1327
such as Blanco y Negro (1891) appeared, and marked the
birth of the 20th century. One of the regular contributors
to Blanco y Negro was the Danish diplomat Christian
Franzen, the other great fi gure in photojournalism and
offi cial photographer for Madrid’s high society. Franzen
also introduced the use of magnesium in Spain, which
made it possible to photograph in poorly lit areas. This
new market, which provided reporters with an outlet
for their work, encouraged photographic testimonies
of current events and wars. For instance, Carlist prison-
ers in Valencia were photographed by Antonio García
Peris in 1869, and the bombing of Durango and San
Sebastián was recorded by H. Otero and M. Aguirre in
- Photographs of the Moroccan War of 1859 taken
by painter Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, among others,
and commissioned by General O’Donnell, were clear
examples of reportage requested by political authorities
for propaganda purposes. The work of Alfonso (Alfonso
Sánchez García) should also be mentioned, as he was
probably the most important Spanish photojournalist
of the generation that started to work at the end of the
century documenting a poor and depressed Spain after
the crisis of 1898, when the country lost its last colonies
overseas.
Apart from the importance of these press reports,
Spain also had a series of photographers, often amateurs,
whose work constituted a valuable anthropological
record, as shown in the Mallorca photographs taken by
Tomás Montserrat, those of Holy Week in Lorca by José
Rodrigo, the Museo fotográfi co (Photographic Museum)
and Toledo series by Casiano Alguacil Blázquez, the
views of Valladolid taken by Bernardo Maeso, and even
the photographic records of Ramón y Cajal’s trips to
the United States and Antoni Amatller i Costa’s journey
throughout Northern Africa and the Near East.
At the end of the 1880s, the evolution in photographic
reproduction methods and a new demand for print jobs
caused the expansion and transformation of many stu-
dios into phototype workshops and establishments, and
a range of specialised photographic trades appeared.
This enabled more fl exible ways for professional pho-
tographers to market their images and turned the sale
of albums, limited editions of scenic views, collectible
series, postcards and posters into a lucrative business.
These images covered everything, from aerial views
of Barcelona to public executions (Isidro Montpart),
sports themes (the Debas brothers), to popular views
of Madrid (Hauser y Menet). These photographers, and
Laurent himself, were just some of many who set up
this type of workshop.
As regards photographic products (plates, cameras,
paper, etc.), at the end of the century the industry
remained almost completely dominated by foreign
companies, with the sole exception of Manufactura
General Española de Productos Fotográfi cos S.A., a
company founded in Murcia in 1893 to manufacture
the Victoria bromide gelatine plates and aristotype
(citrate) paper. Because of this dependence on foreign
sources, important establishments opened in Spain
and joined other shops like pharmacies as distribution
centres, selling all kinds of photographic materials and
systematically advertising their wares in the press. There
are very few Spanish contributions to the development
of photographic techniques, with exceptions like the
leptographic paper patented by Laurent and Martínez
Sánchez and research on colour photography, a matter
of interest for many amateurs and scientists, including
Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal.
Professional studios reached their height of popular-
ity during the last third of the 19th century, in the era
of the Restoration of the Monarchy. This was due to
the widespread acceptance of stereoscopy and to the
introduction of new portrait formats (Cabinet, Victo-
ria, Promenade, Boudoir, Imperial), now added to the
already well-established carte-de-visite. In terms of
photographic processes, the ambrotype was not very
successful in Spain, but ferrotypes became quite popular
from 1880 onwards; at about the same time both bro-
mide gelatine dry plates and hydroquinone developers
fi rst began to be used.
The phenomenon of the expansion of these studios is
also marked, however, by an increase in clients that
paralleled the epoch’s rapid demographic growth, par-
ticularly in large cities, which had doubled and tripled
their population and had become poles of attraction for
the rural exodus. Every urban centre of importance had
its photographic studio, and by 1900 there were 439
legally registered establishments concentrated in major
cities. Nevertheless, this proliferation took place at the
cost of portrait quality, which progressively declined
due to the limited technical expertise and low cultural
level of photographers who began to work during this
period.
The end of the golden age of photographic studios
coincided with the turn of the century, marked by the
serious economic crisis of 1898, which had repercus-
sions in all fi nancial and industrial sectors and forced
a crucial change in the photographic industry. But the
seeds of this deep transformation in Spanish photogra-
phy had been sown previously by the great technical
strides represented by bromide gelatine dry plates and
the introduction of the fi rst Kodak box cameras in 1888.
The number of amateur photographers rapidly grew,
reaching more than a thousand in Madrid and almost
three thousand in Barcelona. It was now mainly these
amateurs, not the studios, who sought and achieved
better quality in their photographs. The market soon
focused on them, for example with the fi rst specialised
magazines, which responded to their interests and tech-
nical needs, and organised activities, contests and prizes.