Figure 1 – John Glenn in orbit on the Friendship 7 Feb. 20, 1962. photographed automatic sequence motion picture camera. NASA Public domain.

I was searching through the NASA photograph archives looking for a picture that would commemorate John Glenn’s Friendship 7 flight on Feb. 20, 1962. What struck me the most was how many pictures there were of people. Yes there were planets and galaxies, but so many people. While NASA gives us some of the most stunningly profound images of space it all ultimately comes back to people. NASA and the exploration of space are human endeavors.

As a result it really all comes back to the image of Figure 1. I remember the thrill when these images were first released – fifty five years ago. Man in space. Man in orbit. Man on the moon. This is human destiny. Men and women shall move forward in this realm of exploration that ultimately dwarfs and, indeed, eclipses all other exploration in the history of the human race.

And it all evolved photographically. Black and white image and videos. Color images and videos. Building a compact lightweight video camera in those days wasn’t so easy. Certainly thye space race was a motivating factor in these innovations. But with the moon landing we were effectively there, as if the Goddess Selene had sent out her personal camerawoman to photograph the event.

Figure 1 – Alois Locherer “Transporting the Statue of Bavaria to Theresienwiese , 1850” in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

The technical process of making an albumen print is relatively straight forward and it is still accessible to photographers today through alternative photography sites such as Bostik and Sulilivan (see also). Interestingly, in the nineteenth century the albumen process did not lend itself to mass production and was largely done by hand.  Also the vast majority of albumen print workers were women.

1. A piece of paper is first coated with an emulsion of egg white (albumen) and salt (sodium chloride or ammonium chloride), then dried. The albumen acts as a sizer to seal the paper, creating a semi-gloss finish upon which the sensitizer can rest. In commercial manufacture this coating was typically done by floating the paper on a bath of albumen and salt.
2. The paper is bathed in a solution of silver nitrate, the sensitizer,  making it sensitive to ultraviolet radiation.
3. The paper is then dried in the absence of UV light. That is out of the sunlight.
4. When ready to use the paper is placed in a frame in direct contact with the negative. Analogue photographers will remember the critical rule of emulsion side down.  Typically in the nineteenth century the negative was a glass plate. If glass is not used then a sheet of glass is used to maintain contact of paper and negative.  The frame typically opens in halves so that the exposure can be observed without moving the paper relative to the negative.
5. The frame and therefore the paper is exposed to sunlight, or today UV lamps, until the image achieves the desired density.
6. The paper is removed from the frame and fixed in  bath of sodium thiosulfate to remove unexposed silver.
7. And then,  – The Beauty – the image is optionally toned by soaking in a toning solution of gold or selenium.

Today we are reminded of the nasty chemicals of analogue photography, although albumen printing uses the sun for developing.  We are much more eco-conscious than our predecessors. But compared, for instance, to making a daguerreotype this was nothing from a toxicity point of view.

Again, I think that all of this technical stuff earns us the right or privilege to marvel at another great nineteenth century albumen print. I discovered on the Plaidpetticoats blogspot  this wonderful photograph by nineteenth century German photographer Alois Locherer (1815-1862) entitled “Transporting the Bavaria Statue to Theresienwiese, 1850”.  The first thing that crossed my mind on looking at it was Gulliver in Lilliput.

Figure 1 – Albumen print by Frances Frith, “Travelers boat at Ibrim (1856-1859) in the public domain in the United States because of its age.

I wanted to talk about the albumen process from a technical point-of-view.  But first, we need to deal with a sticky issue: what is an emulsion? Back in the day when science was still taught in American schools most people would have answered: mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is an answer to the technical problem in cooking of how do I get two imiscible liquids, oil and water to mix, and the answer is that you add egg yolks. Egg yolk contains a compound called lecithin which acts like an “emulsifying agent.”

OK so far, what about photographic emulsions? Well photographic emulsions are not technically true emulsions, because what they are are silver halide crytals (so a solid) dispersed or suspended in a liquid (typically gelatin nowadays). Well, the distinction between emulsions and colloidal suspensions is really a big snore and quite besides the point.

The important point is that the photographic emulsion was invented to solve a very important problem in the development of photography. You will recall that the Daguerreotype was invented in 1838 and produced truly magnificent images. You could examine them with a magnifier or loupe and they would reveal exquisitely resolved detail. But its image was merely a silver-mercury amalgam film lying precariously atop a silver plate. It was fragile and delicate. And perhaps, more significantly it was a direct positive process that didn’t lend itself well to the creation of multiple copies, ideally on paper.  Public demand is the mother of invention.

Reproduction was, of course, the goal of William Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype process, where the vehicle for the negative was paper and the second image was produced from the negative onto a similarly light-sensitized sheet of paper. An artistic, luminous, softness image is the essence of the calotype process. But it could not equal the sharpness and realism of the daguerreotype. In the calotype the light-sensitive salts are suffused into the paper. What was needed was to produce a transparent sharp layer that could be placed on either glass to produce a negative or on shiny paper to produce a positive from the negative. The use of albumen from eggs as an emulsion for glass negatives was invented independently by two Frenchmen in 1848, Niepce de Saint Victor and Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrard. As it turned out the production of glass negatives with albumen “emulsions” proved technically difficult on a large scale. There was just two much variability. But its use as an emulsion on paper became the dominant process for the next half century, with negatives produced first by Frederick Scott Archer’s wet collodion process and subsequently by dry plates, which used gelatin as the emulsifying agent.  The dry plate was invented in 1871 by Dr. Richard L. Maddox. Maddox’s dry plates were extremely sensitive to touch. A method of hardening the gelatin emulsion was discovered by Charles Bennett in 1873. Significantly, Bennet also discovered that prolonged heating of the emulsion significantly increased its light sensitivity. The era of high ISO films was born. The rest as they say is history…

With all this technical talk I think that we deserved a lovely nineteenth century albumin photograph to look at. Figure 1 is by the great nineteenth century travel photographer Francis Frith (1822-1898 ), taken in Egypt (1856 – 1859) and entitled “Traveler’s Boat in Ibrim.”