.  The elaborate ornamentation is heavy and massive, therefore no great delicacy of tint is desirable.  Altogether this is about one of the most effective of these photographs—though we cannot help thinking that still greater effect would be perceptible if it were printed a little lighter so as to show the more minute detail.  “The Canopy over the Door of Stephen’s Church” (128), would, if well photographed, make a very good picture; it is, however, far from being successful.  “The Bridge of the Rialto” (129), is an interesting subject, but it has been taken before by other artists with so much greater felicity, that we are almost astonished to find that it has a place in the collection.  “The Railway Bridge, St. Stephen’s”  (130), has much of the characteristic haziness of these photographs, and the blurred prows of the gondolas have a somewhat ridiculous effect.  One thing which must particularly strike every person who inspects these pictures is, that photography cannot give anything like an adequate representation of water.  This, no doubt, is one of the causes of the inferiority of these pictures, but it is more particularly noticeable in this piece.  “The Sitting Lion at the Arsenal” (131), is a massive picture of a massive subject.  “The Chiesa della Saluto” (132), has always been a favourite subject with artists and photographers.  When we recollect some pictures by Canaletto, and those more recently executed by E. W. Cooke, R.A., or the photographs by Perini, we need hardly say that we are dissatisfied with the photograph exhibited here.  “The Bronze Horses, St. Mark’s” (133), “The Recumbent Lion at the Arsenal” (135), are similar in character to (131).  They would have been much better if printed less darkly.  The object of the photographer in these pictures has evidently been to obtain a true picture of the leading objects, quite unmindful of the general effect; for, had he paid but common attention, he could with a little extra trouble have introduced much detail that could not have failed to be interesting.  “The Logetta of the Campanile” (137) is a subject well adapted for fine effect; but here the pervading want of detail is painfully to be observed.  For instance—the Bronze Gates, which form the exclusive subject of No. 123, are here very indistinct, while the bas-relief figures in the niches are scarcely discernible.  Architecturally speaking, this picture is the most interesting of the series; yet the very defects pointed out are those most necessary to assist the architectural student in his studies.  “The Bridge of Sighs” (144) is a wretched attempt at one of the most popular views of Venice.  It has neither artistic feeling, light or shade, or anything that could recommend it, artistically or photographically.

            It will be needless to mention the remaining pictures of this series: as we should only have to repeat our criticisms.  The prevailing faults of Cimetta’s series, are that they are printed too darkly; and the artist has evidently endeavoured to give quantity instead of quality.  The views are too large; had they been smaller they would certainly have been more effective.  Of one thing there can be no doubt, and that is, that Venice deserves a much better photographic translation than that given by Cimetta.

            We come next to two small London views,  A. J. Melhuish, of Blackheath, and how strongly do these clear and definite pictures contrast with those just noticed.  These are—“Views from Victoria-street, Westminster, showing the Towers of Westminster Abbey”  (155), “Victoria Tower, Westminster” (156).  We are sorry that Mr. Melhuish has only contributed two such small pictures to the present collection  He is an artist calculated to increase the reputation of the association by his good pictures  He is always happy in the clearness of his photographs, and is generally successful in importing atmospheric effect into them.  These views ought to have been taken on a scale and in a style commensurate with their importance.