439
told by Grove “ I shall get back to wet collodion when
I can” (Pritchard, 1883, 93).
If gelatine dry plates simplifi ed photography in many
ways, they also presented new problems. H. P. Robinson
echoed widespread complaints when writing about the
variation and lack of standardisation of mass-produced
plates. “One maker’s ‘30 times’ is quicker than another’s
‘40 times’” (Robinson 1888. 6). Plate speeds expressed
in arbitrary wet collodion equivalents favoured by some
was clearly unsatisfactory. Scientifi c intervention was
the answer. The fi rst practicable device for measuring
fi lm speed was Leon Warnerke’s sensitometer of 1880
but more important was the work undertaken by Fer-
dinand Hurter and Vero Driffi eld. By establishing the
basics of sensitometry during the 1880s and 1890s, they
were able to determine numerical values to represent
the speed of an emulsion. Although manufacturers were
slow to make use of scientifi c development the fi rst steps
towards standardisation had been made. Exposure tables
and calculators began to become available and by the
1890s exposure meters were being widely sold.
The introduction of reliable fast dry emulsions had an
enormous impact and marks the beginnings of modern
photography. Its consequences included the introduction
of hand cameras, roll fi lm and moving pictures. Vast
numbers of newcomers were brought into photography
and new styles of picture making emerged. Emulsion
manufacturers added processing and printing to their
interests and a giant new industry was created. By 1900,
photography had undergone an industrial revolution.
John Ward
See also: Wet Collodion Negative ; Wet Collodion
Positive Processes; Emulsions Bromide Print;
Elliott, Joseph John & Fry, Clarence Edmund; and
Sensitometry and Densitometry.
Further Reading
Abney, W. de W., Photography with Emulsions (3rd ed.), London,
Piper & Carter, 1885.
Beattie, John, “Mr Burgess’s Gelatino-Bromide Plates,” The
Photographic News, Oct. 31, 1873, 526.
Burton, W.K., The A B C of Modern Photography (3rd ed.), Piper
& Carter, 1883.
Callender, Ronald M., “‘Dear Mr Driffi eld....’: Letters of Peter
Henry Emerson and Hurter & Driffi eld,” History of Photog-
raphy, Vol/ 28, No., 4, 315–322, 2004.
Eder, J.M., (English edition edited by H. Baden Pritchard), Mod-
ern Dry Plates, Piper & Carter, 1881.
Eder, Josef Maria, History of Photography, (Trans. Epstean), New
York, Dover ed., Dover Publications, Inc., 1978.
Ferguson, W.B., The Early Work of Hurter and Driffi eld, London,
Harrison & Sons, 1918.
Gernsheim, Helmut & Alison, The History of Photography,
London, Thames & Hudson, 1969.
Harrison, W.H., “The Philosophy of Dry Plates,” The British
Journal of Photography, Jan. 17, 1868, 26–27.
Harrison, W. Jerome, A History of Photography, Bradford: Percy
Lund & Co. London, Trubner & Co., 1888.
Hercock R.J. and Jones G.A., Silver by the Ton, London, McGraw-
Hill (UK) Limited, 1979.
Kennett, R., “On the Gelatino-Bromide Process with a Description
of an Easy Method of Working it by Using the ‘Sensitive Pel-
licle’,” The Photographic News, June 19, 1874, 290–292.
Maddox, Richard Leach, “An Experiment with Gelatino-Bro-
mide,” British Journal of Photography, Sept 8, 1871, 422.
Pritchard, H. Baden, The Photographic Studios of Europe, Lon-
don, Piper & Carter, 1883.
Robinson, H.P., Letters on Landscape Photography, London,
Piper & Carter, 1888.
Werge, John, The Evolution of Photography, London, Piper &
Carter, 1890.DRY PLATE NEGATIVES:
NON-GELATINE
In his colourful account of 19th century photography,
John Werge claimed that wet collodion photography
“was barely a workable process when it became the anxi-
ety of every amateur to have a dry collodion process....
Hence the number of Dry Plate processes published
about this period and the controversies carried on by the
many enthusiastic champions of the various methods.
Beer was pitted against tea and coffee, honey against
albumen, gin against rum, but none of them were equal
to wet collodion”(Werge 1890, 77). The great advan-
tage of the wet collodion process was that a competent
practitioner could be relied on to produce consistent
results with exposures of a few seconds. The major
disadvantage was that wet plates had to be prepared,
exposed and processed immediately, thus photography
in the fi eld usually required a cart or van to transport the
bulky equipment, chemicals and water. For the amateur,
short exposures and consistent results were not always
a necessity but pre-prepared plates, convenience and
mobility were. As one writer noted, “The inconveniences
inherent in the in the employment of wet-collodion in
out-of-door operations are so numerous, as to render its
use almost impossible” (Collard 1858, 75).
Although all the pioneers experimented with methods
of depositing silver salts in a dry medium onto glass
plates, the fi rst widely practised dry plate process was
that announced in France in 1847 by Niepce de Saint-
Victor. Albumen was used as the binding agent to hold
the sensitised silver salts to a glass plate. Albumen
plates produced high quality negatives and were widely
used by landscape photographers throughout Europe.
However, exposure times were long and, according to
Thomas Sutton, the manipulations were “too diffi cult
for the amateur” (Sutton 1862, 75).
During the 1850s and 1860s several dry collodion
processes were proposed. Marc Gaudin’s methods of
1854 proved to be unsatisfactory and the collodion-
honey processes of George Shadboldt and Maxwell