PHOTOGENIC DRAWING, OR PHOTO GENY The name given by Fox Talbot in 1835 to the results of his early experiments, which consisted in coating paper or white leather with a silver nitrate solution and obtaining thereon, by the action of light, images of leaves, etc. Talbot communicated his experiments and showed ex amples of his photogenic drawings to the Royal Society, on January 31, 1839, six months prior to the publication of Daguerre's process. The following description of the process of producing photogenic paper is adapted from his own words. Paper of a good, firm quality and smooth sur face is dipped into a weak solution of common salt and water (25 grs. to the ounce) and wiped dry, by which means the salt is uniformly dis tributed. A solution of silver nitrate is spread on one surface only, and dried before a fire. This paper, if properly made, is suitable for all photo genic purposes. A sheet thus prepared is washed
with a saturated solution of salt and then dried. It will be found, especially if the paper is kept for some weeks before the trial is made, that its sensibility is greatly diminished, and in some cases is quite extinct. But if it is again washed liberally with the solution of silver, it becomes again sensitive to light, and even more so than it was at first. In this way, by alternately washing the paper with salt and silver and drying, Talbot succeeded in increasing its sensibility to a degree that is requisite for receiving the images of the camera obscura. The prints were fixed in a strong solution of common salt, or in a solu tion of potassium bromide or iodide. Later improvements resulted in the introduction of the calotype process (which see).