1443
pseudonym Ferenc Turul. He established also a model-
farm, where he improved more than 800 different kinds
of apple.
In 1881–1882 he taught photography as an associate
of Franz Josef University, Kolozsvár.
He launched the journal Fényképészeti Lapok [Pho-
tographic Papers] on January 1, 1882, as its owner,
editor, publisher and most industrious reviewer. This,
the fi rst professional photographic journal in Hungary
was published regularly until December 1888, and
extended 84 issues.
He is known above all for his experiments of helio-
chromy, the very fi rst direct colour process. Five years
of experiments to take colour photographs accelerated
in 1884 when he fi rst managed to fi x a heliochrome
image, which claimed due success at the Paris World
Fair in 1892. He was the only Hungarian photographer
of the time to acquire worldwide recognition. In 1891,
he carried out his 2663rd colour experiment.
In 1890, he closed his studio, leased it to the pho-
tographer József Kató, and devoted the rest of his life
to colour photography, slowly sinking into poverty.
(The year 1811 saw his 6,056th experiment with helio-
chromy.)
His death on 3 April, 1916, came only months
before Romania’s declaration of war on the Austro-
Hungarian Monarchy and the Romanian invasion of
Transylvania.
Károly Kincses
Biography
Ferenc Veress was born on 1 September 1832 in Kolozs-
vár [Klausenburg, Cluj], Transylvania. He learnt to be a
goldsmith, just like many of the early daugerrotype-pho-
tographers and obtained his fi rst camera in 1850. In 1853
he opened a studio in Kolozsvár, the fi rst permanent
photographic atelier in Transylvania. In 1855, his aris-
tocratic patrons made it possible for him to go on a tour
of study to Munich and Paris where he visited several
famous photo studios. As a result, his technical knowl-
edge was well above the country’s average. There is not
a single process in photography that he left unnoticed,
he tried out, corrected and improved them. (He made
ferrotypes, pannotypes, but he could also create photos
on leather and canvas. His cyanotypes have survived.)
At the end of 1859, he was the fi rst person in Hungary to
use Disderi’s 1858 Paris invention, the cartes-de-visite.
According to his calculations he took the studio-photo
of nearly 40.000 people. In the meantime he took fas-
cinating land- and cityscapes. His fi rst landscapes date
back to 1859. He invented and applied a Taupenot-type
semi-dry plate. He compiled several albums and series,
some of them have survived in several museum’s col-
lections. He brought making photographs on porcelain
to perfection. His 1876 exhibition at the National In-
dustry and Farm Produce Fair was the fi rst to show the
technique of porcelain decorated with photographs. He
is known above all for his experiments of heliochromy,
the very fi rst direct colour process. Five years of experi-
ments to take colour photographs accelerated in 1884
when he fi rst managed to fi x a heliochrome image,
which claimed due success at the Paris World Fair. He
was the only Hungarian photographer of the time to
acquire worldwide recognition. He published the fi rst
regular Hungarian photographic journal: Fényképészeti
Lapok [Photographic Papers] between 1882 and 1888.
He taught photography at the University of Kolozsvár
between 1881-82. In 1890, he closed his studio, leased
it to the photographer József Kató, and devoted the rest
of his life to colour photography, slowly sinking into
poverty. He died on 3 April, 1916.Further Reading
Kincses, Károly, Levétetett Veressnél Kolozsvárt, Budapest:
Magyar Fotográfi ai Múzeum, VIPress, 1993.
Kincses, Károly, A Photographer Without Limits, in Photography
and Research in Austria—Vienna, the Door to the European
East, The proceedings of the Vienna Symposium, Passau:
Dietmar Klinger Verlag, 2002, 21–27.
Kincses, Károly, “Régi erdélyi emberek, tájak Veress Ferenc
fényképein,” in A fénykép varázsa, Budapest: Magyar Fotó-
müvészek Szövetsége, 1989, 53–74.
Miklósi Sikes, Csaba, Veress Ferenc, Fotómüvészet, 1985, 2,
19–24.VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHY
The term “vernacular” literally means the ordinary and
ubiquitous but it also refers to qualities specifi c to par-
ticular regions or cultures. Its attachment to the word
“photography” is a recent development, part of an effort
to devise a way of representing photography’s history
that can incorporate all of its many manifestations and
functions. Although all photographs are potentially ver-
nacular in nature, the phrase “vernacular photography”
is generally used to encompass all those photographic
practices and genres that fall outside the standard art
history of the medium. This might include, for example,
all sorts of typical commercial portraits or views, but
also amateur practices where photographs were com-
bined with other media and turned into hybrid objects.
It would also include distinctive regional photographic
practices, including those found in such places as Africa,
Asia or Latin America. From this perspective, vernacu-
lar photography encompasses the vast majority of the
world’s photographs.
A few selected examples give some idea of ver-
nacular photography’s variety of forms and meanings.
Although not given much attention by historians today,
photographic jewellery was a staple product of the pro-