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- and Photograms of the Year (London: Dawbarn
and Ward, 1895–1960) as well as Amateur Photographer
(London: Hazell, Watson & Viney, 1884–1908). Journals
which were long established also took up the cause, and
the pages of the Bulletin de L’Association Belge de Pho-
tographie (Bruxelles, L’Association, 1874–1930) can be
consulted as well as Photographische Correspondenz,
organ of the Club der Amateur-Photographen in Vienna.
Wilson’s Photographic Journal (1864–1914), edited by
Edward Wilson, an American editor and entrepreneur
very interested in artistic photography, brought news
of developments in Europe to professional and amateur
photographers in the United States.
Signaling another new development, The Photogram
(London: Dawbarn & Ward, 1894-1920), began publish-
ing a supplement on “process work,” reporting on new
products and trends in photomechanical reproduction,
which had become popular among photographers as well
as a growing industry in this period. In 1896, it grew to
several pages and had its own title, Process Photogram
(1894–?). Two more titles on the subject appeared at
the same time, Process Work (London: Percy, Lund,
1894–1920), and Process Work Year Book, (London:
1894–1982), which was published into the 1980s as
Penrose Annual.
Manuals appeared which emphasized aesthetic over
technical matters, dealing with such subjects as schemes
for lighting portraits, marine or mountain photography,
and choice of subject. They were generally written by
leaders of the movement and include Amateur Photog-
rapher editor A. Horsley Hinton’s Art photographique
dans le paysage: étude et pratique (Paris: Gauthier-
Villars, 1894) and Practical Pictorial Photography;
H.P. Robinson’s Art Photography In Short Chapters
(London: Hazell, Watson, & Viney, 1890) and The
Elements of A Pictorial Photograph. (Bradford, Eng-
land: Lund, 1896); Photo Club de Paris founder Emile
Puyo’s Notes sur la Photographie Artistique, and W.
I. Lincoln Adam’s Sunlight and Shadow: A Book for
Photographers, Amateur and Professional (New York:
Baker and Taylor, 1898).
The decade saw creative experimentation with vari-
ous print-making processes, both silver and non-silver,
and technical advances led to new interest in and ap-
preciation of photo-mechanical processes (in particular
photogravure) as photographers tried to stretch the
accepted boundaries of the conventional photographic
print. Gum-bichromate was extensively used, as pho-
tographers could incorporate color or manipulate the
process to painterly ends, and manuals and technical
treatises appear to support this new interest, including
Alfred Maskell and Robert Demachy’s Photo-aquatint,
or, The Gum-Bichromate Process: A Practical Treatise
on a New Process of Printing in Pigment Especially Suit-
able for Pictorial Workers (London : Hazell, Watson, &
Viney, 1897). A platinum based printing process called
platinotype became very popular for its velvety blacks
and long tonal range, leading to several new books
including A. Horsley Hinton’s Platinotype Printing: A
Simple Book On The Process. (London : Hazell, Watson,
& Viney, 1897) and William de Wivesleslie Abney and
Lyonel Clark’s Platinotype, Its Preparation and Ma-
nipulation (London : Sampson Low, Marston, 1895).
The Emerson-Robinson debate over photographic
aesthetics, which reached its heighth in 1889 with P.H.
Emerson’s Naturalistic Photography for Students of
the Art, continued, but the personal hostilities came to
a startling fi nish in 1891. In that year Emerson pub-
lished an article/pamphlet titled Death of Naturalistic
Photography, where he rebuts his own theory and
proclaims that photography cannot be an art. This was
by no means the end of the debate, it was continued in
the journals, and was an important focus of the period.
Emerson continued to publish as well, issuing a third
edition of Naturalistic Photography that included Death
of Naturalistic Photography in 1899.
The publication of books and periodicals on specifi c
applications for photography continues unabated as
scientists, artists, archaeologists, and others employ
photography in their work. Of special note is Alphonse
Bertillon’s Photographie judicaire avec un appendice
sur la classifi cation et l’identifi cation anthropomé-
triques, (Paris, Gauthier-Villars et fi ls, 1890), essen-
tially a police manual on photographing criminals.
Applications were varied: the discovery of x-rays by
Roentgen in 1895 led to several new books on the sub-
ject; Etienne-Jules Marey used photography to analyze
human and animal motion, resulting in several important
publications; and the new popularity of bicycles and
photography for leisure activities can be seen in their
pairing in the journal Cycle and Camera ([London] :
Jefferson and Welford, 1897–) and several manuals on
these subject. And fi nally, on the lightest of notes, Walter
Woodbury published Photographic Amusements (New
York: Scovill & Adams, 1896) containing directions for
manipulating and making new kinds of photographs us-
ing ordinary household materials. The popularity of this
book continued through 11 editions in 41 years.
Photography was a part of modern culture and civili-
zation by the 1890s and generally accepted as a pastime,
a profession and a tool. Photographic technology fueled
modernization as photography was applied to every
kind of scientifi c endeavor, aided medical research,
revolutionized publishing, and continued to contribute
a visual component to research in less technical enter-
prises, from archeology to art. Books on photography
for all these areas of endeavor continues at a prodigious
rate, really a harbinger the explosion of publishing in
the twentieth century.
Becky SimmonsBOOKS AND MANUALS ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY: 1890s