1483
two experimenters attempted to copy paintings on glass
(such as those used for projection devices) and “profi les
of fi gures” (perhaps a reference to silhouette portraits).
They also made contact prints using leaves and insect
wings as well as engraved prints. Davy tells us that he
himself made images of small objects using a solar
microscope and “prepared paper.” Their friend Anthony
Carlisle recalled in 1839 that he had also undertaken
several experiments with Wedgwood in about 1799 “to
obtain and fi x the shadows of objects by exposing the
fi gures painted on glass, to fall upon a fl at surface of
shamoy leather wetted with nitrate of silver, and fi xed
in a case made for a stuffed bird.”
Amidst these creative variations on the basic idea,
Wedgwood and Davy also undertook numerous com-
parative experiments using different materials, solutions
and processes. They exposed both white paper and white
leather moistened with a solution of nitrate of silver in
direct sunlight and then in shade, as well as under red,
yellow, green, blue and violet glass. They tried, unsuc-
cessfully, to remove the delineations so produced with
both water and soapy water, and attempted, equally
unsuccessfully, to prevent further development by cov-
ering the image with a thin coat of varnish. Davy also
experimented with different solutions of nitrate and
water, and with muriate of silver (a chloride which he
found to be less suited to the task than the nitrate). He
even gives practical advice about how best to apply the
resulting solution to one’s paper or leather. Finally, he
not only recognizes the lack of image permanency as a
problem but also suggests a plausible theoretical answer
to it—on which subject, he tells us, “some experiments
have been imagined” (although, it seems, never un-
dertaken). So, thirty seven years before Daguerre and
Talbot were to announce their own discoveries to the
world, the ‘Account’ gives us many elements of the
concept of photography. Sadly, Wedgwood was to die
only three years later, and Davy, then in big demand
as an experimental scientist, went on to other projects
and did no further work on photography. However their
‘Account’ was republished in numerous European and
American journals and informed the later and more suc-
cessful experiments of, among others, William Henry
Fox Talbot.
Geoffrey Batchen
See also: Gelatin Silver Print; Multiple Printing,
Combination Printing, and Multiple Exposure; Davy,
Sir Humphry.
Further Reading
Batchen, Geoffrey, ‘The photographic experiments of Tom
Wedgwood and Humphry Davy: “An Account of a Method”,’
History of Photography, vol. 17, no. 2 (Summer 1993),
172–183.
—––, Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography,
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997.
Davy, Humphry, ”An Account of a method of copying Paintings
upon Glass, and of making Profi les, by the agency of Light
upon Nitrate of Silver. Invented by T. Wedgwood Esq. With
Observations by H. Davy.” Journals of the Royal Institution,
vol. 1 no. 9 (London, 1802). Reprinted in Beaumont Newhall
(ed.), Photography: Essays & Images, 15–16. New York:
Museum of Modern Art, 1980,
Litchfi eld, R.B., Tom Wedgwood: The First Photographer, an
account of his life, his discovery and his friendship with
Samuel Taylor Coleridge including the letters of Coleridge
to the Wedgwoods, and an examination of accounts of alleged
earlier photographic discoveries. London: Duckworth and
Co., 1903.
Meteyard, Eliza, A group of Englishmen (1795 to 1815): be-
ing records of the younger Wedgwoods and their friends,
embracing the history of the discovery of photography and a
facsimile of the fi rst photograph, London : Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1871.
Wedgwood, Thomas; Tremayne, Margaret Olivia; Boole, Mary
Everest, The value of a maimed lif : extracts from the manu-
script notes of Thomas Wedgwood, London: C.W. Daniel,
1912.WEED, CHARLES LEANDER (1824–1903)
American photographer
Charles Leander Weed was born on July 17, 1824, in
New York State. Raised in Wisconsin, he traveled toWEED, CHARLES LEANDER
Attributed to Charles Weed or Eadweard J. Muybridge. Mirro
View of El Captain. Yo-Semite Valley.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles © The J. Paul Getty
Museum.