Resetting the camera’s clock: Sarony, Muybridge & the aesthetics of wet-plate photography

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Barthes, Camera Lucida, 15.

2. For detailed technical discussions of early photographic media see: Hannavy, Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography, 239–242, 368–370, 1485–1490. Collodion wet-plates are estimated to have been about ISO1 (though before the industrial standardization of photographic materials, this cannot be judged to be a perfectly reliable figure). By comparison, a modern ISO100 photograph would have an exposure of 1 s.

3. For detailed discussions of Muybridge’s experiments see: Braun, Eadweard Muybridge; Prodger, Time Stands Still; and Solnit, River of Shadows. For a larger discussion of photography and motion studies during the period, see: Ellenbogen, Reasoned and Unreasoned Images.

4. While Muybridge initially viewed his experiments as a means of extending the capacity of photography, his explorations of time and motion resonated with larger processes of industrialization and mechanization underway during the late nineteenth century. Historian Rebecca Solnit links Muybridge’s work specifically to the efficiency studies of “Industrial Engineers” Frederick Taylor and Frank & Lillian Gilbreth. Art historian John Ott argues further that Muybridge’s project provided a means through which capitalist entrepreneurs like Stanford could naturalize and promote the mechanics of industrial capitalism. See Solnit, River of Shadows, 211–212; and Ott, “Iron Horses.”

5. As Braun notes, Rulofson’s virulent reaction to Muybridge’s work may have been colored in part by their soured business relationship. See Braun, Eadweard Muybridge, “Chapter Six.” However, Rulofson was far from alone in his opinions. For additional reactions of American photographers to “The Horse in Motion” see: “À la Horse,” 284–285; as well as Rulofson, “California Horse Electric Feat,” 247.

6. “Photography in the Great Exhibition,” 184.

7. “Sarony’s Walking Lady,” 234.

8. Ibid., 234.

9. See: Prodger, Time Stands Still; and Gunthert, La Conquête de l’instantané.

10. Prodger, Time Stands Still, 41. In addition, Tanya Sheehan has argued that nineteenth-century discussions of photographic instantaneity served also as strategies for alleviating the perceived “pain of portraiture” that subjects associated with the use of conventional posing stands and other contemporary studio practices. See: Sheehan, Doctored, 75–78.

11. “Sarony’s Walking Lady,” 234.

12. It was Oliver Sarony who was responsible for the initial design of the Posing Apparatus, which he patented in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1866. Napoleon assisted in early marketing for the device and patented an improved model in 1867. For a detailed discussion of Oliver Sarony’s career and inventions, see: Bayliss and Bayliss, Photographers in Scarborough. For the original patents descriptions and drawings, see Oliver Sarony, “Photographic Head-Rest” (United States, 1866), and Napoleon Sarony, “Improvement in Photographic Rests” (United States, 1868).

13. See: “Comfort for Photographic Sitters.” Napoleon and Oliver Sarony’s Posing Apparatus received wide coverage in American and English newspapers during the late 1860s. See also the following for detailed descriptions of the device and its uses: “Sarony’s Posing Apparatus;” “Sarony’s Posing Apparatus & Patent Rest;” “Photographic Society of London, Annual General Meeting;” and Towler, The Negative and Print, 176–177.

14. “Appareil de pose,” 288–291, and Wilson, “An Hour with Sarony,” 82–84.

15. Though marketed primarily in the United States, Sarony’s photographs of Menken were taken in January, 1866 in his Birmingham, England studio. See: Pauwels, “A Signature Look,” in Napoleon Sarony’s Living Pictures.

16. Wilson, “Sarony,” 66.

17. While the four-lensed carte-de-visite camera was by far the most common, six, eight and twelve lensed variants existed as well and could be used with out without the moving internal plate holder. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of this essay for offering this point of clarification.

18. For good technical descriptions of Disdéri’s camera and its variants see: McCauley, A.A.E. Disdéri; Carolyn Peter, “Disdéri, André-Adolphe-Eugène (1819–1889),” 417–419, and John Plunkett, “Carte-de-Visite,” 276–277, in Hannavy, ed. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography.

19. Photographic Notes (Aug. 1860): 207–208, quoted in Newhall, History of Photography, 64.

20. Wilson, “An Hour with Sarony,” 82–84.