William Fox Talbot

Though Fox Talbot was not the first to produce photographs, he made a major contribution to the photographic process as we know it today.

Though some of his pictures show a measure of artistic taste, it was his inability to draw which caused him to experiment with a mechanical method of capturing and retaining an image. Talbot attempted to draw with the aid of both a camera obscura and a camera lucida when producing his sketches, one of which was Villa Melzi. Later he wrote:

"In October, 1833, I was amusing myself on the lovely shores of the Lake of Como in Italy, taking sketches with a Camera Lucida; but with the smallest possible amount of success

After various fruitless attempts I laid aside the instrument and came to the conclusion that its use required a previous knowledge of drawing which unfortunately I did not possess.

I then thought of trying again a method which I had tried many years before. This method was to take a Camera Obscura and to throw the image of the objects on a piece of paper in its focus

It was during these thoughts that the idea occurred to me... how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed on the paper!"

Talbot described how he took his pictures:

"Not having with me... a camera obscura of any considerable size, I constructed one out of a large box, the image being thrown upon one end of it by a good object-glass fixed at the opposite end. The apparatus being armed with a sensitive paper, was taken out in a summar afternoon, and placed about one hundred yards from a building favourably illuminated by the sun. An or so afterwards I opened the box and I found depicted upon the paper a very distinct representation of the building, with the exception of those parts of it which lay in the shade. A little experience in this branch of the art showed me that with a smaller camera obscura the effect would be produced in a smaller time. Accordingly I had several small boxes made, in which I fixed lenses of shorter focus, and with these I obtained very perfect, but extremely small pictures..."

These "little boxes", measuring two or three inches, were named "mousetraps" by the family at Lacock, because of the various places they were to be found.

Talbot began to publicise his own process. On 25 January 1839 he announced the discovery at the Royal Institution of a method of "photogenic drawing."

At the time the sensitivity of the process was extremely poor. Then, in September 1840 Fox Talbot discovered the phenomenon of the latent image. It is said that this was a chance discovery, when he attempted to re-sensitise some paper which had failed to work in previous experiments; as the chemical was applied, an image, previously invisible, began to appear. This was a major breakthrough which led to drastically lowered exposure times - from one hour or so to 1-3 minutes. Talbot he called the improved version the calotype (from the Greek "Kalos", meaning beautiful).

Talbot patented his invention on 8 February 1841, an act which considerably arrested the development of photography at the time. The patent (a separate one being taken out for France) applied to England and Wales. Talbot chose not to extend his patent to Scotland, and this paved the way for some outstanding photographs to be produced in Edinburgh by Hill and Adamson.

Talbot's process in general never reached the popularity of the daguerreotype process, partly because the latter produced such amazing detail, but partly because Talbot asked so much for the rights to use his process.

Consequently calotypes never flourished as they might have, and the fault must lie largely with him.





- Helena Salvo (AS 199-1)