Jonathan A Lewis Photography
Archive for July 3rd, 2008

Books of Photography

July 03rd, 2008 | Category: Books,Daguerreotypy

I like books. If the books have to do with photography or photochemistry then I like them doubly so. In my quest of becoming a daguerreotypist I have been searching high and low for books to do with daguerreotypes. I’ve mostly been looking for books on the daguerreotype process but occasionally I spring for a book on history or one with pretty pictures. Two books I have been completely unable to locate for my library are: Irving Pobboravsky’s A Study of Iodized Daguerreotype Plates (1971) and Ken Nelson’s A Practical Introduction to the Art of Daguerreotypy in the 20th Century (1977). These two books are much more recent than the mid 19th century titles I’ve been looking for but they’re much more scarce for some reason. Fortunately, I work for an institution with a library. I explained my woes to the librarian and she generously interlibrary loaned them for me. The first, Pobboravsky’s book, arrived today and I’m very excited to read it and take an absurd amount of notes before it has to be returned. Nelson’s book will arrive next week some time. If anyone has a copy of either one of these books that’s just taking up space or sitting under the short leg of their wobbly work bench let me know.

Another set of books that arrived today is The Book of Photography: Practical, Theoretic, and Applied, Vols. 1 & 2, edited by Paul N. Hasluck and published in 1905. This is a beautiful pair of leather bound books with gilded lettering and marbling. There is an absurd amount of information in these books but it is all information from the early 20th century. About the daguerreotype it has this:

Daguerreotype — An early process of photography in which the picture was obtained on a highly polished silver plate.

Although it does have a paragraph about Daguerre and Niepce in the section on history, it’s amazing how quickly the process itself really disappeared. I thought the mere 4 pages devoted to the process in The Silver Sunbeam was short, this description is less than 20 words!

I didn’t get these books for the daguerreian information. I got them for all the other information on principle that the more photographic knowledge I have, the better informed my photographs will (might) be. They contain information (as does The Silver Sunbeam) about two processes I’m very interested in besides the daguerreotype: they cyanotype and uranotype. It also has a great deal of information on the collodion processes which I’d like to try my hand at one of these days… after I start daguerreotyping.

Book of Photography

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