Art Sunday; The Photographs of Hill and Adamson
Thank you for dedicating Art Sunday to Scotland but it made me think I had better do something a bit special this week. I hope you like it. This; basically, is the history of Photography. A big chunk of photographic history happened right here in Scotland and this is the story. There is quite a bit of reading, but if you enjoy photography hopefully you will find it interesting. Next time you are out and about with your little digi camera, no bigger than your mobile ‘phone, stop for a while and think about the origins of what you are doing.
The work of Hill and Adamson is important to the whole history of Photography and to the history of Scotland. This early photographic work provides a source of social commentary from a period of change AND evidence of the developing technology from that time.
Sir David BrewsterChemical experiments in preserving the images of the camera Obscura began in the seventeenth century but did not have significant success until the nineteenth century. The partnership of Hill and Adamson came about thanks to a network of prominent people and events cantered around St Andrews and Edinburgh during the mid nineteenth century. A central figure to this was Sir David Brewster. Brewster (1781-1868) was a leading physicist who had specialised in the study of light and optics. He was also Principal of St Andrews University. He was interested in recent developments in photography and, along with other associates at St Andrews University, had participated in early photographic experiments using the technique of the French theatrical designer Louis-Jacques-Mande’ Daguerre (1787-1851). A technique known as Daguerreotypie. This involved a silvered copper plate being sensitised with iodine vapour, exposed in a camera and developed with mercury vapour that was heated over a spirit-lamp. This method resulted in a photographic image being preserved on a copper plate that needed to be protected from damage with a glass cover and sealed to prevent tarnishing by contact with air. The exposure time of 20-30 minutes made this method unsuitable for portraiture but it did provide a way of producing high quality images of landscapes. Brewster’s friend, Englishman and scientist James Henry Talbot Fox (1800-1877) had been working on different methods of reproducing photographic images around the same time as Daguerre, and Daguerre’s public announcement encouraged Talbot Fox to make his own findings public sooner than he had intended. Talbot fox’s technique was known as Calotype meaning ‘beautiful image’; it used good quality paper coated with silver iodide, sensitised with silver nitrate, developed with gallo-nitrate of silver and heat then fixed with potassium bromide. The disadvantage of Talbot Fox’s method was the relative poor quality image, but the advantages were the ability to reproduce more than one identical image per exposure and the possibility of faster exposure times allowing for photographic portraits. The Scottish scientist James David Forbes (1809-1868), friend and colleague at St Andrews of Brewster, examined both processes and favoured the French over the English method. The chemical process invented by Talbot Fox was difficult to control until Brewster introduced another of his colleagues, Dr John Adamson (1809-1870) to it. Adamson began working with the process and successfully managed to produce the first Calotype portrait in May 1842. Dr John Adamson introduced his younger brother, Robert Adamson (1821-1848) an engineer, to the chemical processes of Calotype photography, and it was Robert Adamson who went on to refine and develop this technology, enabling the Adamson /Hill partnership to thrive.
At this point several things happened, Sir Brewster (remember him?, he started the whole thing) took himself off to Edinburgh to the AGM of the Church of Scotland; Robert Adamson (engineer turned early photographic chemist) arrived in Edinburgh hoping to find premises for a new photographic studio, and David Octavius Hill (1802-1870), well known Scottish landscape painter, came to witness the expected protests at the AGM. Hill, was commissioned commemorate the meeting with a painting. He planned individual sittings partly due to the people involved and partly due to the enormity of the task of sketching every single member of the synod, Hill was introduced to Adamson with a view to using the Calotype process to cut back on the sketching. These two men initially came together to work on the painting commemorating the formation of the new Church, they continued working together, in partnership over the next four years. The partnership lasted from 1843 to 1847 and ended with the premature death of Adamson in January1848. From these few years over 1400 of their paper negatives survive; these are possibly only a fraction of the total that were actually made. It was the collaboration between Hill and Adamson on the photographic ‘sketches’ that began their partnership. Initially Hill thought of the process as a means of obtaining fast accurate ‘sketches ‘ from which to produce his paintings but he very quickly became enamoured with the medium and recognised it as an art form in its own right. This particular painting could be considered the forerunner of the Hill and Adamson ‘social documentary’ photographs because it was the first time the photographic process had been used to record an important event in history.
What the scientifically minded saw as the imperfections of the Calotype image, Hill welcomed as positive attributes. Initially Brewster saw the images as flawed because they had a ‘stippled’ effect as opposed to the clarity of the daguerreotypie image. Hill saw these variables as adding to the quality of the images rather than detracting from them. The Calotype process produced images of a deep red/brown hue, the process naturally lent itself to a slightly out of focus ‘fuzzyness’, it had a ‘grainy’ texture. To those from a scientific background, the photographic process provided a means whereby images from life could be recorded in a clinical, accurate manner; anything detracting from that accuracy was perceived as a flaw in the process that should be avoided. Hill used the process to produce images that were ‘art works’ and Adamson refined the method to accentuate the natural properties of the medium not to eliminate them. Hill provided the artistic inspiration while Adamson provided the technical expertise. They expanded the boundaries of science and technology while at the same time produced images that were unique. These images are our evidence of how, in a relatively short period, the seemingly impossible dream of preserving a mirrored or reflected image from life suddenly became possible. These images are unique in being the first photographic social documentary evidence of the lives of everyday Scottish people and the world in which they lived. They are uniquely the product of combined artistic and technical inspiration that came into being thanks to the cooperation of an interdisciplinary network of scientists, artists, academics, theologians and other prominent people who converged together at one particular time and place in our history.
The partnership began with the calotype image being used as a substitute for sketches for the painting ‘The signing of the Deed of Demission’, but in the space of four years the partnership recorded many images that were not related to this painting. Hill and Adamson recorded a series of images known as ‘The Fishermen and Women of the Firth of Forth’, many of these images have a quality more usually associated with paintings than photographs with attention being paid to the composition and overall effect rather than to the accurate recording of detail.
This series of images, the bulk of which were taken in Newhaven with a few from Prestonpans, Leith and St Andrews, were used primarily as experiments in the effects of light and shade taken at different times of day. These images may have begun as a means by which Hill and Adamson learned how to manipulate the calotype process to their satisfaction but, they have become valued and valuable images in their own right. They record an extinct way of life in images, in a way that communicates to the audience a ‘feel’ for the way things were. They are more than an accurate recording, photographic images are accurate recordings of what lies in front of the camera, but the content of a photographic image can be manipulated as much as the content of a painting can. The image ‘Newhaven Fishermen: Rutherford, William Ramsey and John Liston ‘Fishermen Ashore’ is a composed portrait of three local fishermen. The image records accurately what was before the camera and leaves us with perfect insight into how these people dressed for their work but the composition itself is contrived. These people would have needed to hold a set pose for some time in order to achieve this result. This was no natural ‘snapshot’ of people at work. This image is a combination of new technology in the hands of a talented technician and the artistic input of a well-known and respected artist. The result is an image that passes to future generations as part social documentary evidence of a lost way of life and part art work using a new medium.
Hill and Adamson also recorded the progress of the building of the Scott monument between the years 1843-1845. They recorded the monument itself in different stages of completion but they also recorded the craftsmen working on the monument.
Hope you enjoyed this rather different art Sunday, I'm going to post the photographs in an album where hopefully you will be able to get a better look at them.
