HF The History of Photography 600pág

2 7 The evolution of dry plat es
A DRY PERIOD AT PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETIES
The I 86os and 70s were a dry period in more than one sense. Photographic journals
were greatly taken up with discussions of the pros and cons of innumerable new
processes and modifications of old ones for negatives and positive printing, the
novelty and advantages of which were ardently put forward by some and as heatedly
disputed by others. The period is characterized by a great restlessness among photographers.
It was a time of rapid development, new applications of photography
were constantly explored, new techniques had to be mastered, new difficulties to be
overcome. At the same time, the quality of collodion, the fading of photographic
prints, the pirating of photographs of famous people, and many other problems
caused concern at the meetings of photographic societies. These meetings were largely
occupied with chemical and scientific matters to the almost con1plete exclusion of the
aesthetic side. The parent Society in London was compared to 'the Lord Mayor's
state coach-heavy, lumbering, and able only to go at a slow pace; but these are not
slow times', wrote a member, 'photography is the type of the age; it won't wait.
Go on we must, or we shall be run over by those behind, and it is for my fellow members
to bestir themselves to prevent our Society being extinguished by the apathy of
our executive, or the superior energy of rival societies. '1 When an advocate read a
paper on 'The Law of Copyright as Applied to Photographs' before the Photographic
Society of Scotland, one of the members complained: 'It was a terrible infliction to
listen to, being a mere repetition oflawyer's slang or phrases decanted backwards and
forwards, outwards and inwards, upwards and downwards, for the space of an hour,
and it was nothing when done, leaving the matter as dubious as ever.'2
President of the London Society was the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir
Jonathan Frederick Pollock, and when he was in the Chair 'everything was as dull
as an old country church, and as uncomfortable as a court of justice ; when I saw the
venerable Judge sitting on the raised seat before me, I always felt as if I were about
to be tried for my life.3
(srn) WILLIAM CROOKES, F.R.S., one-time secretary of the Society and editor of their
journal, was very critical of the meetings and of the conduct of affairs, and his comments
in The Photographic News, which he established in September 1858, were often
caustic:
This gentleman's speech [he reported after a boring meeting] was interspersed
with sundry small (very small) jokes, which relieved the mournful tediousness of
the evening and gave some of the least grave among the members an opportunity