Seizing the Light, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER FOURPictures on Glass: The Wet Plate Process

THE ALBUMEN PROCESS

The 1840s saw two cornerstones of modernity, capitalism and science, integrated with early photographic practice, as inventors searched for a low-cost, easy-to-use process that would combine the detail of the daguerreotype with the reproducibility of the calotype. Activity centered on making glass negatives, which were an ideal emulsion support base, cheaper than a silvered plate, and free from the drawbacks of the paper negative process. The chief obstacle in devising an efficient glass-backed process was finding a way to keep the silver salts from dissolving or floating off the glass during processing. In 1847 Claude Félix Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor (1805–1870), ...