Color Daguerreotypes?

       I have a book called "Voitlander and I, In pursuit of Shadow
Catching" by James R. Ryder which is a autobiography of a
Daguerreotypist in Cleveland. Ohio.. Timewise the book covered 52 years of
photography from prior to the
Civil War and was published in 1902...It made mention of this " Hillotype
color process of Rev. LL Hill , a man of the cloth....

 When the rumor came about that there was a color process, it hurt
financially
almost all the photographers in that period... Clients wanted to wait till
the color process came then they would have their
photographs taken..... To survive this photographers( also called "Shadow
Catchers" began to try to hand tint their images using various pigments
and
chemicals to keep making the money they had become accustomed to ( $10 to
$50 per day was normal and during the Civil War it exceeded even that !)
The problem with pigments is that very little would stick to the
plate.......
      Then the big news came! Many Noted News papers printed : " On such
and such a
date the highly guarded secret Color process would be revield to all and
published and mailed for a meer $5.00 prepaid!" The anticipation was
tremendous and of course every one who was a photographer had to have this
knowledge ( Socially photographers they went from pig farmers and laborers
to being called "
Professors" once they learned photography. So to maintain their social
image , they had to keep up with the latest and greatest...)so they sent
their $5 in immediately! The anticipation was immense visualizing colored
portraits, red lips, blonde hair.

      The book describes the day the secret color process arrived... He
closed his studio as not to be disturbed , ran to his bed room and began to
read the instructions on how to make a Hillotype......
     The instructions described that to obtain a color Daguerreotype or
Hillotype, one must coat the image in a thin wash of glue to give it byte
or tooth prior to "hand
tinting" the image using various pigments and chemicals and then they would
stick properly !!...
       This guy scammed every photographer that read and believed the
newspaper in the
United states.
John Cremati

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Danforth" <jdanforth@sc.rr.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 2:54 PM
Subject: Color Daguerreotypes?

> Abrams' "The Invention of Photography" briefly mentions a 'Pastor Hill'
and
> his attempts at color photography using the Daguerreotype. The book
didn't
> elaborate on the process or the success but I was wondering if anyone has
> seen or heard of this kind of work? I would guess that the experiments
> would be in the 1860-1866 realm, is that on base?
>
> Maybe they could be talking about a toning procedure but I was under the
> impression that Daguerreotypes were generally toned with Gold after
> development.
>
> -Jon
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________
> This message scanned for viruses by CoreComm
>
Received on Fri Jan 23 17:24:23 2004