September 2015

To the Calotype: Happy 175th Birthday!

25 Sep 2015: WHFT, Three Chimnies (Large), one of his first calotype negatives, 7 October 1840 Please join me in imagining that these are candles on the birthday cake. It was in the days prior to this week in 1840 that Henry Talbot made the tremendous breakthrough that propelled his negative/positive photography into the wider public arena. Within …

The soliloquy that opened a door

18 Sep 2015: Yesterday, the 17th of September in 1877, William Henry Fox Talbot passed away peacefully at Lacock Abbey. Born in 1800, he had profitably surpassed his threescore years and ten, remaining intellectually active to the very end. The obituaries and tributes to him were various, those coming from the photographic community being surprisingly sparse, balanced …

Mousetraps, dentists, and long rifle cartridges

11 Sep 2015: Writing from Cowes on the Isle of Wight in the autumn of 1835, Talbot’s wife Constance described taking advantage of the bright moonlight to go rowing on the estuary of the River Medina: “The colouring reminded me a good deal of some of your shadows … I wish you could have taken the …

The last of the Summer pleasures: An Ancient Door, Magdalen College, Oxford

4 Sep 2015: The Summer Bank Holiday passed earlier this week in the UK and on Monday the Labor Day holiday will mark the unofficial end of summer in the US. The Rock House garden is now at its peak and producing an almost embarrassing bounty, but it won’t be long before we will be lamenting the paucity of good tomatoes and fresh basil. Even though …