HF The History of Photography 600pág

190 The early years of photography
with the ordinary calotype in Rome, saying that the wet method far excelled any
other in hot climates.10
THE WAXED-PAPER PROCESS
It was another Frenchman, GUSTAVE LE GRAY, who brought photography on paper
to its culmination in the 18 50s with the waxed-paper process. A struggling young
artist with a family to support, Le Gray abandoned painting for photography around
1848, and with the financial backing of the Comte de Briges opened a portrait studio
on the top floor of the same house as the Bisson brothers, in the Madeleine district.
His reputation, however, was made not in the field of portraiture but as an architectural
and landscape photographer. He also taught photography and 'nearly all
renowned photographers of the day have been his pupils'. Le Gray devoted a good
deal of time to experiments and wrote a number of manuals. His invention of the
waxed-paper process dates back to before 25 February 1851, but the manipulation
was not published until the following December.11 All during that summer Le Gray
and two of his friends had been working with waxed paper on a photographic tour
of the provinces for the Committee of Historic Monuments. The waxed-paper process
was far more than a mere modification of the calotype, as can be seen from the
substances used in iodizing the paper-rice water, sugar of milk, iodide of potassium,
cyanide of potassium, fluoride of potassium (to which was later added white honey
and the white of one egg). Sensitizing was done with an acid solution of nitrate of
silver and development took place with gallic acid.
The process took its name from the fact that the paper was waxed before iodizing,
instead of merely after exposure, to facilitate printing. The wax filled the pores of
the paper and made it more transparent. It proved ideal for the travelling photographer,
because the paper could be prepared ten to fourteen days beforehand (instead
of the day before as with the calotype) and did not need to be developed until
several days after the picture had been taken (whereas the calotype had to be developed
the same day). Exposures were, on the whole, about the same as with the calotype,
but development took l to 3 hours. Le Gray's method immediately superseded all
other paper processes for landscapes and architecture, for besides the advantages
mentioned, a waxed-paper negative is characterized by almost as fine detail as a glass
negative.
The Socihe Heliographique. The widespread popularity which photography on
paper had won among amateurs in France led to a desire for the formation of a photographic
society, which was founded in January 1851 by Colonel B. R. de Montfort.
The SOCIETE HELIOGRAPHIQUE had its headquarters at Colonel de Montfort's house
at 15 Rue de I' Arcade in the centre of fashionable Paris. A suite of four or five rooms
with an extensive roof-garden was devoted to the photographic pursuits of the members,
and the proceedings were reported in La Lumiere. It first appeared as a weekly
on 9 February 1851 and continued regularly until the end of 1860, but whereas the
Societe Heliographique was the first photographic society in the world, La Lumiere
had been preceded by The Daguerreian Journal (first issue, l November l 850) and by
The Photographic Art Journal (first issue, January 185 1), both of them published in
New York.
The President of the Society was Baron Gros, and many of its forty members
were men famous in photography, science, and art: Edouard Baldus, Hippolyte
Bayard, Henri Le Secq, Gustave Le Gray, Charles Negre, Abel Niepce de Saint­
Victor, Eugene Durieu, Benjamin Delessert, 0. Mestral, the scientists Edmond