Assignment 1 - Historic Photographic Processes

Paper Negatives/Calotype

William Henry Fox Talbot, by John Moffat, 1864, Wikimedia Commons

Inventor
William Fox Talbot (1800-1877) was an Englishman whose extensive interests and scholarship included the natural sciences and antiquarian studies,¹² Talbot’s desire to accurately reproduce his observations–coupled with his dissatisfaction of tools such as the camera obscura–lead him to begin experimenting with photographic processes¹¹ as early as 1839.³ 

Paper Negative
Talbot’s efforts to fix images to paper first resulted in photogenic drawings. Making use of existing knowledge about the photosensitivity of silver salts,⁶ Talbot’s process involved placement of an object on paper treated with silver nitrate, which would leave behind an image of the object that he would then stabilize with a saturated solution of sodium chloride.⁶ In essence a photogram. While Thomas Wedgwood had been able to produce photograms previously, they were not fixed and would disappear shortly after exposure.¹³ The negative that Talbot’s process produced was fixed and could then be used to produce a positive print called a salted paper print,⁶ through placement of another photosensitive paper against the negative which was then exposed to light.³ While silver plate and bitumen were fixing photographic images in the photographic work of  Joseph Nicéphore de Niepce and Louis Daguerre around this time, Talbot was able to create paper prints rather than metal ones.¹³ Talbot continued his experiments with the intention of developing a process that would produce a paper negative from within a camera.

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800 - 1877). Leaves of Orchidea, April 1839, Photogenic drawing negative. 17.1 x 20.8 cm (6 3/4 x 8 3/16 in.)The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

The Calotype
Named after kalos, the greek root for beautiful, the Calotype was the second photographic process developed by Talbot.⁶ First, Talbot washed and dryed his paper with a silver nitrate solution, before soaking it in potassium iodide for a couple of minutes.⁸ After being exposed in the camera (a wooden box), and developed in a dark room, the invisible exposures turned into a silver negative image that would then be fixed.⁶ The 5 steps in Talbot’s original specifications required: iodizing, sensitizing, exposure, development, and fixing.² It wasn’t until Talbot heard about the new daguerreotype process that Talbot applied for a patent for his process in 1841 and began to make publicly known his discovery.¹¹ The daguerreotype was initially deemed superior and more popular, in large part because of its sharp detail, which the calotype noticeably lacked. While a daguerreotype could not be duplicated, this advantage was largely ignored.⁶ 

Despite being overshadowed by the daguerreotype, the process was adopted and further developed. A simplified version of the calotype process was published in 1847 by Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Evrard, creator of the albumen print.⁶ In 1857 Gustave Le Gray published his wax paper negative process, which was adapted even further by other photographers.⁶ Around 1884, the Eastman company used paper negatives for a camera they built that came already loaded with light sensitive paper, that would then be sent back to Eastman for development.⁶

 A calotype negative of the Temple of Jupiter by George Wilson Bridges, 1848, Wikimedia. The positive of this negative has been digitally inverted to create the image on the right

Typical Use
The popularity of daguerreotypes for portraiture likely influenced Talbots’ initial hope that they they would be used for professional portraits.¹² The same year Talbot filed his patent he licensed the first professional calotypist, Henry Collen, however he and other calotypists had little success in England.¹⁰ The longer exposure times the Calotype required soon lended itself to landscape and architecture photography, as did its easy mobility-no portable darkroom required!⁹ 1843 Talbot use the Calotype process to create the first books illustrated with photography, The Pencil of Nature in 1844 and Sun Pictures in Scotland in 1845.¹⁰

Paper negatives have continued to be used though more often as an artistic treatment, even finding application in a combination of digital processing and traditional printing⁷. For archival purposes, it is worth noting that the ease with which modern photographers can reproduce “historically accurate photographs and negatives today” due to early documentation of these processes has resulted in methods for radiocarbon dating waxed paper negatives as a means of authentication for memory institutions as presented in a 2013 paper for the journal Radiocarbon.⁴

The Pencil of Nature by H. Fox Talbot, 1844 and The View of the Boulevards of Paris, 1843 printed from a Calotype negative and featured inside the first book illustrated with photographs.

Left: William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800 - 1877). The Pencil of Nature, 1844,The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.Right: William Henry Fox Talbot, View of the Boulevards of Paris, 1843 by Henry Fox Talbot - The Getty Center, Object 46633, Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

Identification and Dating
At first glance a paper negative will be as expected, a reversed image. The images tone is usually brown,⁶ but may also be grey, black, or have red or purple hues.⁹ The paper is often coated with wax, though sometimes only partially.⁹ Sizes and Formats are not standardized and vary widely, though Bertrand Lavédrien provides British and French common full paper sizes, that would have been cut down, as a guide.⁶ The density of the image on a paper negative dictates how easily an image will be seen with transmitted or reflected light, the denser visible with transmitted only.⁹

As Betrand Lavédrine notes in Photographs of the Past: Process and Preservation, the variation between the different process are many and often hard to distinguish leaving the term “paper negative” as a generic term that applies to all processes including, those treated with wax, and those made by the Eastman Dry Plate company for their cameras⁶. Distinguishing Le Gray’s wax processes from those treated with wax after the process, for example Lavédrien suggests as a topic for further study.⁶ Eastman paper negatives on the other hand are easy to identify, as they are supported on a strip of paper, are circular, and 6.5 cm. in diameter.⁶
Paper negatives are considered to be a rare find in collections, having only been in wide use for a short period of time⁵. Paper negatives, calotypes, and waxed paper negatives can be safely dated from 1841 to 1860⁶. As mentioned above however, photographers have continued to use these processes up until today. 

Preservation concerns

Talbot himself commented on the need to take care of the original, even warning that tearing would not allow for any more copies to be made.¹ Common damage tends to include issues inherent in paper materials such as tears, folds, mold, foxing, and of course water damage.¹ Mending tapes, and black masking paint used to paint the sky–added at the time of creation–can damage the image and come off.¹ Despite the inherent fragility of paper these negatives tend to be chemically stable.⁹ Part of the reason for this is the wax treatment, though this very treatment can turn yellow from oxidation.⁶ Crystallization of the wax can also occur on paper negatives.⁹ It is recommended that paper negatives be stored in protective envelopes⁹ and kept in a cool and dry environment, preferably 10°-18° c and 30%-40% relative humidity.⁹ A 2002 study done by the fellows and faculty of the Advanced Residency Program in Photographic Conservation found paper negatives much more “treatable” than previously thought and offer treatment options to address these issues noting that waxed and non waxed negatives should be treated differently.¹

Bibliography

1. Albright, Gary E., Jiuan-Jiuan Chen, and Kate Jennings. 2003. Treatment Options for Paper Negatives. Topics in Photographic Preservation 10: 19-28. Accessed September 19, 2015. http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/topics/v10/pmgt10-005.pdf
2. "Calotype." Early Photography. Accessed September 19, 2015. http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/gloss14.html#gloss_Cal.
3. "Photogenic Drawing." Early Photography. Accessed September 19, 2015. http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/gloss14.html#gloss_Photgen.
4. Canosa, Elyse, Gregory Hodgins, and Gawain Weaver. 2013. "Radiocarbon Measurements on Early Photographs: Methods Development for Testing Waxed Paper Negatives” Radiocarbon 55, no. 2: 1862-1868. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 19, 2015).
5. Harvey, Ross, and Martha R. Mahard. The Preservation Management Handbook. Lanham, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield, 2014.
6. Lavédrine, Bertrand. Photographs of the Past: Process and Preservation. Translated by John McElhone. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, 2009.
7. Palmer, Leo. “Paper Negatives REVISITED.” PSA Journal 69, no. 7 (July 2003): 16. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 19, 2015).
8. "The Calotype Process." University of Glasgow Special Collections. Accessed September 19, 2015. http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/collectionsa-z/hilladamson/calotypeprocess/.
9. Valverde Valdés, María Fernanda, Karen Santoro, and George Eastman House. 2003. Photographic Negatives: Nature and Evolution of Processes. Rochester, N.Y.: Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation, Image Permanence Institute, accessed September 19, 2015, https://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/ webfm_send/302.
10. Ward and Brusius. Applications of the calotype process, 1841-7. Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 19, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.ezproxy.simmons.edu:2048/subscriber/article/grove/art/T0831.
11. ---. Invention of the Calotype, 1833-40. Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 19, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com .ezproxy.simmons.edu:2048/subscriber/article/grove/art/T083148.
12. ---. Talbot, William Henry Fox. Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 19, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.ezproxy.simmons.edu:2048/subscriber/article/grove/art/T083148.
13. "William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 - 1877)." BBC. Accessed September 19, 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fox_talbot_william_henry.shtml.