Robert demachy struggle
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"The calotype negative process was sometimes called the Talbotype , after its inventor. It was not Talbot's first photographic process (introduced in 1839), but it is the one for which he became most known. Henry Talbot devised the calotype in the autumn of 1840, perfected it by the time of its public introduction in mid-1841, and made it the subject of a patent (the patent did not extend to Scotland). The base of a calotype negative, rather than the glass or film to which we have become accustomed, was high quality writing paper. The sheet of paper was carefully selected to have a smooth and uniform texture and, wherever possible, to avoid the watermark. The first stage, conducted in candlelight, was to prepare what Talbot called his iodized paper. The paper was washed over with a solution of silver nitrate and dried by gentle heat. When nearly dr...
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Robert Demachy
Robert Demachy (1859–1936) was a prominent French Pictorial photographer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He is best known for his intensely manipulated prints that display a distinct painterly quality. Léon-Robert Demachy was born in the home of his grandmother in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, on the outskirts of Paris, on 7 July 1859. His parents, Charles Adolphe Demachy (1818–1888) and Zoé Girod de l’Ain (1827–1916), had two other sons, Charles Amédée (1852–1911) and Adrien Édouard (1854–1927), and a daughter, Germaine (1856-1940?). The elder Charles had started the highly successful financial enterprise of Banque Demachy, and by the time Demachy was born the family was very wealthy. He had no need to earn a living, and there is no record of his having ever been employed anywhere. He dropped the first part of his name in his childhood and was always known as "Robert".
After his birth his family returned to their mansion at 13 Rue François Premier in Paris, where Demachy continued to live for the next fifty years. His early years were quite idyllic, and each ye
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Armenian Photography Foundation
While portraiture became the core business activity for many commercial studios at the turn of the century, landscape and architecture photography was also high in demand. Highly restricted by genre conventions borrowed from painting and to a degree defined by scientific enquiry – whether ethnographic, historic or archaeological – the photographic landscape became a form of communication. A recently acquired albumen photograph by the …. showing … is a case in point. Romantic and melancholy, the dramatic view onto the see from the mouth of a cave emphasises the sublime power of nature over the insignificant figures of the two humans who gaze at it in awe and contemplation. Images like these draw associations not only with 19th century Romantic poetry but are mechanisms fuelling nostalgia for the virgin environment and the more organic connection between humanity and nature that was quickly disappearing because of the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution.
This sentiment was one of the key elements that fuelled an entire era of photography th
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