The Calotype
The calotype, invented by William Fox Henry Talbot, is the basis of today's photographic process. His signature is Henry Talbot, and though he is said to have disliked being called Fox Talbot, that name has stuck. Fox Talbot was not the first to produce photographs; he made a major contribution to the photographic process, as we know it today.Talbot's calotype is a paper negative image from which an unlimited number of positives can be printed. The photographer could make different prints from the same negative because they had total control of the print's density.The earliest surviving paper negative is of the now famous latticed window of the library at Laycock Abbey, Wiltshire, where he lived. It is dated August 1835. The picture is small and poor in quality, compared with the striking images produced by the Daguerreotype process.Unlike Daguerre, Talbot did not receive any government help to develop his process. He used his own time and money to develop the calotype process.Though some of his pictures show a measure of artistic taste, it was his inability to produce pictures, which caused him to experiment with a mechanical method of capturing and retaining an image. Talbot used a camera obscura for his sket
After various fruitless attempts I laid aside the instrument and came to the conclusion that its use required a previous knowledge of drawing that unfortunately I did not possess. That case was lost, and from then onwards, knowing that the faster and better collodion process was free for all to use, there were no further restrictions and photography began to take off in a big way. This however lasted only four years, as it was not a financial success. It is probably for this reason and to produce copies of prints that he set up the Reading Establishment, a photographic processing Studio within relatively easy reach of both London and Laycock. I then thought of trying again a method that I had tried many years before. Consequently calotypes never flourished as they might have, and the fault must lie largely with Talbot's worries about patents. This method was to take a Camera Obscura and to throw the image of the objects on a piece of paper in its focus - fairy pictures, creations of a moment, and destined as rapidly to fade away. The pictures of the sun of nature are sun made themselves and not engravings as some people have imagined.
Common topics in this essay:
John Herschel,
Fox Talbot,
Initially Talbot,
Eastman House,
Negre Mora,
Salt Prints,
Pencil Nature,
Daguerre Talbot,
Sadly Talbot's,
Camera Obscura,
pencil nature,
calotype process,
george eastman,
paper negative,
fox talbot,
george eastman house,
talbot's name,
salt prints,
process talbot's,
photographic society,
negative image,
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Acceptance Essays
