Question about photography in the past

The glass plate would be developed, and a paper print would have been made from that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_plate

There were dry paper systems by then. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_plate

And there were Kodak cameras since 1888. http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Our_Company/History_of_Kodak/Milestones_-_chronology/1878-1929.htm

In all cases a negative is produced from the film/plate, so a positive copy would have to be mad either by contact or through an enlarger.

In the 1890s, your photographer would certainly be using glass plate negatives (negatives on film had only just been invented, and were really only being used in amateur snapshooting). The camera would use plate holders for the negatives--before shooting, you load the glass negative into the plate holder in a darkroom (photographers (or their assistants) would do this in advance and take a bunch of loaded plate holders out for the shoot). When shooting, you set up the shot without the negative in the camera. The back of that kind of camera (a view camera--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_camera) is a big piece of glass the size of the negative you're shooting with, through which you see the scene from the lens, but upside-down (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_camera#mediaviewer/File:Sinar_F_-_visée.jpg). To compose and focus you open the lens and use the ground glass. For better clarity you might put a hood over your head and the camera, as you've probably seen. Once you're ready, you close the lens and put in the plate holder (it goes between the bellows and the ground glass). The plate holder has a thing called a "draw slide," which you pull out so the plate will be exposed to the lens when it opens. You then click the shutter, which opens the lens (if using flash, you set it off at the same time--I think you'd certainly need an assistant to do one or the other).

Development of glass plate negatives is not that different from film (well, dry-plate glass negatives, which is what you're using). You do need a darkroom. The plate then goes through the baths of developer, stop bath, fixer, and wash. At least an hour start to finish, although once it's in the fixer you turn on the light to look at it. It then needs to be completely dry before you print with it--my guess is at least an hour or two for that.

Glass plate negatives are contact printed--no enlarger. Glass negatives are large--there's variety but for your kind of thing maybe around 3x5 to 5x7 (inches). To contact print, you need a contact printing frame (http://www.lotusviewcamera.at/accessories/contactprintingframes_e.html). You load the negative into the frame, and then the paper behind it, and close it very tightly. You then expose it to light. The kind of paper you'd be using would be printing-out paper (silver gelatin or collodion), which is much slower than the kind of paper you'd use with an enlarger. You expose it using UV light--ie, sticking it outside facing the sun or in a window. On a sunny day it would probably take 20-30 minutes to expose. You then take out the print--which has a visible image, unlike the paper you use with enlargers--to develop. For printing out paper, the first step is washing, followed usually by toning (not neccessary, but usual), then fixing, then wash, then dry. Again you can turn the light on by the fixing stage, and you can see the picture as soon as you take it out of the frame. About an hour from the first bath to the end of washing, then a couple to fully dry.

Whew! That might be wayyy more than you need, but that's the overall process. If you do want more details, let me know--I've never shot with glass negatives but I've used an old view camera and developed photos with printing-out paper, including one from a glass negative, so I could give a more detailed run through of the steps. I am actually a photohistorian, with a master's degree and everything, so if you have any other related questions, I might know or would know where to look at least.

Also, you might have already seen these, but for the kind of photos that might be taken indoors with flash at the time, have a look at the work of Jacob Riis, from the late 1880s and 1890s: http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4928

Marian Perera said:

Wow. OK, let me summarize it to make sure I've understood. Just to the scene, an injured man just lurched into my MC's apartment, collapsed and died.

1. My character loads a glass negative into the plate holder and puts that into the camera. No time to load more.

He could also easily have some around that are already loaded--with this kind of glass plate you can do them well in advance, so you can do like twenty at once so they're all set for whenever you want to shoot (a photographer would have a bunch of plate holders for just this reason). Not that it really matters if this scene isn't described anyway, but if you're picturing it.

2. He takes the picture. All this happens just before the start of the story, so I don't need to describe these steps in detail. I just want to be sure I've got them right in my head.

In brief, just so you can picture it, it's a) compose and focus picture in ground glass, b) stick plate holder in and pull out the draw slide dealie c)release shutter and set off flash powder--if he's experienced and pressured he can probably do it under a minute or less.

3. In the darkroom, he removes the plate and puts it through four baths, which takes about an hour (! This will need to be redone, because I've written him having a brief discussion with the detective investigating the case while the two of them watch to see the image developing).

Yes... the first bath is the one where it develops, though, so from there on you can look at the image. I just checked and with glass plates you can use a safelight (with slide film you have to develop in total darkness) so they can till be chatting while looking at the image. I'm not sure exactly how long it would take for the image to appear in the developer with a glass plate, though I'll have a look around for an old manual that might say. Probably a couple minutes. Considering that the picture is a negative, though, it might be hard to see the image while it's lying in the bath. I'd say have it develop, get it in the stop (another couple minutes, probably), then after a minute or so in the fix they can turn on the light, take it out, and hold it up to the light to have a look. After that they want to put it back in the fixer then the wash (those two steps take the longest), but they can be having their first look within a few minutes of development.

4. Once the slide is dry, he takes paper coated with silver gelatin, sandwiches that with the slide in a frame and exposes that to sunlight.

Exactly!

5. That paper then has to be washed, toned, fixed, washed and dried.

Yep!

...What a process! No wonder my poor MC isn't making much money from this, he probably spends everything he earns on equipment and chemicals.

Haha, yes, making pictures back then was certainly a bit of an ordeal! Usually you'd develop and print in batches, so at least for that two hours of darkroom work you'd end up with a bunch of prints. Darkroom chemicals were actually very cheap back then, though (actually, even today most of them are pretty cheap), and photo paper was much cheaper than it is now. It would be the camera and the time more than anything.

Thanks very much. I just have one question: what are the chemicals used in step#5 above? The same as those used in the baths in step #3?

For the plate you have developer, stop bath, and fixer (the wash is just water). The print is toner, stop, and fixer (again, both washes are just water). So developer and toner are each used for just one. I thinkyou could use the same stop and fixer for the plate and the print...again, let me have a look for a manual to check.

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For the burning photos question--I think they would probably burn about the same as regular paper. If they were intended to be shown to anyone they would probably be mounted on cardboard... my guess is the adhesive used for mounting would be pretty flammable.

Hooray--just found a manual from 1896! https://openlibrary.org/books/OL20532463M

So, for the plate--well, first, apparently once you take the plate out of the holder you're supposed to dust it with a brush for dust specks. Then you put it in the developer. Within 15-20 seconds the dark parts will start to appear. The manual doesn't give a specific estimate for overall development time, but based on that, probably about a minute. Then, there isn't actually a specific stop bath--you run it under a tap for about a minute then put it in a combined clearing-fixing bath, where it stays for about five minutes. Then a 45 minute wash, then drying in a rack.

For the print--no specific time for toning, but probably just a minute or two (it can be skipped, too, if in a rush). The fixer is a different solution than the plate fixer, and the print stays in it for 10-15 minutes. Again there isn't an actual stop bath, but a three hour wash! A full wash can be cut down if a print isn't intended to last forever, though, so that can definitely be adjusted (he could always make a more stable print later, if he wanted). I also forgot to mention that that kind of fibre-based photograph paper always cockles when it dries, no matter what you do, so after it's dry you have to flatten it in a press or mount it so it doesn't look terrible. One more step, hooray!

Hope that's helpful!

Sounds like your MC is a camera crank, which was what they called photography geeks back then.

The final wash was in aid of "setting" the print, if I remember my dad (pro photog but no longer with us) and his work in the darkroom and print room. The image comes through in an earlier chemical bath. So the convo between the detective and the cameraman is possible. The image would be fairly clear to see in the red light they use in darkrooms, as it developed. I also remember a big phosphorescent black and white timer to count down the seconds it took to process each step.

HTH

Marian Perera said:

So the detective could still see the relevant details in the photograph without having to wait 45 minutes, but the time it takes for the wash and the print will give my MC a good reason to meet up with the detective again later.

For sure--the negative is the same size as the print, so pretty easy to read, although it IS negative, so some details would be harder to see, especially for someone who isn't used to looking at negatives (your photographer could always point things out, as he is probably used to it). I'm sure the detective would like to then look at the actual print, a) for the positive, b) in full light, and c) with more time to go over it, so yes, definitely a reason to meet up again!

That is very helpful, thanks. The photography parts of the story are going to be as authentic as I can make them.

Awesome! I think the use of photography in historically set works is a great place to ground the reader in the time period, and the extended time it took provides a potentially interesting background for scenes (my 1920s novel has two people who are into each other without having said it in a darkroom developing an autochrome, which is a colour photograph on glass that is super complicated to process, with about ten chemical baths. Darkness and physical proximity....). Especially because there is so much information out there on how it was done--old manuals are great! If you want me to have a look at the scene once it's written to check the details, do let me know (I'd actually love to see it either way, sounds interesting!).

And I just finished the scene where the thugs burn his photographs (aww) but he gets the better of them by throwing a handful of magnesium powder into the fire. He expects the flash, the thugs are blinded. Why yes, I loved the ending of Rear Window!

Aww, meanies. Fortunately he probably has the glass negatives somewhere still (unless they smash them, too...). Love the use of flash powder! A handful of magnesium is probably painfully bright.

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Deb--exactly, it's to wash out all the residual chemicals so they don't stick around and cause discoloration and fading later. Even a poorly washed print will be fine in the short-term, so if you need to rush it, it won't affect the image for a while.

Your comment reminds me--in the 19th C, due to the chemical composition of the negatives and paper, darkroom lights could be amber as well as red. So if you want another point of difference, you could always refer to the amber light instead of the red light. I don't think they had the groovy glow in the dark timers though... once your eyes are used to the light you can read a watch by safelight, I guess they probably did that.

The Sears catalogue from 1897 has a camera section. Maybe this will help (starts on page 480)

http://books.google.com/books?id=pa...BA&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=camera&f=false

When it comes to cameras back then I just assume the bigger ones were the more high end ones. But im no expert.

Here's another Sears catalogue from a little later, 1902. The cameras start around page 229
https://archive.org/stream/catalogueno11200sear

You could use Voigtlander (my dad's pre-WWII film camera, which I inherited and still have). Other brands I remember his referring to included Graflex, Rolleiflex, possibly Deardorff or Zeiss. SpeedGrafix (sp?) was what Dad used as an aerial recon photographer in the South Pacific during the war, so you might google how long those had been around by then.

HTH

The Comet and the Premier in the Sears Catalogue are both fancy snapshot cameras, intended for amateurs without a lot of technical skill or interest in acquiring it. From what I know your fellow is pretty serious/professional, so while it's possible he might have a camera like that to play with, he definitely wouldn't be doing his serious work with it. I'd reccomend picking from the New Model Improved View Camera (though that one's pretty hard to refer to casually!), the Empire State (I like that name), the Ideal, the Monitor, or the Carlton. Maybe one of the Preemos as a second, more portable camera (they fold out, so fold up smaller).

The brand of the Monitor and the Carlton at least is apparently the Rochester Optical Company, which made some of the best cameras in the US at the time (source--http://www.fiberq.com/cam/ , which goes into a looooot of detail of various view camera types and manufacturers in the 19th C, if you are super interested. About 3/4 of the way down the page is a list of the major American camera manufacturers of the 19th C).

While Zeiss and Voightlander were around for a long time and had great reputations, at the time Europe and North America had pretty separate photographic industries. I doubt an American photographer would have a German camera in the 1890s unless he'd spent time in Europe or trained with a European photographer, although I guess we never established where this is, so if it IS the UK or Europe, it would probably be the other way around, and he wouldn't have one of those Sears-listed cameras (although the catalogue does sell at least one Zeiss lens, which they were especially well-known for).

Rolleiflexes weren't around until the late 1920s; the first Graflex apparently came out in 1898 but they are particularly associated with the early 20th C, especially as a press camera (the Speed Graphic is a type of Graflex). Apparently Deardorff was founded in 1916. Very nice cameras, though, and wow Deb, I am impressed at your memory!! (also how interesting that he worked in aerial photography during WW2).

Hope that's a helpful perspective!

Marian Perera said:

Thanks, flapperphilosopher, that's really helpful! Especially the recommendations about camera brands. I picked the Comet and the Premier because they sounded fancy but easy to drop into casual conversation, but Monitor, as a name, sounds great as well.

However...

The story is set in a walled city where magic flourishes, and my MC, the photographer, is one of the few non-magical people there. When I started writing, I didn't know where the city was. Since all the action took place within the walls and the city was so insular, it didn't seem too important. That, and I was on a roll with the writing, so I didn't want to pause to think.

But I do know my MC is Greek. That's why I was pleased with the mention of the Zeiss and Voightlander.

That said, it's been established that my MC comes from a wealthy family, so I suppose it's possible for him to have cameras from both sides of the pond. I like "the Zeiss and the Monitor". Sounds so technical.

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I managed to forget it's fantasy set in the past--it's awesome to still work on nailing historical accuracy but it certainly gives you more leeway! If it's Europe someplace then, I'd totally go for at least one of the German brands--Zeiss does have a nice ring to it, and photography enthusiasts will recognize it without any incongruity. As a wealthy fellow who's (presumably) travelled and likes his toys, he certainly could have an American camera too, though he probably picked it up over there or had a friend do it. None of those camera model names are really recognizable today anyway (unless Zeiss and Voightlander, which are brands, although we totally say "the Canon" and "the Nikon" today so folks back then probably did too) so it's more a matter of behind-the-scenes historical accuracy (which I should warn I'm obsessed with--my current novel uses the actual weather forecasts from the paper of each day it's set, haha).

p.s. just noticed you're in Toronto--so am I! Nice seeing the sun today eh?

Thanks for the comment, Flicka! Or should I say, "tusen tak"?