Information and discussion on all aspects of British photographic history
Tags:
Dear Jayne and John
Having looked for the history of the ambrotype across the Asia-Pacific region ( www.nga.gov.au/pictureparadise I am curious about why the ambrotype in general was not more popular everywhere. It is curiously absent in Asia until the flourish in Japan in the late 19th century of portraits in Kiri wood cases.
If you could make wet-plates and albumen prints surely ambrotypes were also relatively easy? They seem tp be endless advertised in photographer's notices in newspapers but the surviving numbers dont seem quite to match up.Uniqueness for example did not dent the massive numbers of daguerreotypes in America. It might be worth perusing early advertisements from 1851-55 to see glass positives/ambrotypes were advertised in Britain.
Gael Newton
Hi Gael
I was thinking that this may have been due to the desire to commercially reproduce prints from the negative that stopped the photographer from converting the negative into a one-off ambrotype.
Gael Newton said:Dear Jayne and John
Having looked for the history of the ambrotype across the Asia-Pacific region ( www.nga.gov.au/pictureparadise I am curious about why the ambrotype in general was not more popular everywhere. It is curiously absent in Asia until the flourish in Japan in the late 19th century of portraits in Kiri wood cases.
If you could make wet-plates and albumen prints surely ambrotypes were also relatively easy? They seem tp be endless advertised in photographer's notices in newspapers but the surviving numbers dont seem quite to match up.Uniqueness for example did not dent the massive numbers of daguerreotypes in America. It might be worth perusing early advertisements from 1851-55 to see glass positives/ambrotypes were advertised in Britain.
Gael Newton
Jayne/John/Geoff/Gael
A photographer however had to consciously decide whether he was making a negative to become an ambrotype (as it was usually underexposed) or if the negative was for the production of prints. I have actually however had old ambrotypes that weren't japanned printed with good results. The ambrotype negative, usually 1/9, 1/6 or 1/4 plate was much smaller that those usually used for print making such as 1/2, full plate and 8x10 or larger. Printing was usually by 1:1 contact printing rather than enlarging. Further prints produced in the mid 1850s were usually landscapes whereas ambrotypes were usually portraits. When one adds the ferrotype/tintype, the other collodion positive process to the total of collodion positive images produced I propose it was an immensely popular process. All this will hopefully be elucidated in detail in the book I am currently researching with Stefan Hughes on Frederick Scott Archer http://www.frederickscottarcher.com/. Cheers! Marcel
Geoff Barker said:Hi Gael
I was thinking that this may have been due to the desire to commercially reproduce prints from the negative that stopped the photographer from converting the negative into a one-off ambrotype.
Gael Newton said:Dear Jayne and John
Having looked for the history of the ambrotype across the Asia-Pacific region ( www.nga.gov.au/pictureparadise I am curious about why the ambrotype in general was not more popular everywhere. It is curiously absent in Asia until the flourish in Japan in the late 19th century of portraits in Kiri wood cases.
If you could make wet-plates and albumen prints surely ambrotypes were also relatively easy? They seem tp be endless advertised in photographer's notices in newspapers but the surviving numbers dont seem quite to match up.Uniqueness for example did not dent the massive numbers of daguerreotypes in America. It might be worth perusing early advertisements from 1851-55 to see glass positives/ambrotypes were advertised in Britain.
Gael Newton
You may be interested in this ambrotype, probably made by an itinerant photographer, which almost certainly dates from the late 1880s or 1890s:
http://photo-sleuth.blogspot.com/2008/09/wallis-furnishing-ironmongers-of.html
Regards and best wishes,
Brett Payne
Tauranga, New Zealand
Thanks Jayne for your kind comments. I am an expert on neither photographic processes nor their products, so every article that I research and write represents a part of my learning process. My motivation, like yours, has originated from the family history view point, and I'm continually looking for more ways to extract sippets of relevant information from old photographs, whether they be conventional portraits or subjects in ccomplex landscapes such as the example mentioned.
I'm particularly interested to hear of your forthcoming book, and that you're a professional dress historian. Dating clothing is a weak point for me. Will the book concentrate much on clothing fashions?
Regards and best wishes, Brett
Getting back to your original question, I have at the moment on loan from my university library Helmut Gernsheim's "The Rise of Photography, 1850-1880." This gives a fairly detailed account of both the development of the early processes and their use in popular portraiture, with plenty of stunning examples.
"[Ambrotypes] were exceedingly popular in England with the cheaper kind of photographer from 1852 until about 1863, when the fashion for cartes-de-visite superseded them."
However, the source provided for this information, i.e. issues of The Photographic News in 1858 & 1865, are obviously not contemporary.
Regards, Brett
Gernsheim goes further, after having described several of the court actions and injunctions taken by Talbot in 1853 and 1854, to state:
"The harshness of Talbot's proceedings, after the collodion process had been in general use for two years ..."
From the context, I assume that he is referring to its use in studio photography, and the proceedings that are being referred were in December 1854.
Brett.
Centre for British Photography
Victoria and Albert Museum's photography collection
National Science and Media Museum
RPS Journal 1853-2012 online and searchable
Photographic History Research Centre, Leicester
Birkbeck History and Theory of Photography Research Centre
William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné
British Photography. The Hyman Collection
The Press Photo History Project Mapping the photo agencies and photographers of Fleet Street and the UK
The correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot
Historic England Archive
UAL Photography and Photography and the Archive Research Centre
Royal Photographic Society's Historical Group
www.londonstereo.com London Stereoscopic Company / T. R. Williams
www.earlyphotography.co.uk British camera makers and companies
Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock.
National Portrait Gallery, London
http://www.freewebs.com/jb3d/
Alfred Seaman and the Photographic Convention
Frederick Scott Archer
© 2023 Created by Michael Pritchard.
Powered by