A positive negative

[PeterW]

Hi all,

A few years ago I was fortunate to be given five Ambotypes. Ambrotypes were invented in 1851 in the UK by Frederick Scott Archer, together with a colleague Peter Fry, and quickly took over from Daguerrotypes both in the UK and the US. Thought you might like to see one, probably from the mid to late 1850s.



They were made by underexposing a picture on a glass plate, bleaching and otherwise treating the image and then backing it either with black velvet or black varnish so it appeared as a positive by reflected light. They were usually presented in a leather, or sometimes wooden, hinged case. Often they were tinted and jewellery picked out in gold. Because it was made from the original negative each Ambrotype was unique.

They continued to be made till the 1880s but by the mid 1860s started to be displaced by the cheaper tintype and then by the neg-pos Carte de Visite. As many copies as the customer wanted could be made from the neg.

Ambrotypes don't scan very well. They come out far too dark and murky so I had to lighten this a little in Photoshop and increase the contrast.

I've also got some Cartes de Visite and I'll scan a couple in and post them some time.

Peter

[John Parry]

An interesting bit of history Peter.

I always feel so sorry for our ancestors on these old shots - it's difficult for anybody to pose naturally in front of the camera at the best of times, but to try to do it for half a minute - possibly holding your breath at the same time, is enough to make anybody's eyes bulge with concentration. Notwithstanding, this does appear to be a formidable lady!

Regards - John

[PeterW]

Yes indeed, John. Having your picture taken, or 'likeness' as my grandmother used to call them, must have been quite a trial in those early days of photography.

BTW, correction to the second paragraph I wrote: it should of course have read 'by the mid 1860s' not 1960s. I've corrected it.

Peter

[luke]

Peter, you always come up with the good stuff. I have never heard of Ambrotypes. Imagine just how far this technology is from the now ubiquitous digicam!

Luke

[kamera]

Well, Luke is not alone...I never heard of this media either and we both live in the US.

Peter, thanks for the history and informative story.

Hard to pose for photgraphs back then...how about for a painter?

Perhaps all is why we seem to see little of children back in those days and mostly adults.

Ron Head
Kalamazoo, MI

[wclavey]

I can't say that I have seen one, but I imagine, based on the description od the process of making it, that it must seem rather like looking at a hologram, since you are not actually seeing a positive image by the positive reflection of a negative image... it probably appears to be in the glass or behind the glass rather than on the glass?

[Microdad]

That's really cool. Peter, do you know if the chemistry for this process still exists? Do you know how to make one of these?

Steve

[PeterW]

Steve wrote:

do you know if the chemistry for this process still exists? Do you know how to make one of these?

Hi Steve,

All I know about Ambrotypes is that were originally made using wet plates, but I have read that some were made later using dry plates, though by the time dry plates appeared (about 1880) the Ambrotype had largely given way to the Carte de Visite.

I have read in an old encyclopedia that the image was slightly underexposed, and after development was bleached either in nitric acid or bichloride of mercury until it was a light grey, then dried and covered with black varnish, or the negative was bound up with black velvet.

I have no idea what strength the nitric acid was, but I imagine it was quite dilute so the process could be controlled. Same with bichloride of mercury, I've no idea of the concentration of the solution - nor, indeed whether or not bichloride of mercury is particularly nasty to handle.

Various processes for reduction and intensification of negatives used a bleach bath followed by redevelopment right up to the 1950s, so though I've never used it I imagine the chemistry for bleaching an image is well known.

Peter

[kiev4a]

Most of the early photographic processes were "wet plate." The plate had to be coated, inserted in the camera and exposed before it dried. If you were shooting early landscapes of the American West in 100-degree heat it was pretty tricky.

In the 1970s the LIFE Library of Photography had a volume that explained all the old photographic processes, including Ambrotype.

The shot below is a scan of a tintype taken of me in 1956 at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. The had a studio with an original tintype camera. I was pretty young at the time but it seems to me the photographer had to coat the plate just before making the exposure. The camera actually produced four copies on the image on one plate.

[heath]

Here is a website that may appeal to you guys.

www.robbkendrick.com/

Check it out.

Heath

[PeterW]

Thanks for that link, Heath. Fascinating stuff. I'd heard of people who revived old photographic processes but this is firt time I've seen any results. They've got a real period flavour about them.

Peter