Unlike modern photographs of the 21st century, It is important to take a minute and reflect on the differences between making photos now and in the mid 1800's. First is accessibility. Today it is reasonable to say that almost every person in this country has access to a camera. Whether its a point and shoot, or an SLR or a camera on their cell phone, everybody has one somewhere. Today most of us have printed pictures in our wallets and framed on our walls at home. Many of us still have additional boxes of numerous prints and negatives stashed away in a closet. With digital photos we have hundreds if not thousands of unorganized snapshots of just about every aspect of our family's life. At my own last count, my external drive holds over 20,000 digital photographs, and that does not include the countless photos on the laptop or my daughter's desktop computer. In the mid 1800's however most people were fortunate to have obtained one photograph made of themselves or a loved one. Although everyone wanted a photo taken, it involved a significant amount of both time and money to have one made. For the soldiers in the war, the tintype was a favorite for carrying images of loved ones into the camps. Albumen, or carte de visite prints, could get wet outside and quickly fall apart. Ambrotypes on thin glass plates could easily crack in transportation, despite their fancy cases. Tintypes were made with an emulsion directly on a sheet of metal, and could withstand harsh conditions. Like the soldiers that carried them, they were extremely durable and rugged enough for war.
With the digital photography revolution, we can see the images instantly. If the shot turned out bad, no problem. We can either take another within a second, or just take it home, upload it to our computer and use a nifty program to make it look good with the press of a few keyboard keys. To make a print all we need is a home printer, some paper and some ink. Or if you're really tech savvy you can just upload the image from your smart-phone directly to Walgreen's and pick it up in less than an hour, any size you want. Smart-phones even have a number of cool applications that mimic every era of photography, from carte de visite to old roll film black & whites to Polaroids and more. Today's photography is clean, easy and user-friendly.
In contrast doing photography in the field as they did in the mid 1800's was anything but user friendly. The cameras were large and bulky. If you wanted to make half plate, or 4x5 images, you bought and carried a 4x5 camera. Wanting a larger print meant buying a larger camera. Lenses were also bulky and slow. Unlike the pencil tip size little plastic circle on a smart-phone, just a lens for an old camera could weigh up to ten pounds. Today's cameras can be considered instant shots, that is exposed somewhere between 1/000 to 1/60 of a second, easily capturing the fastest runner on a football field. During the 1860's however, having a portrait often meant sitting motionless and still for up to 30 seconds or more. Special devices existed at the time that actually clamped sitters into a seat to help them hold still for the photo. And if you tried to take an action shot of a football game, all you would see in the final image would be a few blurry streaks against a grassy field.
In the 1860's there were no HP printers connected to the bulky cameras. Whether making glass plate negatives, ambrotypes or tintypes, making photos in the field means you had to have a darkroom and lots of dangerous chemicals. The darkroom is needed to both coat the emulsion on the plates and then later to develop the plates. Some photographers in the 1800's had large horse drawn portable darkrooms that were large enough to walk around inside, and others would just wrap a few heavy wool blankets around a tripod and crawl in on the ground. For whatever portable construction is made, a darkroom must be completely light proof and black inside. Any stray light leaks either during coating or developing result certainly in ruined plates. Unfortunately, such sealed light-proof darkrooms do not permit adequate ventilation of the chemical fumes.
The handling of chemicals presents additional obstacles to a photographer in the field. Although there were other processes used, at the time of the Civil War a collodion emulsion was favored, One variation of a developer in that wet plate process can create lethal cyanide gas if not handled correctly. The Daguerreotype process relies on heated mercury fumes to develop images. Whichever process used, any chemical presents some level of danger. The collodion however is towards the top of the caution list. Made primarily from gun-cotton and ether, the mixture is extremely explosive. Many historical references document photographers, their entire darkroom, and sometimes whoever and whatever else was nearby, being totally annihilated by the easily combustible vapors. In the 1800's many photographers suffered from illness or death as a result of some sort of exposure. For a modern day photographer re-enacting the photographic processes of the 1800's, safety and common sense must be the primary objective, much more so the making images.
For my re-enactment plates, I have deliberately chosen not to use the ether/gun-cotton based emulsion. The mid 1800's was a renaissance of new ideas for photographic history. Chemists and photographers were racing to develop new formulas. Hundreds of processes have been documented, and there are a plethora of options from albumen (egg white) to honey to use as an emulsion base. The process I am using is based on a process available during the 1800's. It is neither explosive nor combustible. The emulsion is heated, then applied to a warm plate. It seems to ripen to a state that is neither wet nor dry, but tacky. The plate is then exposed in the camera. For the development stage conventional modern day chemicals are used, much more stable than vials of ether and gun-cotton. Therefore, personally it is a much more reasonable choice for recreating images for the era, especially when considering not just your own safety, but those around you. For the same reasons the re-enactors are shooting blanks, danger must not be part of the historical enjoyment of the process. In 1860 the photographers in the darkroom didn't use latex gloves and face goggles, but when I'm developing plates, they are the first thing out of the box of essentials.
Still there are always obstacles. For myself I still need to find a viable method of adequate ventilation in the portable darkroom in the field, without compromising the inside with light leaks. For this last re-enactment, my darkroom consisted of some heavy duty black PVC vinyl sheeting doubled-draped and tucked under a small 3 by 3 foot tepee pole design. The enclosure was then draped with heavy unbleached canvas to blend into the surrounding landscape of Civil War tents. Inside I had a small developing tray, a fixing tray and a basin bath of water. For light I brought my handy old L-shaped army flashlight with a red lens. Each venture into the darkroom lasted between 20-30 minutes, and honestly after the first 5 minutes I was wishing for a breeze and some fresh air. My best attempt at ventilation was to lift up a corner of the tent creating a half inch square opening, and using a short piece of pipe to connect my inside air with the air outside, and then hiding that opening from light leaks by leaning an empty dark bottle of developer against it. Not sure if it really let in much air, but it made me feel better knowing it was there. The experience of a being inside a portable darkroom seems similar to Paul Newman in the sweat box scenes in the old movie "Cool Hand Luke". Nonetheless its a necessary consideration to making photographic plates in the field.
Below are a few examples from the re-enactment last weekend. Despite numerous lighting, temperature and humidity changes throughout the afternoon, overall the day turned out rather well. There were other some fine examples that I don't have images of because they left with the people that sat for them. Since I was dressed in period attire and using an old camera, it felt kinda awkward to pause and pull out my digital SLR camera to photograph each one. Its contrary to the magic behind these old processes; each plate was meant to be a one-of-a-kind unique portrait. The images below were a handful I had leftover after the event.
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