Talbot's Way
FWIW, here is information from Michael Gray on Talbot and the waxed paper negative invented by Gustave LeGray. I also have LeGray's words as well somewhere in my files if any are interested. Jack Waxing the Calotype There are two factors which must be bourne in mind before attempting to speculate or to construct hypothesis upon the waxing of paper negateives taken in camera. 1 Bee's wax was the substance used first of all by Talbot and them virtually by all subsequent practioners working on paper between 1843 and 1860. The use of paraffin wax to render paper transparent for photographic use was the exception rather than the rule. Personally in 25 years I have only seen one or two examples which I fould to be questionable in this respect. The use of unrefined beeswax was the norm. In the late 1850s a number of photographers (eg., Geoffray) refined the material by distilation to remove the cerulin ( the compound which give it the wax its charactristic yellow cast). There are two advantages which Beeswax held over parafin wax, the first being that when it was cold it was 'set' ie., dry; generally it would not offset or mark the sensitised paper with which it was in contact during the process of sun printing; secondly, beeswax contains a number of natural preservatives. If cotton and beeswax was good enough for King Tut; it appeared to also have been good enough for WHFT! 2 The waxing of photographic paper negatives falls into two distinct categories. Talbot waxed his calotype paper negatives: (i) To increase the transparency of his negatives in the light (shadow) areas and the density in the dark (shadow) areas. With a good negative having a range of between 1.7 and 1.9 DR waxing increased the contrast, shortens the exposure and reduces the internal dispersive distribution of light within the body of the paper negative. However if the negative had been somewhat underexposed then Talbot did not aply wax. An underexposed negative, if waxed, does not print as well, the light spreads within the paper. Unwaxed, it prints somewhat better because the dispersion of the light caused by the paper fibres marginally helps with the preservation of shadow detail. (ii) Almost without exception, both Canson and Marion used starch or resin in the manufacture of their papers whilst in the UK (and to a certain extent in Italy) good quality writing papers were manufactured using gelatine as the sizing colloid. This produces a product which possess a much higher level of wet strength and durability necessary if it is t survive the various processing baths adn washes through which it had to pass. Neccesity has always been the mother of invention so to speak, which is why, I believe, that Le Gray was led to the evolution of his waxed paper process. ( A sort of early resin coated paper !) He first of all waxed his negative papers, prior to the application of any chemical solutions. The paper was then thoroughly ironed to remove all excess wax so that only the paper fibres were coated, leaving small minute holes or pockets within the body of the sheet. These small reserviors or holes he then filled with rice starch and it was within this fiberous matrix that the light-sensitive silver iodide compound was retained. By waxing the paper in this manner the actual fibres of the paper never became wet and as a result the paper remained strong. Incidentally if you follow the process which I have done (following Thomas Keith's instructions) you find that it remains dimensionally stable and expands very little unlike a calotype negative during processing. Based upon my undestanding of the surviving documentation I would think that Talbot first started to wax his negatives as early as 1839, don't quote me as I will have to check. (I have!) (original in the Science Museum; the bracketed numbers are reference locations from within my Filemaker Text database "PhotographySessential texts"). You can check this by also referring to' Documents from the Dawn of Photography' Talbot's Notebooks P and Q, Schaaf., LJ, Cambridge University Press, 1996. >From my own transcription files I located the following passage from Talbot's Notebook P: Notebook P • folio 93, 257-260 • August 10 after, before or on August 14 [259] Tried a picture on common Waterloo paper, put for some minutes in Bromide of Potassium ( as ye last one was) then waxed with a hot iron. The wax made it sufficiently transparent. [257] Copy page of blackletter Waterloo paper placed on blotting paper, & ironed on the back with wax; then silvered. [262]To engrave photographs: if the nitrate of silver were mixed with wax, & the picture acted on by acid. the blackened parts would disintegrate & might be washed off with water. The was to give [illegible] to ye whole. [270]Try rolling waxed paper with steel rollers. This also later became standard practice as it increased the sharpness of the final print. >From my own transcription files I located the following passage from Talbot's Notebook Q: Notebook Q • folio 43, ...204-210 [204...]13 Septr. The paper (a) is better made by drying it with an iron, for this makes the texture closer & less bibulous. When pictures are made on a bibulous paper, they ..../.... Subsequent experiments show that it should be blotted, as its sensibility is little if at all impaired thereby, Notebook Q • folio 44, ...204-210 [...204] ...are apt to darken in the interior, or at any rate to come out with a coarser grain. <<< The paper (a) may be waxed and still remains excitable by Nitrate of Silver for the liquid adheres to <<< the waxed surface.§ A picture of Patroclus was thus made, in the shade, c.a. 45" evening but the unwaxed paper is more sensitive. These are a few directly quotable references made by WHFT to the waxing of photographic paper negatives which I think are demonstrably the earliest references made to carrying out the practice. I n, fact, he would appear to have a good claim to have also anticipated Le Gray in the last paragraph. How do we know or how can we tell whether or not some of Talbot's later negatives were not waxed prior to sensitisation? Related information The invention of waxing the papers could be related to the start of the parrafin and paraffin industry in Great Britain. The scientist Lyon Playfair describes in his memoirs his discovery in 1847 of paraffin in the coal mines in Debyshire that belonged to the family of James Young, his fellow student then. James Young made a large fortune of that discovery. Playfair knew many of the scientists intimately who made substantial contributions to the art of photography like Sir David Brewster and Sir Charles Wheatstone. I would not be surprised if that invention has been related to the practice of waxing the negatives. In the library of the Science Museum is a brochure " Plain Directions for obtaining photographic pictures", by Charles Heisch FCS (publisher Richard Willats, optician). There is no date on this brochure, but it must have been written after 1852. The brochure describes in detail the waxed paper process invented by the French potographer Le Gray, that has been published for the first time in 1850 (second edition in september 1852). In this process the paper is waxed before all other preparations. According to the text How and Crookes made each some alterations of this process. The photographer John Stewart (living in Pau and brother in law of the famous astronomer John Herschel) describes in a letter to Herschel his method of sensitizing the paper using a vacuum pump. This method had been developed with the help of the French scientist Regnault. I am however citing a contemporary paper. Most inventions concerning the photographic process have been done simultaniously in different countries. Michael Gray, Curator, National Trust, Fox Talbot Museum Scientific Director: University of Pordenone EC Raphaello IkonsCentre Project Lacock Chippenham Wiltshire SN15 2LG UK 00 44 1 249 730 176 direct line 00 44 1 249 730 459 main switchboard 00 44 1 373 830 472 fax < m.w.gray@bath.ac.uk>
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