The Branches of Photography

The early collodion portraits consisted of a glass negative de veloped so that the silver deposit was white and backed with a black varnish or material so that they appeared as positives re sembling Daguerreotypes. They were sold in cases exactly resembling those used for Daguerreotypes and are often mistaken for Daguerreotypes at the present time. They are properly known as Ambrotypes.

It

was not until about 186o that Ambrotypes were supplanted by albumen prints made from collodion negatives, these being made generally in two standard sizes—the carte-de-visite and cabinet. These were preserved in albums, and the period when the family album was in common use represented that of greatest prosperity for the professional photographer. These portraits were taken in glass covered studios arranged to supply the maxi mum of daylight. Elaborate backgrounds were used, and studio accessories of ornate and artificial type were commonly employed. Retouching on the negative was used often to an excessive degree, this being necessitated both by the vanity of the sitter and the pronounced ultra-violet sensitiveness of the collodion plate. In considering the evolution of portrait photography, it should not be forgotten that as early as 1843 D. 0. Hill in Glasgow had used the Calotype process to make portraits which in dignity and artistic quality rival any that have ever been produced.

The "album" period lasted after the introduction of the dry plate, and modern photographic portraiture may be held to have had its beginnings only about 1900. The albumen process, how ever, was superseded by shiny, purple, gold-toned printing-out papers.

The modern development of portraiture has been influenced largely by "home portraiture" and by the use of artificial light in the home or elsewhere. The first arose from the entry into the profession of artists, usually without studio experience, who be lieved that they could obtain more characteristic portraits in the everyday surroundings of patrons, and of experienced photog raphers who operated over a wide field without the need of main taining an expensive studio. This type of photography has become very successful.

Artificial light was introduced primarily to make the photog rapher independent of the vagaries of the weather. Since the use of artificial light made any large room suitable for use as a studio, and the influence of home portraiture encouraged the replace ment of artificial backgrounds and accessories by the natural surroundings of a room, the studio has lost much of its artificial character.

In a reaction from the elaborate backgrounds of the '9os. many photographers employed almost perfectly plain backgrounds for portraiture, these being conspicuous in the work of Hollyer, Craig Annan, and Furley Lewis in England, of Hofmeister and Perscheid in Germany, and of MacDonald in New York.

At the present time portraits of the better class are usually supplied of large size, 6 X 8 in. and upwards, and in folding mounts which protect the surface of the print.

In the United States negatives are taken very largely on flat sheets of portrait film, developed in tanks in a vertical position, and printed either by contact on developed chloride papers or by enlargement on bromide or chloro-bromide papers. The use of enlargement for making portrait prints has increased greatly owing to the introduction of automatically focusing projection printers. In Great Britain much printing is still by contact on bromide paper and on the more sensitive grades of chloro-bromide. Retouching is still used very largely in portraiture, but the in creasing use of panchromatic materials tends to diminish its extent.

In addition to the high grade professional portraiture discussed here, there is a very large industry in the supply of cheap por traits to the masses, especially in the large cities and the pleasure resorts. The negatives are taken by artificial light on strips of film or in a camera so arranged that several can be taken on one plate and are printed as rapidly as possible on strips of paper which are usually cut to the size of post cards or even smaller. A still cheaper grade of portrait is produced by the "ferrotype" process on dry collodion coated on black japanned metal, this being the modern representative of the Ambrotype process. Sim ilar pictures made with wet collodion have survived from 1860 as "tintypes." A more recent introduction consisted of an automatic apparatus by which on the introduction of a coin into a slot a series of photographs were taken and finished by a reversal process, a strip of positives on paper being delivered to the customer in a few minutes.