sign in sign up
<<
Home , Albumen print, Ambrotype, Calotype, Chromogenic print, Daguerreotype, Enlarger

Addison Gallery of American MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic 1 Photographic Technologies

How does the democratization of portraiture impact an understanding of personal value and identity?

How has the reproduction of influenced the availability of knowledge about the world?

The of in the nineteenth century would forever change the way in which we view, experience, and understand the world around us. This Portfolio Guide of features a sampling of works from the Addison’s collection offering varied perspectives and discussion points on the implications of the evolving uses and applications of this continually advancing . Educators are encouraged to use this Guide and the expanded Portfolio List as a starting point, a place from which to dig deeper, ask questions, and make new connections for class plans and projects.

For online use, click the images in this guide to access digital images in the Addison’s online database.

SELECTED THEMATIC APPROACHES This Portfolio Guide contains selected artworks and ideas to connect the Impact of Early Photography — How did photographs solidify one’s presence in the world? Addison’s collection with classroom Advancing Technology and Accessibility — How did diminishing times impact acccessibility? themes, disciplines, and curricula. Photography and the Dissemination of Information — How did the mobility of photography transform its Digital images of works from this Guide applications? can be downloaded from the Addison’s Capturing Motion — How has motion photography impacted our understanding of phenomena and website for use in classrooms. Visits to perception? explore works in the Addison’s Museum Learning Center can be arranged as a Contemporary Perspectives — How does the evolution of photographic processes influence the complement to the viewing of current dissemination of information via the ? . The Chemistry of Photography — What can we learn about the importance of chemistry through comparing www.addisongallery.org photographic technologies over time? Addison Gallery of American Art MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic Technologies 2

A anonymous, Benjamin Whitney Gleason III Family, Taken in Lawrence, Mass., before 1849, 11 3/8 x 12 7/8 x 2 1/4 in., in frame, gift of Patricia Fuller in memory of her father, 2008.101

B Charles Henry Williamson (1826– 1874) Family Portrait, c. 1850, 3 5/8 x 2 5/8 in. each, two hand tinted in metal, leather, and glass case, museum purchase, 1978.99 A B C George C. Gilchrest (1812–1888), Untitled, circa 1855, 13 5/16 x 10 7/16 in., , museum purchase, 1985.80

D George C. Gilchrest (1812–1888), #8 - Oval Portrait of Young Woman in Green Dress, c. 1855, 13 1/4 x 10 1/2 in., hand tinted salt print, museum purchase, 1985.55

C D

The Impact of Early Photography How does the democratization of portraiture impact an understanding of one’s value and identity?

What are the implications of the ability to produce multiple prints?

Before the invention of photography, only the upper classes could afford to have their portraits painted. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre‘s introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839 led to more affordable visual representation and documentation across class and gender. Working class families, such as this family from Lawrence, Massachusetts (A), could sit for a daguerreotypist for several minutes to have their presence in the world solidified on a polished surface. Sometimes accented with watercolors, daguerreotypes were often packaged behind glass and kept in a protective case as precious objects (B).

In 1841, created the first from which multiple positive prints could be made. Called at first the , Greek for “beautiful picture,” and later the talbotype or salted paper print, these were printed on a larger scale. Hand tinting (D) was used to heighten realism and to approximate the status of painted portraits. While exposure times of several minutes required stiff and stoic poses, attempts were sometimes made to picture limited interaction and activity (C). Addison Gallery of American Art MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic Technologies 3

E Frederick Gutekunst (1831–1917) Unknown Young Man, New York City, circa 1856, 2 5/8 x 2 1/8 in., in leather, metal, velvet, and glass case, museum purchase, 1981.55

F anonymous, Portrait of a Man (Unknown), circa 1870, 10 x 7 in., , museum purchase, 1987.547

G anonymous, Untitled Portrait of Family in Front of House, n.d., 6 5/8 x 8 3/4 in., tintype, gift of Adam D. Weinberg in honor of Allison Kemmerer, 2004.1.254 E

F G

Advancing Technology and Accessibility How did advancing technology and diminishing exposure times impact the availability of portraiture?

How did expanding applications influence the market for photography, nda vice versa?

By the 1850s, faster and cheaper technologies were arising. Utilizing the simpler and faster wet-plate technology invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851, the unique positive glass (E) patented in the in 1854 by James Ambrose Cutting further widened the scope of those who could afford to have their images made.

Unlike the fragile ambrotypes, which were housed in protective cases similar to those used for daguerreotypes, popularized in 1856 realized the desire to share mementos of oneself with friends and family, as portraits made in the studio (F) and outside the confines of the studio (G) could easily be made in multiples and sent by mail. The technology of tintypes decreased both the price of portraiture and the required skill for while widening the market and demand for the emerging medium of photography. This extension of inexpensive representation to all classes further redefined previous connections between portraiture, self-representation, and social status. Addison Gallery of American Art MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic Technologies 4

H anonymous, Won by Mr. Gus Grab Amateur. Championship of New York, 1881, 6 1/2 x 4 1/4 in., carte-de-visite, gift of Adam D. Weinberg in honor of Allison Kemmerer, 2004.1.82

I anonymous, The Glorious Yosemite Valley, from Glacier Point, Calif., n.d., two albumen prints mounted on studio card, museum purchase, 1997.126

J A reproduction of an Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. , from Wikimedia Commons, H I J http://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Holmes_stereoscope.jpg

K Timothy H. O’Sullivan (1840– 1882) A Harvest of Death, Battle-field of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from the bound album Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, Volume I, July, 1863, 6 7/8 x 8 13/16 in., mounted on wove paper, museum purchase, Collection Care and Enhancement Fund, 1989.84.36

L Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), Distant View of the Domes, Yosemite, K Calif., c. 1880, 15 3/8 x 20 in., mammoth-plate albumen print, L museum purchase, 1983.21

Photography and the Dissemination of Information How did the reproduction of images influence the availability of knowledge about the world?

How does the impact of photography change once it leaves the confines of the studio?

In the 1850s the albumen print led to the first commercially viable method of producing a photographic print on paper and was made from a collodion wet-plate glass negative. Cartes-de-visite, small albumen prints mounted on boards the size of calling cards, transformed the singular, intimate into collectables, such as the portrait of an athlete (H), which could be accumulated into albums.

Stereographs (I) paired photographs taken with a twin- to create a three-dimensional effect when viewed through a stereoscope (J). These served as parlor entertainment that also provided images and information about the world beyond daily experience, as methods of carting portable via wagon and mule brought photographers out of their studios. Civil War photographers, such as Timothy O’Sullivan and Alexander Gardner, utilized this technology to satiate the public’s thirst for images from the front (K). Other photographers, including Carleton Watkins, made defining and enticing images of the western frontier despite the limitations of the location and terrain (L). Addison Gallery of American Art MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic Technologies 5

M-P by Eadweard J. Muybridge (1830 -1904)

M Plate 38. Horses, Running, Hattie H., from bound volume of 186 plates The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, 1881, 6 1/4 x 8 13/16 in., albumen print mounted on paper, partial gift of The N Beinecke Foundation, Inc., 1987.21.44

N Plate C. Camera and (Front M View), from bound volume of 186 plates The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, 1881, 5 7/16 x 9 1/8 in., albumen print mounted on paper, partial gift of The Beinecke Foundation, Inc., 1987.21.3

O Plate 169. Jumping; over boy’s back P (leap-frog), from portfolio of 781 plates Animal Locomotion, 1887, Volume VII, Males & Females Draped & Misc. Subjects, 1885, 9 5/8 x 12 1/8 in., collotype on paper, gift of the O Edwin J. Beinecke Trust, 1984.6.480

P Plate D. Camera Shed, from bound volume of 186 plates The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, 1881, 4 15/16 x 9 1/8 in., albumen print mounted on paper, partial gift of The Beinecke Foundation, Inc., 1987.21.4

Q-R by Harold Edgerton (1903- 1990) Q R Q Moving Skip Rope, neg. 1952, 9 x 10 11/16 in., gelatin silver print, gift of The Harold and Esther Edgerton Family Foundation, 1996.61 Capturing Motion R Milk Drop Coronet, from series Harold Edgerton: Ten Dye Transfer How did the ability to see imperceptible motion impact people’s understanding of the world? Photographs, neg. 1957, print 1984- 1990, dye transfer print, gift of The How did motion photography challenge ideas about “truth?” Harold and Esther Edgerton Family Foundation, 1996.58.2 As shutter speeds began to outpace human vision, photography proved to be more truthful than the human eye. In 1872, set up along a racetrack so that a horse heading down the track snapped a string releasing the shutters one by one. Muybridge’s series of animal and human Motion Studies, useful for race horse owners, athletes, doctors, scientists, and artists alike, were initially printed as albumen prints (M) then later as more easily reproducible collotypes (O). Unlike albumen prints which are photographic prints developed in the , collotypes were made with a printing press and therefore more easily reproducible. Muybridge’s frame-by-frame method of stopping - and then reanimating motion - also became the inspiration for the invention of .

Harold Edgerton, a scientist working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed a stroboscopic in the 1950s to produce a brilliant burst of light, infinitesimal moments of time on film from which were produced as gelatin silver prints (Q) and the richly saturated dye transfer prints (R). Addison Gallery of American Art MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic Technologies 6

S Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, negative 1936, print c. 1950, gelatin silver print, museum purchase, 2005.8

T Look in her eyes! Article from: Midweek pictorial, 1936 Oct. 17, p. 23., reproduction of photograph by Dorothea Lange, Resettlement Administration, Library of Congress S T U U Russell Lee (1903-1986), Jack Whitney and His Family, Homesteader, Pietown, New Mexico, 1940, 10 x 13 in., , museum purchase, 1983.27

V Stanley Forman (b. 1945), Soiling of Old Glory, Boston City Hall, 1976, 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 in., gelatin silver print, museum purchase, 1987.347

W Front page of Boston Herald American, 1976 April 6, reproduction V of photograph by Stanley Forman, courtesy of the Boston Herald

X Sage Sohier (b.1954), British Redcoat Re-enactor, Battle of Concord and *Note: Digital Lexington, Lexington, MA, from series image is not Perfectible Worlds, part of The PRC currently available. Portfolio, 2002, printed 2008, 17 x 21 W* in., pigmented inkjet print on Harman gloss fiber based paper, museum purchase, 2008.118.16

X

Contemporary Perspectives How did the development of faster and more mobile technology revolutionize the uses of photography?

How does the evolution of photographic processes impact the dissemination of media images?

In the early twentieth century, the shorter exposure time and longer shelf-life of mobilized photographers, now unburdened by darkrooms and chemicals, to be to where national events were occurring or spontaneously unfolding. Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (S) and Stanley Forman’s Soiling of Old Glory (V) are images whose immediate reproduction led to public outrage and activism, and which have since become unwitting icons of their times. Russell Lee‘s chromogenic print of a family hard hit by the (U) demonstrates the rich new possibilities of social by using roll film, first introduced for commercialse u by in 1935.

Digital technology, developed in the 1970s and made available to consumers in the 1990s, revolutionized the accessibility and spread of images via and the internet. Sage Sohier’s inkjet print of a Revolutionary War re-enactor is an exploration of the visual documentation of historical events through contemporary photographic processes. Addison Gallery of American Art MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic Technologies 7

The Chemistry of Photography c.1839-1870s The daguerreotype is created on a silver-coated plate buffed to a sheen, then exposed to fumes to form a light-sensitive coating of silver . After exposure, the plate is treated with fumes of heated to render the image visible and washed in a hyposulfite of soda solution to make the image permanent. When the finished plate is held at an angle reflecting something dark, the lighter Daguerreotype: page 2 areas are formed by the gray-white deposit of silver-mercury , while the shadows and darker areas are formed by the polished silver surface itself. Color accents were sometimes painted onto the image.

c.1841-1850s The calotype, talbotype, or salted paper print is printed from a created as decomposes with exposure to light and excess silver iodide is washed away with an application

Salted paper print: page 2 of gallo-nitrate. Potassium bromide is then used to stabilize the image. Prints are made by applying salt to paper, which is coated with a solution and then exposed to light in contact with the paper negative. Images were often hand tinted to situate photographs at the status level of painted portraits.

c.1851-1880 The collodion wet-plate negative is created on a sheet of glass hand-coated with a thin film of collodion, composed of guncotton dissolved in ether, and sensitized with silver nitrate. The plates are exposed Ambrotype: page 3 in a camera immediately after being sensitized, and then developed in chemical baths shortly after exposure.

c.1854-1860s An ambrotype is an underexposed collodion negative in which the image appears as a positive when viewed against a dark background. A glass plate is coated with a thin layer of collodion and rendered light sensitive with a silver nitrate solution. After exposure, the plate is developed, fixed, and varnished, and appears as a positive as the silver reflects some light while the areas without silver appear black. Tintype: page 3 c.1856-20th Century Tintypes are non-reflective, one-of-a-kind photographs on a sheet of iron coated with a dark enamel. Like ambrotypes, tintypes rely on the principle that underexposed collodion negatives appear as positive images when viewed against a dark background.

Albumen print: page 4 c.1850-1890s The albumen print is made by coating a sheet of paper with the albumen found in egg whites, which gives the paper a glossy, smooth surface. The albumenized paper is sensitized with a solution of silver nitrate, then placed in contact with a collodion wet-plate negative and exposed to the sun to produce a print.

Introduced 1870s A gelatin silver print is produced as light shining through roll film, a film negative coated with light-sensitive silver salts, strikes paper coated with a gelatin emulsion also containing light-sensitive silver salts. The paper is placed in a chemical developing solution of alkali and metol or hydroquinone mixed with water, then a of a glacial acetic acid and water, and finally a fixing solution Gelatin silver print: page 6 of thiosulfate to remove any undeveloped silver .

Introduced 1935 A chromogenic print , also called a Type-C or C-print, is made on that has three silver emulsion layers sensitized to the primary of light. During developing, dye couplers bond with the exposed silver and the silver is bleached away, leaving a full-color positive image.

Introduced 1946 A dye transfer print is created by printing three color separation negatives onto a single Chromogenic print: page 6 sheet of light-sensitive paper.

Introduced 1991 Digital cameras record images through an , rather than on plates or negatives. Photosensitive diodes on the surface of the image sensor convert light passing through the lens into electrical impulses which are measured and converted into a digital number. The final image is composed of a series of square picture elements, or , each with its own numerical value. Images are “developed” either through a digital printer (such as an inkjet) or using a digital that exposes light-sensitive paper. Digital print: page 6 Addison Gallery of American Art MUSEUM LEARNING CENTER Portfolio Guide: Photographic Technologies 8

Curriculum Connections and Resources SUGGESTED CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS History/Social Studies • historical Science • images and the media • representation and personal • media technology • social documentation and cultural identity • photographic technology and Arranging a Visit to the • propaganda • composition chemical reactions Museum Learning Center • social status and • the physics of light and Art At least two weeks in advance representation motion • or preferably more, contact: • , technology, • analog and digital • representation and historic events technology Jamie Gibbons • portraiture • perception (978) 749-4037 English • landscapes [email protected] • • documentation to schedule your visit and • intention and format • social documentation discuss possible themes, CONNECTIONS TO ADDITIONAL THEMATIC PORTFOLIOS applicable portfolios of works, Portraits/Self-portraits and related activities. American Identity The American West/Manifest Destiny Representing the Land Images and the Media The The Great Depression Documentation vs. Art Representation and Reality The Power of Photography

TEACHER AND STUDENT RESOURCES House. https://www.eastman.org/gem-home. Digitized access to resources from the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the oldest film archives. The museum holds unparalleled collections—encompassing several million objects—in the fields of hotography,p cinema, and photographic and cinematographic technology, and photographically illustrated books.

Goldberg, Vicki. The Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed Our Lives. New York: Abbeville Publishing Group, 1991. An exploration of the enduring impact of iconic photographs.

Gustavson, Todd. Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2009. Traces the technological development of the camera and its impact. Addison Gallery of American Art Phillips Academy, Andover, MA Library of Congress Prints and Photographic Division. Popular Photographic Print Processes. Education Department http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/589_intro.html. Descriptions and examples of photographic processes Jamie Gibbons represented in the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, fosters Head of Education understanding of the history, function, and production techniques. Christine Jee Manager of School and PBS. American Photography: A Century of Images. http://www.pbs.org/ktca/americanphotography/ Community Collaborations A companion to the PBS film, this website explores the implicationsof photography on American history www.addisongallery.org and culture and includes multiple teacher guides.