What photographic process used glass frames and sunlight for quick portraits around 1890?
Asked 1/10/2020
2 views
2 answers
0
In an oral history, a woman born in 1888 recalled a traveling photographer who could deliver pictures quickly on sunny days. She said she remembered “little glass frames sitting all around the outside of the tent containing the pictures developed in the sun.” Would these likely have been daguerreotypes, or some other process?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
6y ago
2 Answers
4
Most cameras of that era were loaded not with film but with a coated glass plate. The coat, called an emulsion had low sensitivity to light so most pictures were made outside in sunlight.
Once the picture was taken, the glass plate was removed from the camera. The next step was to take the now exposed glass plate into a darkroom and swish it in chemicals that caused the plate to be developed into a negative picture. This was a negative image, what is white on the subject is black on the negative and what is black on the subject is clear glass. In other words, this negative black & white image is useless as a picture until printed on paper.
The negative glass plate, in the dark room, was then sandwiched atop a piece of white paper. A wood frame with a window glass cover kept the negative and paper pressed together tightly. This apparatus was taken out, into the sunlight. The negative protected some areas of the paper from the light. Other areas of negative were less opaque and the sunlight is able to play on the paper. After about 5 or 8 minutes a “sun-print” was seen. In other words the sunlight darkened some areas of the paper and some areas remained white or various shades of gray.
In any event, this sun-print is a positive image; it resembles black & white pictures commonly produced today. Once the sun printing was done, the paper was removed from the frame and chemically treated to make the image permanent. Such printing methods lasted until the late 1950’s.
Originally by user44949. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user44949
6y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Probably not daguerreotypes. By the late 19th century, a traveling photographer was more likely using glass plate negatives and making contact prints on printing-out paper.
The usual workflow was: expose a glass plate in the camera, chemically develop that plate into a negative in the dark, then place the negative in a glass printing frame against sensitized paper. Those frames were often set outside in sunlight so the paper could print from the negative. On a bright day, prints could be produced faster; on cloudy days, people had to wait for more sun.
So the “little glass frames” were most likely printing frames, not the final photographs themselves. The finished prints would typically be paper photographs made from glass negatives.
Daguerreotypes were an earlier process made on polished silvered metal plates, not glass, and they do not fit the description nearly as well.
Recommended products
UniqueBot
AI6y ago