Have you ever been sitting at your desk, driving your car, or relaxing with a martini and said to yourself, "I should sit down a read an entire book about silver printing"? I know I have. And I'm in luck! I haven't actually asked myself that, but I do enjoy studying vintage, long-forgotten things. A 60's muscle car, a neglected psychiatric ward, a bottle of 1975 Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon that I can't wait to open...I like old stuff! Thus, I was excited to learn about Project Gutenberg, a service that scans and publishes vintage books for free as eBooks or plain text documents. The organization recently celebrated the release of their 25,000th book: The Art and Practice of Silver Printing, first published in 1881. Nice.
Not only was the publication released as an eBook, but it was also meticulously transcribed and edited into a plain text format by Distributed Proofreaders, who work in conjunction with the Project. Although the book is nearly redundant in this day and age, it's still a fascinating look into how film processing has evolved, from both the process and the equipment standpoint. From a more pragmatic point of view, it also provides a look into how photographic terms and even the use of the English language itself has changed. Conversely, it's interesting to see what hasn't changed, such as how the authors note the extreme amount of retouching that sometimes occurs in portrait photography:
Professional retouchers, in too many cases, do too much, and by doing so they "overstep the modesty of nature," and turn the lovely delicacy, softness, and texture of living nature into the appearance of hard and cold marble statuary. Everything that is necessary to do to a portrait negative is very simple; it should be corrected, not remodelled.
Sound familiar?
Searching for "photography" on the Project's page reveals other photography publications, such as the art of photographing birds and wildlife, early histories of photography, and even some books that celebrate the prosperous future for the medium. One of those books, Marvels of Scientific Invention (1917), tantalizes the reader with the wonder of color photography:
Photography has introduced many of the general public to a branch of practical science which otherwise they would never have cared much about. The action of light upon certain chemicals, the subsequent action upon the same of other chemicals, such as developers, toning solutions and so on, form a very well-known region of the domain of science. And this is, too, a branch of chemistry in which the practical inventor has been very busy. The efforts, therefore, which have been made to invent ways of producing photographic pictures which shall give to the objects their natural colours, will probably be of special interest in a book like this.
So, thanks to the Gutenberg Project and Distributed Proofreaders, we have a near bottomless pit of classic literature to pour through while sipping a vintage cognac while sitting in a vintage car in a vintage car garage. Or on the living room sofa. The choice is yours.
Tim Kauger is a blogger and photographer based in Short Hills, NJ. You can visit his website here.