|
In
Edinburgh |
Declining Use - 1877
In
his regular article Notes from the North, published in the British Journal
of Photography in 1877, John Nicol showed the declining use of the beer
and albumen process In Edinburgh. Nicol wrote:
"Edinburgh Photographic
Society has inaugurated the outdoor work of the season by a early and
successful excursion as will have been seen from the usual report in a
former number."
"What I wish specially
to notice, is the fact that Edinburgh, hitherto the stronghold of the
beer-and-albumen process, has been unable to resist the encroachment of
the gradually-strengthening emulsion tide. and that on the occasion
referred to,
instead of a few plates by the now popular process as a kind of tentative
experiment, emulsion was the rule, and even the long-loved
beer-and-albumen the exception."
"But there is still a
screw loose somewhere, or our northern Sun treats us to a but a stingy
share of his favours."
"Several of the members
having faith in the three or four minutes' exposure or even shorter, which
are said to give good results south of the Tweed, are mourning sadly over
under-exposure, while others have been very successful in their efforts -
notably the energetic and successful Secretary, who shows as a result of
his six plates as perfect negatives as I have ever seen, and that
notwithstanding - or perhaps more correctly, as he puts it, in consequence
of - exposures varying from fifteen to forty minutes, and that , too, with
an emulsion adjusted so as to contain only the faintest trace of free
bromide."
[BJP: 4 May 1877;
p.211] |
|
Three weeks after the article above was published, John Nicol wrote a
further 'Notes from the North' article for the BJP. Looking back on
the second Outdoor Meeting of Edinburgh Photographic Society, Nicol began
his article:
"Towards the close of my
last batch of 'Notes' I intimated that the 'beer and albumen' -
to which our Edinburgh workers had so long adhered and with which most
good work had been done - was gradually being displaced by the more
popular emulsion process."
"This is as it should
be, because , although the old favourite is capable of giving negatives of
the most exquisite delicacy, the emulsion possesses many qualities that,
coeteris paribus,
ought to give it a very delicate performance".
"At the last outdoor
meeting of the Edinburgh Photographic Society, there were seven cameras,
and with one single exception, all were using emulsion plates, the
exceptional artist still clinging to beer and albumen, although he, too,
has intimated his intention of giving in, thoroughly satisfied from the
results of that excursion that equally perfect negatives may be obtained
with much simpler manipulation.
[BJP: 25 May 1877;
p.248] |
