Talbot, Henry Fox, 14, 101 Talbot versus Laroche, 54 Taylor, Professor Alfred Swaine, 104 The Hudson River, 169-183 The Society's Exhibition, 260 The Use of Clouds in Landscapes, 265 ---- as Backgrounds in Portraiture, 269
Union of the North and South London Societies, 253
Washington, 49 Wedgwood Controversy, 80 Wedgwood, Thomas, 7, 8, 9 Whipple Gallery, 52 Wolcott Reflecting Camera, 28 Wollaston's Diaphragmatic Shutter, 115 Wollaston, Dr., 6 Woodbury Process, 82 Wothlytype Printing Process, 81
Photography, though young in years, is sufficiently aged to be in danger of having much of its early history, its infantile gambols, and vigorous growth, obscured or lost sight of in the glitter and reflection of the brilliant success which surrounds its maturity. Scarcely has the period of an average life passed away since the labours of the successful experimentalists began; yet, how few of the present generation of workers can lay their fingers on the dates of the birth, christening, and phases of the delightful vocation they pursue. Many know little or nothing of the long and weary travail the minds of the discoverers suffered before their ingenuity gave birth to the beautiful art-science by which they live. What form the infant art assumed in the earlier stages of its life; or when, where, and how, it passed from one phase to another until it arrived at its present state of mature and profitable perfection. Born with the art, as I may say, and having graduated in it, I could, if I felt so disposed, give an interesting, if not amusing, description of its rise and progress, and the many difficulties and disappointments that some of the early practitioners experienced at a time when photographic A B C's were not printed; its "principles and practice" anything but familiarly explained; and when the "dark room" was as dark as the grave, and as poisonous as a charnel-house, and only occasionally illumined by the glare of a "bull's-eye." But it is not my intention to enter the domain of romance, and give highly coloured or extravagant accounts of the growth of so beautiful and fascinating an art-science. Photography is sufficiently facetious in itself, and too versatile in its powers of delineation of scenes and character, to require any verbose effort of mine to make it attractive. A record of bare facts is all I aim at. Whatever is doubtful I shall leave to the imagination of the reader, or the invention of the romance writer. To arrange in chronological order the various discoveries, inventions, and improvements that have made photography what it is; to do honour to those who have toiled and given, or sold, the fruits of their labour for the advancement of the art; to set at rest, as far as dates can succeed in doing so, any questionable point or order of precedence of merit in invention, application, or modification of a process, and to enable the photographic student to make himself acquainted with the epochs of the art, is the extent of my ambition in compiling these records.