Romeo and Juliet in the old and dreary county of Somerset

The Marquise O

Ottoman Empire 1860-1870

Albumen print specifically have always held a soft spot in my heart for their ability to exude romantic warmth. This quality, in part, can be attributed to the creation process of using an emulsion composed of light-sensitive salts of silver suspended in albumen (egg white) on paper. It is unfortunate to note that due to their creation process, they are inherently prone to deterioration exacerbated by light sources.
There are certain precautions you can take to slow the speed of deterioration, but most result in these beautiful prints being sentenced to spend the rest of their life spans in closed boxes. Only to rarely be pulled out for work, as opposed to being leisurely viewed by the throngs of admirers they deserve.




texture of the emulsion under a microscope 40X


Albumen prints (1835-1895)

Albumen prints (1850-1890s) are probably the most common photographic print material of the 19th century. Most historical photographic collections consist for the greater part of albumen prints. The albumen paper was a printing-out paper used for contact printing of the then popular collodion negative. Ordinary paper was coated with an emulsion composed of light-sensitive salts of silver suspended in albumen (egg white). Most prints are mounted on cardboard (and commonly refered to as card photographs), because the paper is rather thin and curls easily. They can be recognized by the cream coloured highlight areas and glossy surface. After 1855, albumen prints were almost always toned with gold chloride, which enriched their colour and increased their permanence.



The first sign of deterioration of albumen prints is that the highlights become yellowish, eventually the whole print starts to fade and becomes yellow or brown, which is due to the effect of light on the albumen layer. Display, use and exposure to unfavorable circumstances, may cause serious damage within approximately forty years. Poor quality of the paper will cause staining of the albumen layer, while dryness and chemical changes can make the photograph crack and curl. Attempts to remount a curled albumen print can be very dangerous for the photograph. Albumen prints must be kept in the dark and protected by UV filters when exposed to the public.

private collection

Temple of Apollo Turkish

the Doge of my love

memories, fragments Travel..Bridge of Sighs!! Goldoni!! Tintoretto!!Casanova.the most serene ...Eternal Love





Pietro Longhi

a mild autumn sunday

Stereo wet collodion

Shall devote a chapter to the stereograph and its philosophy;in this I shall simply give plain instructions for taking the stereoscopic negative by the wet collodion process.


private collection

In the ordinary stereoscopic negative, as in every negative, the pictures are laterally inverted, and when printed, this inversion is corrected only for each picture individually, for the right-side picture is still inverted and in the place of the left-side picture. In consequence of this, the printed stereographs have to be cut apart, and mounted so that the right-hand photograph is placed on the right side, and the left hand photograph on the left side. When taking pictures of still life, as also others, where the living objects are not in motion, it is very easy to manage matters so as to invert the photographs on the negative. The method is as follows: Take a large-sized camera-stand, allowing sufficient space for the camera to slide laterally. Placing the camera in the right-hand corner, focus the left-hand lens. Next slide the camera gently, or lift it up and place it in the left corner, and focus the right-hand lens. The space between the centers of the two pictures thus focussed must be about two inches and three quarters. Whilst the camera is in this position on the left side, insert the sensitized plate, take out the slide, uncover the right-side cap for a second or two, and take this picture. Then close up the lens, lift up the camera gently and place it on the right side. In this position uncover the left-side lens for the same length of time. In this way, and in the space of ten seconds or so, the two pictures can be taken in a proper condition for printing so as to produce a non-inverted stereograph. For such work it would be no difficult task to contrive a slide by which a single lens would be all-sufficient; that is, when the camera is on the left side, the lens must slide to the right side, and vice versa on the right side.




As soon as the negative is this taken, it has to be developed before it gets dry. The development and fixing can be performed in a dark tent specially arranged for such purposes. Various contrivances have been adopted in landscape photography for these operations. For my own part I consider a simple hand-cart, with iron rods from corner to corner diagonally, in the form of semi-ellipses, and covered with a balloon-shaped tent, a very practical accommodation. But each successful photographer is somewhat of a genius, and can easily arrange a dark chamber according to his own taste and materials on hand.




Negatives thus taken and fixed are placed carefully away in slides where they can not be injured during transportation home. In the evening, or the next day, or at any convenient time, the negatives are examined; if clear, transparent in the lights, and sufficiently intense in the shades, they are varnished. On the contrary, if the opacity of the shadows is not deep enough, although the appropriate gradation exists between the lights and shades, it will then be deemed necessary to proceed to intensification. Previously the edges of the negatives must be varnished to the depth of one tenth of an inch upon the collodion, to prevent its peeling off during the operation. This is effected by dipping the quill end of a feather into the varnish, and then running along the edge of the collodion and of the glass, with this portion of the feather slightly inclined, so that the varnish does not drop oil; a sufficient quantity is attracted upon the collodion as you proceed. After this put the negatives aside, that the varnish may become thoroughly dry and hard. As soon as it is dry, immerse the plates in rain-water, and allow diem to remain there for about a quarter of an hour, by which time the collodion film will have become saturated iv with this fluid.

... The Vanishing Lamplighter

The abortive trial of William H. Mumler in 1872 was the start of a decades-long battle between Science and the Séance. In the United States, Britain and France, spiritualists were investigated by expert commissions and spirit photographers were sometimes prosecuted for fraud.

Well into the 20th century, spirit photography had high-profile supporters--including the physicist Sir William Crookes and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Many of the photographs in this exhibition were made under test conditions thought to rule out possible fraudulent acts. 

But the skeptics took their toll. Led by the great illusionist Harry Houdini, investigators unmasked spirit mediums, revealing many of their "manifestations" to be nothing more than cynical tricks and sleight-of-hand.

Whether they are ludicrous or miraculous is in the eye of the beholder.

Do you believe?

"For the purpose of amusement, the photographer may carry us even into the realms of the supernatural. His art enables him to give a spiritual appearance to one or more of his figures, and to exhibit them as "thin air" amid the solid realities of the stereoscopic picture."

"A Scene"

2005

Ambrotype

240 x 200 mm

BEN CAUCHI
New Zealand fine art photograher

"Floating Candlestick"

2004

Ambrotype

240 x 200 mm

Real Art Roadshow Trust Collection

N.B. The first ghosts in photographs were the result of accidents. During a long exposure--such as those required in photography's infancy--a person who stood still would register as clearly as a building. But a person who moved out of camera range after only a portion of the exposure was completed would instead appear as a see-through blur. It happened with the lamplighter in this detail from a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company.

Home of the spouses Baudelaire

the Magic Mirror

Camera = Latin for “room”
Obscura = Latin for “dark”


Go into a very dark room on a bright day. Make a small hole in a window cover and look at the opposite wall. What do you see? Magic! There in full color and movement will be the world outside the window — upside down! This magic is explained by a simple law of the physical world. Light travels in a straight line and when some of the rays reflected from a bright subject pass through a small hole in thin material they do not scatter but cross and reform as an upside down image on a flat surface held parallel to the hole. This law of optics was known in ancient times.

The earliest mention of this type of device was by the Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti (5th century BC). He formally recorded the creation of an inverted image formed by light rays passing through a pinhole into a darkened room. He called this darkened room a "collecting place" or the "locked treasure room."

Aristotle (384-322 BC) understood the optical principle of the camera obscura. He viewed the crescent shape of a partially eclipsed sun projected on the ground through the holes in a sieve, and the gaps between leaves of a plane tree.

The Islamic scholar and scientist Alhazen (Abu Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haitham) (c.965 - 1039) gave a full account of the principle including experiments with five lanterns outside a room with a small hole.

In 1490 Leonardo Da Vinci gave two clear descriptions of the camera obscura in his notebooks. Many of the first camera obscuras were large rooms like that illustrated by the Dutch scientist Reinerus Gemma-Frisius in 1544 for use in observing a solar eclipse.

The image quality was improved with the addition of a convex lens into the aperture in the 16th century and the later addition of a mirror to reflect the image down onto a viewing surface. Giovanni Battista Della Porta in his 1558 book Magiae Naturalis recommended the use of this device as an aid for drawing for artists.

The term "camera obscura" was first used by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in the early 17th century. He used it for astronomical applications and had a portable tent camera for surveying in Upper Austria.

The development of the camera obscura took two tracks. One of these led to the portable box device that was a drawing tool. In the 17th and 18th century many artists were aided by the use of the camera obscura. Jan Vermeer, Canaletto, Guardi, and Paul Sandby are representative of this group. By the beginning of the 19th century the camera obscura was ready with little or no modification to accept a sheet of light sensitive material to become the photographic camera.

The other track became the camera obscura room, a combination of education and entertainment. In the 19th century, with improved lenses that could cast larger and sharper images, the camera obscura flourished at the seaside and in areas of scenic beauty.




Drawing Camera Obscuras with Lens at the top

Most drawing camera obscuras project the image from a lens at the front onto a mirror which reflects it up onto the drawing surface. There are however box and tent insterments with the lens and mirror or a prisim lens at the top that directs the image down only the drawing paper. The artist would sit inside or place his head and arms into openings in the side.






The illustration on the top shows a typical drawing tent in the landscape with a lens of this type on the top. This is an illustration from an 1889 physics book by Steele.



The lens is a 6 1/2" tall, 19th century brass lens for a portable tent camera or box obscura that uses a prism lens to direct the image outside down onto a drawing board inside the tent or box.


www.camera-obscura.co.uk


The camera obscura in the Outlook Tower at the top of the Royal Mile, next to the castle was established in the 1850's by the optician Maria Theresa Short and was originally known as Short's Observatory. The optics were replaced in 1947.

spoon fork knife

... my favorite game with my grandfather to find the spoon, the fork and knife in the seeds of the persimmon.

Foretell the severity of the winter with a persimmon seed.

As the theory goes, you can tell how severe the upcoming winter will be by cutting open seed of the persimmon in half and looking at what is inside.

If you find a:

• Spoon - This means you better get something to scoop with. There will be a lot of snow to shovel.

• Knife - Bundle up! It is going to be so cold that it will cut through you like a knife.

• Fork - Relax, its going to be a mild winter and there won't be much snow.