Glass lantern slides were introduced back in the 1850s and were. When photographs are passed down through generations of families, sometimes the stories of the people in the pictures become fragmented or lost. If you’re faced with a collection of photos that lack contextual information, there are a number of clues you can look out for. In 1850, Louis Desire Blanquart improved Evrard Talbot’s salt prints by introducing protein paper.
Photographers coated a thin sheet of paper with egg white, which keeps light-sensitive silver salt on the surface of the paper and prevents the image from fading. As soon as it was dry, protein prints were used just like saltpaper prints, and the image was formed due to the darkening properties of the sun on the chemicals. Most surviving photographs from the 19th. The 19th century is on protein paper. Protein prints were often mounted on cardboard carte-de-viste (CDVs).
CDVs were introduced in Paris, France, in the 1850s by Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi and were available until the turn of the 20th. Very popular in both the United States and Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1854, the ambrotype became a popular photographic printing process that used the wet plate collodion process to create a positive photo on glass. Each photo was unique and could not be duplicated like a Polaroid camera. The type of tin introduced in 1856, also known as the melaino type or ferrotype, was produced on a sheet of thin metal.
And just like the ambrotype and daguerreotype, the method did not use any negatives and was exposed directly in the camera. Some small types of paint were also used in cardboard holders, similar to CDV. Invented in the 1850s, hyalotypes were used in “Magic Lanterns,” where their positive images were projected onto glass plates onto screens. They were very popular until modern slides were released in the 1950s.
I contacted the number on Erica Johnson’s statement (+1 (90 4524270) Then I asked to get my card some. Of course, family photos weren’t always as consistent. For a while, family photos weren’t even a thing. Before photography was invented, family portraits were painted as luxury items for the rich.
As photography became accessible, however, family photography became more and more common until it became a practice of normal home life. Something ordinary and with no hidden meaning, subtext, or importance. Identifying your old family photos is much easier when you know the time they were taken. Knowing the era gives you a better clue as to who the people in it could be.
If you can narrow down the era of the photo and where it was taken (even if it’s just a general location), you can usually identify the people in the photos with a high degree of confidence, depending on how familiar you are with the people in your family tree. Portrait photography is 170 years old and seven, even eight generations of the family may have been depicted in photographs. The daguerreotype was created by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre and is known by photo experts as the first practical form of photography. Similar to how genealogical resources and courses are helpful for discovering and sharing your family history, knowing some photo history can also be beneficial when it comes to identifying the origin of old photos.
If you’re a passionate fan of family history like us, everyone from your mom to your great-aunt Sally knows that they can pawn boxes of old family photos that you can look through to your heart’s content. Ambrotypes cost around a shilling in 1857 and brought photography closer to more working people, and they are found in a number of family collections.
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References:
- https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/adag/hd_adag.htm
- How to date family photographs – The National Archives blog