Artificial Light Photography by Henry Snowden Ward
With this experience in a class of work that can be done anywhere, it is obvious that portrait-work, in which the use of sunlight is attended by disadvantages that do not affect the process worker, must also, eventually, be done by artificial light. One of the principal disadvantages of present day photography is that it must be conducted where an uninterrupted top and side-light can be obtained. Therefore, the photographer is obliged either to secure a separate ground space for his glass house, thus paying double ground rent for his studio and work rooms or to hoist it aloft, generally at the top of a high building, to the no small discomfort of his less active customers, who may object to a great amount of stair climbing. The glass has also other advantages. It persists in more or less continually leaking in wet weather, and it is very difficult to cool in summer and to warm in winter. The dependence upon daylight also prevents a great deal of work in connection with dark interiors -as, for instance, the stages of theatres, where objects require to be photographed which cannot be taken to a studio.
An article from The Sketch 16th January 1895.
Most people are used to being photographed in a glass roof studio, and by means of the light of the sun, that many of them imagine that nothing but daylight can be used for the purpose. Photographers, on the other hand, are aware that almost every class of light can be used, even down to the feeble glimmer of the glow worm and fire fly, and to the phosphorescence that glows on the carcase of a half-decomposed red herring. Photographers have long realised that great advantages would be gained in portraiture if daylight could be entirely dispensed with. In other branches of photography this has already been done, for many of the photo-mechanical workers who produce the line and half-tone blocks so freely used in illustrating The Sketch and similar journals, rely upon the electric light entirely upon zinc and copper. At first they used the artificial light as an auxiliary to daylight, but finding its constancy and regularity of results distinctly advantageous in their work, many firms have entirely blocked out the daylight from their studios.
With the introduction of artificial light, the ground floor or even the basement becomes a natural place for the studio, and it is possible to photograph objects which cannot be brought to a studio, by carrying both the camera and the light to them. Urged by the consideration of these advantages, many photographers and manufacturers have devoted much time and labour to perfecting various systems of artificial lighting. Magnesium light was first to be practically used and quite early in the history of photography it was employed experimentally in specially difficult cases of interiors and other badly-lighted subjects. Lamps for burning it in the form of ribbon or powder were designed by many ingenious people, but the cost of the magnesium itself was very heavy (ranging from thirteen shillings an ounce upwards) and practically prevented its use to any commercial extent. The manufacturer of magnesium was entirely in the hands of one firm, which held patents upon it and accordingly made its own price - but within the last few years German inventors have discovered a method of making magnesium which evades the patented process; and at one drop, a few years ago, the price fell form thirteen shillings to half a crown per ounce. This cheapening of the material caused a flood of lamps to be placed upon the market, and many photographers, both professional and amateur, ran to the use of artificial light. Great difficulties were found in getting rid of the smoke; there was difficulty, also from the fact that magnesium easily oxidised and was uncertain in its burning.
Some people mixed the magnesium with various explosive substances, and several of those who used these mixtures were terribly injured or killed. Although the early experimenters in magnesium portrait work met with many and serious difficulties, but as each was met it was surmounted, until photographers are now are able to produce very fine portraits, interiors of workshops and halls of midnight revel, stage groups, mining in the bowels of the earth and even the quickly changing stages of surgical operations. In more than one studio magnesium is used to the entire exclusion of daylight for portrait work. and the results obtained by those who have given sufficient attention to the workings are very fine indeed. Probably the best examples ever produced by this light is a portrait of Robert Slingsby , of Lincoln given herewith, from a negative by his own magnesium light system. With a number of 'Economic flash lamps manufactured by Messrs, Marion and Co suspended on a light portable framework, and all connected with a common air supply, Mr Slingsby consumes finely powdered magnesium in a flame of methylated spirit. The flash is, of course, intensely brilliant, but harsh lighting s avoided, partly by a distribution of the lamps over a considerable area, and partly by a system of diffusers and reflectors.
Another system of magnesium light work, invented by Mr F W Hart of Kingsland, is still in use both for large groups and for portraiture. It allows of pictures being taken in very quick succession, but a detailed description of the apparatus would be too technical for the present purpose. Several single magnesium lamps for burning large quantities of powder either by single flash or continuous flame of terrific powder are used for difficult interiors and for underground working. One that is very popular and very practical for this purpose is the Todd-Forret lamp, manufactured by A H Baird, 15, Lothian Street, Edinburgh, an example for which is given.
The Kolm magnesium lamp is another apparatus having many advantages, and one that is largely used in London. For printing purposes the only magnesium light that has been used to any extent is the powerful lamp invented by Mr E J Humphery, and placed on the market by the Platinotype Company, of which he is the director. In this lamp the magnesium is fed to the flame in a stream of oxygen, which gives complete combustion and an enormously powerful light. For fixed studio installations that are likely to be frequently used, the magnesium light is impractical, and either gas or electricity must be adopted. Many experimenters have spent time and money in working out both these systems, and both have now been brought to a great pitch of perfection. So important has the subject become to the professional photographer, that an exhibition confined entirely to artificial light apparatus, and results recently held in the Photogram Trade Museum, 6 Farringdon Avenue, E.C.