Henry Fox Talbot

A history of Calotype

Fox who?

William Henry Fox Talbot 11 February 1800 17 September 1877 British inventor - a pioneer of photography. Calotype/ talbotype.

Early experiments

inability to draw, experiment with a mechanical method of capturing and retaining an image. Talbot attempted to draw with the aid of both a camera obscura and a camera lucida when producing his sketches Oreil window

CAMERA LUCIDA

The Camera Lucida, designed in 1807 by Dr. William Wollaston, was an aid to drawing It was a reflecting prism which enabled artists to draw outlines in correct perspective. No darkroom was needed. The paper was laid flat on the drawing board, and the artist would look through a lens containing the prism, so that he could see both the paper and a faint image of the subject to be drawn. He would then fill in the image. However, as anyone who has tried using these will know only too well, that too required artistic skills, as Fox Talbot also discovered.

CAMERA OBSCURA

The Camera Obscura (Latin for Dark room) was a dark box or room with a hole in one end. If the hole was small enough, an inverted image would be seen on the opposite wall "Close all shutters and doors until no light enters the camera except through the lens, and opposite hold a piece of paper, which you move forward and backward until the scene appears in the sharpest detail. There on the paper you will see the whole view as it really is, with its distances, its colours and shadows and motion, the clouds, the water twinkling, the birds flying. By holding the paper steady you can trace the whole perspective with a pen, shade it and delicately colour it from nature." Daniel Barbaro.

Photogenic drawing

In January 1834, a sheet of fine writing paper, coated with salt and brushed with a solution of silver nitrate, darkened in the sun, and that a second coating of salt impeded further darkening or fading.

a pressed leaf or plant on a piece of sensitized paper, covered it with a sheet of glass, and set it in the sun. Wherever the light struck, the paper darkened, but wherever the plant blocked the light, it remained white. He called his new discovery "the art of photogenic drawing."

Minitature cameras

Louis Daguerre in 1835, downside lengthy exposure time and fugitive prints. 1840 exposure for mere seconds left latent image Developed on application of exciting liquid-gallic acid. To permanently fix the image-hyposulphite of soda.

Patents
Patented in 1841 as calotype, popularly known as talbotype. Kalos meaning beautiful Photographically illustrated book-The Pencil of Nature. Initially called it Photogravure.

The End.