Foreign Travellers and English Naturalists

Foreign Travellers and English Naturalists

In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the wet collodin process which replaced Talbolts Calotype process. The collodin process was much faster and was confined for landscape photography because of the microscopic fine detail of the photo. The disadvantages of the wet collodin process were that you had to be fast so that the chemicals wouldn’t dry out on the plate and if you wanted to do a landscape photo you would have to take all you darkroom stuff with you so you’d have a lot to carry.

In 1854 In Andre Adolphe Eugene Disdiri created the “Carte De Visite” a calling card for the wealthy made from several portraits on a glass plate or contact print. 

In 1837 Queen Victoria came to the throne and calling cards were made so that the poor could see what she looked like. This photo was taken during her mourning period.

In 1859 Charles Dodgson wrote Alice’s adventures in wonderland which has lots of photography references like the rabbit hole being an aperture and everything being backwards and upside down like looking through a camera. 

Photography became more creative and was able to catch a moment in time. Nadar who was a French photographer photographed the actress Sarah Bernhardt making all the attention around her head and shoulders. By looking out of the frame and not directly at the camera, she depicts a longing and seductive look and it gives us permission to look at her.

In the 1850 classical music became romantic. It was due to composers making music about what they felt, instead of trying to make things academically perfect but unemotional.

Every 10 years a census is took to find out different information in 1851 a census was took to find out how many there photographers there where .
1841- 3 Photographers
1861- 51 photographers
1862 - 2,534 photographers

This shows that with the evolution of photography more and more people was interested in it and because it was becoming more cheaper people with less income were able to take part.

Jean Francois Antoine created the Stereoscopic daguerreotype which is a 3D effect created by placing two cameras spaced to imitate human binocular vision. In a special viewer the images appeared to be a three dimensional image.

Rodger Fenton was commissioned to photograph soldiers in the Crimea war in 1855. 
This photograph called “Valley of the shadow of death” is controversial because it was set up deliberately with the cannon balls.

Gustave le Gray put two negatives together to make one exposure creating seascapes by using one negative for the water and one negative for the sky. This meant that you could  have different exposures for each section and then when the two negatives put together creates a perfect picture exposure.

In 1850 “The big stink” meant that more children were dying from unhygienic water and cholera. This meant that more people were taking pictures of their dead children.  In Henrys Robinsons “Fading Away” it shows a young girl with her family possibly being held by her sibling.

Oscar Gustav Rejlander was a photographer who was a photo merger which meant he put negatives together to create large pieces of photography. In his photo called “The two ways of life”  

The photograph shows two young men and their father, the men choosing between a righteous or an immoral way of life. The group on the left of the scene represent the evil path, a pair of men gamble and two sirens try to tempt the man. On the right Religion, Knowledge and Mercy are among those who represent the righteous way of life. 

William Mumler was an American “Spirit” photographer who used double exposure to trick his guests into thinking their dead relatives were in the photo with them.  Mumler was brought to trial for fraud in April 1869.