David Winstanley of Manchester seems to have been an interesting character
active as a photographic experimenter from the early 1860s to the late
1880s. One of his somewhat eccentric ideas involved producing pictures by
the action of cold. According to Jerome Harrison's history of photography
there is a Chinese tradition that credits the sun with producing 'natural'
images of neighbouring objects (trees, etc.) on frozen lakes and rivers.
Winstanley observed something similar (the pattern in a carpet reproduced
on a frosted window pane) while wintering in Wisconsin between November
1863 and March 1864. A few years later he set about trying to establish
whether this natural phenomenon was capable of artificial reproduction and
published some initial results in the Photographic News, vol. 12 (1868),
pp. 603-4. Things rested there until 1888 when, with only a year or two
to live (presumably Winstanley was dying from some occupationally acquired
disease - hopefully not dichromate poisoning, given the recent discussion
on the alternative processes list), Winstanley took up the subject
again and published an additional series of articles in the Photographic
News vol. 32 (1888), pp. 517-8, 692-3, 757-8; vol. 33 (1889), pp. 75-6,
234-5, 443-4, 470-1.
Winstanley had some success in producing 'evapograms' and 'frigerograms'
with condensed moisture or dew deposits and also undertook some
experiments with chemicals which changed colour when anhydrous and
hydrated. Despite his high hopes none of Winstanley's results seem to have
involved continuous tone - generally he worked with something like a black
cross - although he was quite proud of an aqueous dewdrop picture on glass
produced from a metal stencil of a six-rayed star. The picture was
preserved by dusting over the condensed moisture with sugar crystals.
Philip Jackson
pjackson@nla.gov.au