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Between 1852 and 1868, the architect and amateur naturalist Pierre Trémaux (1818–1895) produced three groups of plates and accompanying texts on the geography, architecture, and people of African and Anatolian regions. These luxe publications, produced with the support of the French government, exploit an array of graphic techniques; they combine salted paper prints, engravings, tinted and colour lithographs, photolithographs, and texts in ways never previously attempted. Their examination provides insights into the ways these media interacted, and how comfortably photography in fact sat amongst its predecessors within the long-established context of the travel narrative. This paper will probe the implications of photography for Trémaux’s project through an investigation of his first book,Voyages au Soudan oriental et dans l’Afrique septentrionale. To what extent did the new, mechanical medium clarify or confound his effort to “explain” parts of Africa still hardly known to Europeans? What does this reveal about the role of photographic authenticity in familiarizing imperial audiences with distant places, during a transitional moment in visual culture? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An X-ray fluorescence method to determine whether sulfur is present in 19th century photographs due to intentional toning or to environmental deterioration is proposed. In the 19th century salted paper print photographic process, AgCl formed on the surface of a sheet of paper was exposed to sunlight in contact with a negative, leading to the printing out of a Ag image that was fixed by immersing it in a sodium thiosulfate solution or hypo. The improper execution of the fixing in these photographs may result in the presence of sulfur, mostly manifested in image fading, irregular staining, and discoloration. Also, 19th century artists produced salted paper prints with a variety of image tonalities, for example, by using an artificially aged thiosulfate bath. The presence of sulfur in photographs may also be due to sulfur-containing environmental pollutants. Therefore, knowledge about the location and amounts of sulfur is important to understand the artistic technique and/or the deterioration processes. In this study, the amounts of sulfur and the silver to sulfur signal ratios were determined for a salted paper print made in the laboratory following a 19th century procedure and for two artistic salted paper photographs using X-ray fluorescence and standards prepared with different amounts of retained hypo and quantified by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. The amounts of sulfur and the normalized silver to sulfur ratios for the artistic photographs were evaluated based on the results obtained in the samples prepared in the laboratory and in the context of the 19th century practices. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the proposal by David Octavius Hill, a landscape and genre painter, to apply the calotype process in photography for his works in painting. Hill's enthusiasm for photography was based on his perception of the truth and liveliness of the process. The activity was a highly satisfactory art form for him as he developed his interest in photography. Furthermore, the excellence of his calotype in his future years presented an extraordinary new challenges to the world as much as it set a standard for the smaller world of photography.

The article focuses on the 1948 catalogue by optical instrument manufacturer Horne, Thornthwaite and Wood in London, England, which features a substantial range of photographic equipment. The three pages in such document are devoted to different camera types, such as the single boxtype which is available for taking pictures on plates and paper in sizes. Another type featured is the box sliding focus type, known as the improved expanding camera, which comes in four sizes. Traversing cameras are also highlighted, which is capable of taking a panoramic view and appear to be based on the Von Martens design. A Calotype camera is also on offer at the catalogue, which includes all needed accessories and chemicals. Selected portions of the catalogue are also provided.

The article focuses on the new photographic process of William Henry Fox Talbot known as calotype. According to the author, the term calotype comes from the Greek word 'kalos' meaning beautiful and 'typos' meaning an impression or image. He added that Sir David Brewster followed Talbot's photographic experiments and recommended that he patent the calotype process. Moreover , as an undergraduate at Cambridge, Talbot has won the Porson Prize for his translation of act 1, scene 7 of Macbeth into Greek verse and received a Chancellor's Medal for demonstrating the best appearance in classical learning.