1488
The wet collodion positives, generally produced on
glass, were introduced as ambrotypes in American cities.
Itinerant photographers learned the process and moved
across the United States. It was still faster to travel to the
California by following well established shipping paths
from New Bedford and other eastern port towns. In the
October 1856, Hawai’i daguerreotypist Hugo Stangen-
wald, advertised that “having recently returned from a
visit to San Francisco, [he] takes pleasure in informing
the public that he has introduced, and is now prepared
to execute, those splendid and permanent pictures on
glass, well known as the improved ambrotypes.”
In the Pacifi c, Andrew Garrett (a naturalist) earned
his living by collecting, natural history specimens for
individual scholars and U.S. and European institutions.
In 1863, while living in Hawaii, he “began to perfect himself in the relatively new art of photography, in order to go prepared to record the vegetation, fl ora, fauna, and inhabitants of these remote regions... An associ- ate in San Francisco S. Hubbard... sent him a supply of photographic materials... and offered to act as his agent in San Francisco.” An associate in San Francisco S. Hubbard purchased photographic materials for Gar- rett. Hubbard sent fi ve boxes of photographic materials, and in his letter he requested that “if you should ever take any views I wish you would send me some and I will pay you for them, I should like a few pictures of the distinguished natives of the South Seas.” By 1864, Garrett was collection images and specimens in the Tahitian, Marquesan, and Samoan Islands. A colleague in Honolulu wrote: “...not a day passes... without my dreaming over your fortune and success. I have imagined that the missionaries might decide that your photographs were a useless article of furniture and discourage the natives from patronizing you, and then again I think I see you surrounded by a crowd of natives dancing and shouting with pictures.” Although not attributed, it is likely that Garrett made a beautifully hand colored ambrotype portrait of a native Tahitian man posed with a coconut in his lap, and a coconut frond artistically placed in the background. The ambrotype process entered Japan through eco- nomic and political paths across the Pacifi c Ocean from San Francisco to the port of Yokohama. John Thomas Gulick, son of an American missionary in Hawaii, was
at loose ends in the winter of 1862, when he decided to
learn photography in San Francisco from “Mr. [Carlton]
Watkins” while waiting to fi nd transportation to Japan.
After arriving in Japan, Gulick noted that on May 2,
1862, he took his fi rst successful picture: “After din-
ner took my fi rst portrait. It was an ambrotype of Mr.
Louder. It was taken when the sun was behind the hill
and is therefore lacking in contrast of shades.” Gulick
left Japan in 1863, and noted in his recollections that
“under my teachings a Japanese learned to take photo-
graphs and ... I passed my camera and photographic
material to him; and he became one of the fi rst to spread
the knowledge of that kind of picture taking among his
countrymen.” In Japan, ambrotype portraits were housed
in specially made wood boxes, with a wood mat. This
soft, light colored kiri wood (paulowina) was also used
to make boxes to store scrolls and other valued items.
Ambrotype portraits were common even after paper
prints were available in Japanese studios, indicating
the popularity of this style for family portraiture. The
Meji period, beginning in 1868, was the height of the
ambrotype process in Japan, although portraits contin-
ued to be made in rural areas until 1888.
Wet collodion positives were a transition process
between daguerreotypes and paper prints. It was seldom
used in the Western countries for portraiture after 1862,
when paper prints made from wet collodion negatives
became the latest fashion, and patrons collected carte-
de-visite portraits to include in photographic albums.
In addition, the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) also con-
tributed to a shift from wet collodion positives on glass
to more durable carte-de-visite and the wet collodion
image popularly known as the “tintype” (melainotype
or ferrotype).
Lynn Ann DavisSee also: Archer, Frederick Scott; Daguerreotype;
and Cartes-de-Visite.Further Reading
Baldwin, Looking at Photographs: A guide to Technical Terms,
Malibu, California: J. Paul Getty Museum in association with
British Museum Press, 1991.
Cox Paul, (ed.), Heather Forbes, Beautiful Ambrotypes: Early
Photographs, London: Travelling Light, 1989.
Crawford, William, The Keepers of Light: A Historic and Working
Guide to Early Photographic Processes, Dobbs Ferry, NY:
Morgan & Morgan, 1979.
Ellis, M.H., The Ambrotype and Photographic Instructor or
photography on glass and paper, Philadelphia: Myron Shew,
1856, reprint by Peter Pamquist, Arcata, California: January
1990.
Florence Mann Spoehr, White Falcon: The House of Godeffroy
and Its Commercial and Scientifi c Role in the Pacifi c, 112,
Palo Alto, California: Pacifi c Books, 1963.
Gulick, Addison, Evolutionist and Missionary John Thomas
Gulick, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932.
Hirch, Robert, Seizing the Light: A History of Photography,
Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Naoyuki, Kinoshita, “The Early Years of Japanese Photography,”
The History of Japanese Photography, New Haven and Lon-
don: Yale University Press in association with the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, 2003.
Scully & Osterman Studio, http://www.collodion.org/index.html
(Acessed September 25, 2006).
Spoehr, Florence Mann, White Falcon: The House of Godeffroy
and Its Commercial and Scientifi c Role in the Pacifi c, Palo
Alto, California: Pacifi c Books, 1963.
Weinstein, Robert and Larry Booth, Collection Use and Care of