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to fi x silver-based photographs. At the time, he recorded
that among the novelties of these compounds was the
singular characteristic of the hyposulphites to dissolve
“muriate of silver,” that is, silver chloride. This ability
would allow a photographer to wash the unexposed
silver from the emulsion of the photograph, rendering
it insensible to further exposure. When it became clear
early in 1839 that this “washing out” method differed
from Talbot’s “stabilizing,” he tested both, fi nding
Talbot’s simpler, but his own more dependable.
Like many active scientists of the early 19th century,
Herschel was intent on discovering what light really was,
and whether it moved in waves or in particles. Although
noone of his generation, or indeed the following genera-
tion, would formulate an answer this question, Herschel
believed light travelled in waves, that is, he believed
in undulatory theory and not particle theory. He also
believed, and would use photography to prove, that the
visible part of the spectrum was a small portion of the
actual spectrum. In 1819 Herschel began an exhaustive
study of the nature of polarized light. Not only did he
intend to correctly categorize the various phenomena, he
also intended to clarify the terminology used by British
scientists who studied light. He was joined in this en-
deavor by Sir David Brewster. Herschel’s contributions to
the language of photography, which are discussed below,
can be seen as a part of this much larger endeavor.
The late 1820s were a busy time for Herschel, who
was rapidly attaining a level of fame that would surpass
his father’s. In 1827 he wrote his essay on Light for the
Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. The essay, which was
published along with one on Chemistry in 1830, quickly
attained the status of a classic and set out many of the
principles on which he would conduct his photographic
investigations. In 1828 he married Margaret Brodie
Stewart, beginning a long and happy domestic, artistic
and intellectual partnership that was, by all accounts,
one of the great joys of his life. And fi nally, to complete
the decade, he published his A Preliminary Discourse on
the Study of Natural Philosophy, in which he prescribed
methods for the successful prosecution of experimental
science. In this treatise, which infl uenced Charles Dar-
win and John Stuart Mill among many others, Herschel
put forward a system for organizing scientifi c enquiry,
in this way furthering it. The organizing principles he
formulated would govern his behavior towards photog-
raphy, which he viewed as a most fascinating branch
of science. One of the most striking peculiarities of the
book is the prominent place given to scientifi c nomen-
clature as a crucial componant for molding a particular
fi eld of study into an organized science. Herschel ap-
plied these standards to photography as well.
A series of chemical experiments in the Spring of
1831 on the light sensitivity of certain salts of platinum
had Herschel most of the way to inventing a photo-
graphic process. Like Johann Heinrich Shulze, Herschel
cut masks and allowed the action of light to pattern the
platina solution through the masks. He shared these
pretty experiments with his friends David Brewster,
Charles Babbage, and William Henry Fox Talbot.
Although nothing in the way of photography came
directly from this demonstration, Herschel recalled it
immediately in 1839.
Photography was announced to the public at the
very height of Herschel’s career. He had just returned
from four years in South Africa, having completed an
examination of the skies of the Southern Hemisphere,
and had been reluctantly raised to a baronetcy. Herschel
learned of the announcement of the Daguerreotype on
22 January, and of Talbot’s competing process within
the space of a few days. By the 30th, needing no help
from either inventor, he had made and fi xed his own
photographs on paper, envisioning even the necessary
steps to reverse the tones of the original, converting the
negative image into a positive.
Herschel did not coin the name ‘photography’ for
the new art. Both Charles Wheatstone (in a letter to
Talbot, 2 February 1839) and Johann von Mädler (25
February, Vossische Zeitung) had already suggested its
use. It is possible that several early experimenters also
thought the term appropriate. There is some evidence
that Hercules Florence, in Brazil had called his own
experiments of the 1830s by name photographie. What
Herschel did was to endorse this name, and encourage
its adoption within the scientifi c community. Herschel
employed ‘photography’ in a paper titled ‘Note on
the Art of Photography’ presented before the Royal
Society on 14 March 1839, but he withdrew the paper
from publication. In 1979, Larry J. Schaaf rediscovered
this paper, enabling us to understand that Herschel’s
motives were not only to defi ne the realm of what
‘photography’ would be, but to exhibit a photograph
produced in experiment. This use of photography as a
piece of demonstrative scientifi c evidence encouraged
his scientifi c audience to do the same. He went on in
1840 to introduce the titles “positive” and “negative,”’
without which we would still speak of “originals” and
“transfers,” or “impressions” and “re-reversals.” In 1860
he also appropriated ‘snap-shot’ from its hunting roots,
to designate an “instant” picture.
It has often been noted that Herschel appeared quite
indifferent to making photographs in camera. Many
reasons could be given for this tendency, but the two
principal ones are his facility with the camera lucida in
taking sketches, and also his concentration on making
photochemical experiments, many of which required
more exposure than a camera of the time could conve-
niently supply. Nonetheless he did success in making a
camera image of his father’s 40-foot refl ecting telescope.
This was no ordinary camera image, either. It was cir-