Photography 1890-1900

[Scott Knowles]

I'm curious if folks have references to the history of photography during 1890's. In researching the background to the 1896 expedition in and around Mt. Rainier, described in an 1898 report with photos, I initially thought the photos in the report were taken during the expedition. But I'm finding a number of photographers who were working around Mt. Rainier during this period and looking at on-line collections I suspect few in any where and photos were donated or borrowed for the report.

Now I'm curious what was the state of photography during this period, especially with respect to the availability, use, processing, etc. of (sheet) film during that time. I've found a number of collections, but few descriptions beyond photographer titles and date (if known). Books or Website would be appreciated. I'm still searching.

[Ash]

Roughly speaking, pre-Leica 35mm the photographic industry was strictly for the wealthy. When 35mm cameras like the Leica I came about, the average Joe Wealthy could buy a camera, as opposed to just Mr Millionaire.

That's not much of a help to be honest, but if you research, you'll find that most people who photographed were either the wealthy, or paid by the wealthy to document an excursion. Developing was usually from raw chemicals (even my 1950's photographic dictionary still references some recipes for various compounds).

Depending on what type of plate, you're looking at a variety of 'choices' for what the photographer might have had at his disposal within budget...

[John Kasaian]

Have you checked with the George Eastman house? AFAIK, photography became "middle class" when Kodak came into the picture with products like the Kodak Vest Pocket.

Also you might check out Vittorio Sella who photographed mountain climbing expeditions with ULF glass plates for an idea of the mindset at the time. There is an excellent book from Aperture covering his career Summit which is loaded with details.

[Jon Shiu]

That period was kind of a golden age of photography, with many enthusiasts and hobbyists. You can check out some of the catalogs from the period:
http://www.butkus.org/chinon/catalogs_guides.htm
http://www.butkus.org/chinon/catalogs_photo.htm

Jon

[Scott Knowles]

Thanks for the responses. I'm reading "An American Century of Photography: From Dry-Plate to digital" by Keith F. Davis. It has an excellent overview of the photographic trends from the 1870's to present, and while describing the technology, it doesn't go beyond that with names, dates and places but the Web is filling in the ideas I want.

I was curious what using 4x5 film involved in the field and shop. So far I've found four photographers who worked in and around Mt. Rainier 1890-1900. The USGS has about 40+ negatives in their collection, but that's about the limit of what they're doing, just preserving them. They don't have the equipment to handle and scan them. But they also have over 60,000 imags in the collection and only about 10% scanned.

As for the times, there may have been a snob appeal by the "professsional" photographers after the introduction of Kodak cameras, it also seems it proliferated the number of those professional photographers with the introduction of non-glass base sheet film. Kodak introduced the snapshooter and amateur photographer and changed the work of professionals, and new film technology changed the number of professional photographers, not unlike the digital revolution.

Damn, history somehow keeps finding you, in the present too.

[Scott Knowles]

That period was kind of a golden age of photography, with many enthusiasts and hobbyists. You can check out some of the catalogs from the period:
http://www.butkus.org/chinon/catalogs_guides.htm

Jon

Thanks, some interesting stuff. I like the Camera Magazine April 1901 and Amateur Photographer 1897. I don't feel so bad now learning.

[Darryl Baird]

I picked up a book, "Wilsons Cyclopaedic Photography" from 1894. I'm attaching four scans of the title page, two pages of index, and an appendix of manufacturers.

Looks like, simply by number of pages, that dry (glass) plates were very popular.

To my thinking, some of the material is slightly out of date since the Kodak was introduced in 1888. I don't see much reference to the growing amateur marketplace.

[Darryl Baird]

Another text to explore the period is "Photography in the Nineteenth-Century America" edited by Martha Sandweiss. Two chapters in particular: V. American Views and the Romance of Modernization, by Peter Bacon Hales and VI. The Economic Incentives, Social Inducements, and Aesthetic Issues of American Pictorial Photography, by Sarah Greenough (its better than it sounds!)

The first chapter looks at the demand for landscape and other 'views' and the modes of production (sounds like your Mt. Rainier images) and in the next, the changes wrought by amateur photographers and the serious photographers (enter Stieglitz) on the art-photography scene.

great book

[Darryl Baird]

Scott, as a geologist you should be aware of the huge contributions the geological surveys of the western US had on our national history.

I did a lecture a while back on the period of American exploration following the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the impact photography had on the westward expansion...

a few historical highlights:

• Timothy O’Sullivan – post-Civil War, King’s 40th parallel survey, 1867, Wheeler Survey 1871
• Jack Hillers – 1871-75, Colorado River Geological Survey,- Powell Expedition, stereographs
• William Henry Jackson - Hayden Survey 1870, Colorado
• J. Russell – Civil War photog., Union pacific RR, “Pacific R.R. Views Across the Continent West from Omaha” 1868; “Joining of the Rails” 1869, stereographs
• Carleton Watkins – 1860-1890, Yosemite
• Edweard Muybridge – 1867-1870 California
• L.A. Huffman - Montana

I'm attaching a map I made to illustrate the territory in question. I'd think a local historical society would have volumes of stuff. It seems there were always local photographers making images of the area.

[Nathan Potter]

As Darryl pointed out above William Henry Jackson was a legendary figure in western photography. A splendid recent monograph published by John Fielder reprints many of Jacksons Colorado images along with Fielders taken at the same exact location but nominally 100 years later. Fielder even tried to match the Jackson lens focal lengths. May still be available from Westcliffe Publishers, Englewood CO. I obtained a copy from the Colorado Springs Historical Society, $150.00.

Of course another great western photographer was Edward Sheriff Curtis who so successfully documented the western indian even some from the far northwest and Canada. A recently published monograph reproduces many of Curtises images and supplies much text about his escapades and techniques. Published by Chartwell Books
Inc. Edison NJ. in 2006. BTW the Northwestern University Library has splendid electronic versions of all 20 volumes of Sheriffs The American Indian.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Scott Knowles]

Wow, more homework. Thanks. I'll look over the stuff and do some more research.

The 1896 expedition is a spinoff of the photo guide to Mt. Rainier NP because it's fascinating how much it's overlooked by almost everyone except a casual mention of the early trails. They were the first to circumnavigate the mountain at high elevations as well as summit it with an overnight stay. All the mountain climbing history don't even mention it except noting some names to features were given the team members. In addition one geologist (later USGS Director) hauled out 27 rock samples gathered along the way.

The photographs turned out to be another spinoff as I was interested in the ones in the report, and that lead to other photographers, and that lead to the period, and that leads to, whatever and wherever else..., as many of you already know about this things.

After finding the first NP map (1915) I'm also researching the original map field surveys done 1910-11 and 1913 which became the basis for the topographic maps of the NP and weren't updated except development until photogrammetry came along to verify the lanscape feature locations and elevations.

The goal and plan is eventually produce a map and updated description of the expedition along with the interest to locate the photos and take new ones with the 4x5, providing my back hasn't quit. And I thought retirement would be easy, but I've learned being a retired USGS employee has some perks (about helping former employees).

[Darryl Baird]

Wow, more homework. Thanks. I'll look over the stuff and do some more research.

The 1896 expedition is a spinoff of the photo guide to Mt. Rainier NP because it's fascinating how much it's overlooked by almost everyone except a casual mention of the early trails. They were the first to circumnavigate the mountain at high elevations as well as summit it with an overnight stay. All the mountain climbing history don't even mention it except noting some names to features were given the team members. In addition one geologist (later USGS Director) hauled out 27 rock samples gathered along the way.

The photographs turned out to be another spinoff as I was interested in the ones in the report, and that lead to other photographers, and that lead to the period, and that leads to, whatever and wherever else..., as many of you already know about this things.

After finding the first NP map (1915) I'm also researching the original map field surveys done 1910-11 and 1913 which became the basis for the topographic maps of the NP and weren't updated except development until photogrammetry came along to verify the lanscape feature locations and elevations.

The goal and plan is eventually produce a map and updated description of the expedition along with the interest to locate the photos and take new ones with the 4x5, providing my back hasn't quit. And I thought retirement would be easy, but I've learned being a retired USGS employee has some perks (about helping former employees).

Yep, you sound pretty hooked :)

Another interesting approach to the type of project you're considering is Mark Klett's "Third View (http://www.thirdview.org/)" book and CD. He is heavily involved in re-photography... and a former geologist.

[C. D. Keth]

That sounds similar to a re-photography project of Atget's Paris I was perusing a book of today.

[Darryl Baird]

Christopher Rauschenberg (http://www.christopherrauschenberg.com) did a Re-photo (http://www.lensculture.com/rauschenberg.html) of Atget's Paris

[adrian tyler]

maria hambourgs "the waking dream"'s first four chapters are dedicated to pre-20th centurry photography, published by the metropolitan museum, shoud be easly obtainable.

[Jim Galli]

Although north and west of Rainier, Darius Kinsey was already busy during the time frame you mention. He photographed the logging camps until 1940, a career that spanned over 50 years. He had a mammoth plate camera, 18X22 inches but most of his collection is on 11X14 plates. In general, photography was a mature industry by 1890 - 1900. Anastigmat lenses that are still sought after today were already in use.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

You could check out Shorpy.com, lots of old photos. Yes, you DO want glass plates and old lenses.

Steam boats (http://www.shorpy.com/node/4353?size=_original)

Philly streets (http://www.shorpy.com/node/4466?size=_original)

[Brian Ellis]

Roughly speaking, pre-Leica 35mm the photographic industry was strictly for the wealthy. When 35mm cameras like the Leica I came about, the average Joe Wealthy could buy a camera, as opposed to just Mr Millionaire.

That's not much of a help to be honest, but if you research, you'll find that most people who photographed were either the wealthy, or paid by the wealthy to document an excursion. Developing was usually from raw chemicals (even my 1950's photographic dictionary still references some recipes for various compounds).

Depending on what type of plate, you're looking at a variety of 'choices' for what the photographer might have had at his disposal within budget...

Actually that isn't correct. Leica was instrumental in making the use of 35mm film (left-over movie film) for still photography feasible in the mid-1920s but Kodak brought photography to the masses well before Leica came on the scene, with its Brownie camera of 1900. And then as now, Leicas weren't for the masses, a Leica camera in the 1920s cost a couple months wages for the average worker.

There obviously are much better sources than this forum for the history of photography in the 1890s. But FWIW, one of the major events of the 1890s was the switch from wet collodian on glass to dry plate. I believe it was approximately during the 1890s that light meters and flash units began appearing. And of greatest interest to members of this forum, it was in the 1890s that the first folding-bed view camera designed by George Hare came on the market. If you look at a drawing of one of his cameras, you'd be hard-pressed to know you weren't looking at a Shen Hao, Tachihara, Deardorff, et al.

[Darryl Baird]

George Eastman's dry plate business (http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/kodakHistory/1878_1929.shtml) was founded in 1881, when he quit his job in the bank and devoted his efforts and money to this new venture

[domenico Foschi]

Christopher Rauschenberg (http://www.christopherrauschenberg.com) did a Re-photo (http://www.lensculture.com/rauschenberg.html) of Atget's Paris

Looking at Raushenberg's project I was pleased to see that even the newsstands are still in the same place.
If someone would try to do it in the US I am pretty sure it would be an hopeless feat,.....aside from the flat iron building, maybe

[Mark Sampson]

I thought Rauschenberg's project would have worked a lot better if he had approached it more as Atget himself had. When I saw the show it looked like tourist stuff, casually done with 35mm. It didn't show much sensitivity to Atget himself, or the work. It's too bad, in a way, because the idea is a rich one, and the possibility for truly excellent and thoughtful work is there. Somewhere between what I saw and what the 'rephotographic' people do. I don't intend to demean Mr. Rauschenberg, I was just disappointed by that show.

[domenico Foschi]

I thought Rauschenberg's project would have worked a lot better if he had approached it more as Atget himself had. When I saw the show it looked like tourist stuff, casually done with 35mm. It didn't show much sensitivity to Atget himself, or the work. It's too bad, in a way, because the idea is a rich one, and the possibility for truly excellent and thoughtful work is there. Somewhere between what I saw and what the 'rephotographic' people do. I don't intend to demean Mr. Rauschenberg, I was just disappointed by that show.

I haven't seen the exhibit, but I concur with you,Mark.
The images lack in personal approach.

[Brian Ellis]

Looking at Raushenberg's project I was pleased to see that even the newsstands are still in the same place.
If someone would try to do it in the US I am pretty sure it would be an hopeless feat,.....aside from the flat iron building, maybe

You might want to check out www.thirdview.org.