William Henry Fox Talbot

Steven R. Loomis

for Phtg 20, W. Q. Castano

June 11, 1998

W. H. F. Talbot can not be said to have invented photography, but he was certainly an important figure in the history of this new art. Many inventions are the product of generations of research. Among his many other innovations, Talbot gave us the negative-positive method that is used today, and also worked to popularize photography. His work in photography does not tell the entire story of this colorful and interesting character.

When Talbot was born in 1800, his name and estate already had quite a bit of prestige associated with it. Lacock Abbey was built in 1232 by a Countess, the half sister-in-law to the King. It was converted into a private home and the Talbot family married into it in the 1500's. The Talbots were close to kings and other high ranking people. The last direct male line ended in 1714, but twice before WHF Talbot's birth, a husband had assumed the Talbot name from his wife to carry on the name (and the estate).

The Fox-Strangway were even closer to high politics. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Fox-Strangways, Talbot's mother, was a very intelligent woman whose interests included linguistics and politics. She definitely had a tremendous influence on Talbot, who inherited her love of learning and of these subjects, and she stayed close to him her entire life. He often wrote her in French, Latin, and Greek.

Davenport Talbot, Henry's father, was an influential military man who was often at sea. He died when Talbot was five months old. Lacock Abbey was in debt 30,000 pounds when Talbot was born. Through the intervention of the courts, it recovered so as to be in the black and receiving income when Talbot came of age in 1821. Lacock Abbey was only one of the many homes that Talbot lived in when he was growing up. Lady Elisabeth married Charles Feilding in 1804, and he was a stable and loving stepfather.

The diaries and letters from Talbot's early years shows an incredibly rich intellect, curious about everything, it seemed. Languages, mathematics, politics, botany, optics, and astronomy were all important interests at an early age. All of these were to have major roles in his later life. He also met William Herschel and the King of England when he was 8.

At school he continued to study many diverse topics, and do well in them. He also played well with other children at games. His interest in chemistry continued, and got him into some trouble with his boarding-school over some explosions. Undaunted, he continued his experiments at a nearby blacksmith's shop. He left the boarding school after winning many awards (including some for Greek verse), and went on to graduate with medals and a Bachelors degree from Cambridge University.

He then occupied himself with travel around the European continent, and research in optics, mathematics (integral calculus), chemistry (including a work on colored flames and spectra), and languages. In 1832 he married, but he was soon occupied with being a Member of Parlaimant which continued through 1834. At this point he was also living permanently at Lacock Abbey.

In 1833 he and his wife took a much-deserved vacation to France, Switzerland, and Italy. It was while relaxing at Lake Como in Italy that Talbot tried to draw some pictures of the environs with the aid of a camera lucida, but was met with "the smallest possible amount of success" (Jammes, p 6) due to a lack of artistic skill on his part. Talbot's imagination turned to the possibility of the light itself drawing the picture upon the paper, by using a camera obscura.

When he returned, Talbot set to work experimenting. By the fall of 1833 he was able to make "photogenic drawings" (as he called them) by exposing silver chloride-sensitized paper to sunlight with objects such as leaves, lace, etc. on top. This produced what is now called a negative image, with white where the original scene was dark, and vice versa. Talbot recognized the value in producing a negative image at first, because it meant that the picture could be duplicated (unlike positive processes like the Daguerreotype). When the paper negative was soaked in oil it became transparent, and could then be contact printed onto another identically sensitized paper, producing a positive.

By February 28, 1835 he had described in a letter the negative-positive system. His paper negative of Lacock Abbey's window, made in August, 1835, survives to this day. He built many small wooden camera obscuras (which his wife Constance once called his "mousetraps"), but he did not publicize his work.

He had contemplated writing a report to the Royal Academy of Sciences (which he became a member of in 1833), but he did not see any reason to make a premature announcement until he had enough time to perfect the process. So, he set aside his photographic work and directed his efforts instead on writing a book called Hermes, or Classical and Antiquarian Research.

Daguerre and Arago's January 6, 1839 announcement in the French press (which appeared in England by January 19th) must have come as a shock to Talbot. He rushed to publicize his own, incomplete, work. He sent samples of his work to the Royal Institution in London, which were shown to it's members on January 25th, 1839. This pictures included scenes of Lacock Abbey, contact prints of lace, of engravings, and pictures made through a microscope. He also sent letters claiming his priority of invention to the French science official Francois Arago and others on January 29th.

Sir John F. W. Herschel, upon hearing of Daguerre and Talbot's announcements, experimented on his own and discovered that the chemical we now refer to as "hypo" (thiosulphate of soda) acted as an effective fixer, to inhibit further chemical action by the silver salts. This method was quickly adopted by both Daguerre and Talbot. Talbot's early connection with the Herschel family was instrumental in his frequent collaboration with Sir John Herschel. Herschel also gave the terms "photography", "positive", and "negative" to Talbot's work. Herschel visited Paris and found Daguerre's works to be "masterpieces" compared to Talbot's "vague, foggy things." (Newhall, p 23)

Talbot wrote that he was "placed in a very unusual dilemma (scarcely to be paralleled in the annals of science)" by these events. By April of that year, kits were on sale for making contact prints by his process. Papers describing Talbot's discovery generated enormous interest.

Unlike Daguerre who made his discovery available to the public at no fee, Talbot patented his invention in England and pursued infringers. This was one of the reasons why the Daguerreotype was more popular, in addition to the sharpness of detail mentioned above. He also took out a patent in France but did not seem to have enforced it.

In 1841, Talbot made another important discovery - that of the latent image. Previously, the sensitive material had to be exposed long enough to darken by the action of sunlight alone. Talbot exposed a sensitive paper, but not long enough to leave a visible image. He then applied more silver compound and the image appeared! By this he was able to dramatically shorten the exposure time needed to make an image.

Between 1844 and 1846, Talbot published in two volumes the world's first book containing photographs. He named it "The Pencil of Nature", and it included 24 pictures, among them botanical contact prints as well as scenes from Lacock Abbey. Negatives made with Talbot's process came to be called Calotypes, from the Greek "Kalos" meaning beautiful. Talbot set up Lacock Abbey as a production line for the development and duplication of prints.

Other innovations that Talbot worked on included photo etching, a process he patented as photoglyphy in 1858. In 1852 he had already come across the idea of using a fine mesh screen to obtain what is now called a "halftone" print. He also predicted infrared photography, photo duplication (copy machines), and microfilm.

Talbot was an extremely talented individual who distinguished himself in almost every field that he touched. Except, of course, manual sketching. And if he was proficient in that, the world might have been denied a great work of invention.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arnold, H. J. P. William Henry Fox Talbot: Pioneer of photography and man of science. (London: Hutchingson Benham, 1977)

Jammes, André. William H. Fox Talbot: Inventer of the Negative-Positive Process. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.)

Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography from 1839 to the present. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1982)