It requires no liquids to be carried about with you, nor is that nice manipulation required which attends the collodion process.
The wax-paper process has been extolled by many, and very successful results have been obtained: the paper has the undoubted advantage of keeping after being excited much longer than any other; but, from my own experience, just so much the weaker it is made, and so as to safely rely upon its long remaining useful, so it is proportionally slower in its action. And I have rarely seen from
wax negatives positives so satisfactory in depth of tone, as from those which have been waxed after being taken on ordinary paper. It is all very well for gentlemen to advocate a sort of photographic tour, upon which you are to go on taking views day after day, and when you return home at leisure to develop your past proceedings: I never yet knew one so lukewarm in this pursuit as not to desire to know, at his earliest possible opportunity, the result of his labours; indeed, were not this the case, I fear disappointment would more often result than at present, for I scarcely think any one can exactly decide upon the power of the light of any given day, without having made some little trial to guide him. I have myself, especially with collodion, found the action very rapid upon some apparently dull day; whilst, from an unexplained cause, a comparatively brighter day has been less active in its photographic results. As in the previous process, I would strongly advise Turner's paper to be used, and not the thin French papers generally adopted, because I find all the high lights so much better preserved in the English paper. It may be purchased ready waxed nearly as cheap as it may be done by one's self; but as many operators like to possess that which is entirely their own production, the following mode will be found a ready way of waxing:—Procure a piece of thick smooth slate, a trifle larger than the paper to be used; waste pieces of this description are always occurring at the slate works, and are of a trifling value. This should be made very hot by laying it close before a fire; then, covered with one layer of thick blotting-paper, it will form a most admirable surface upon which to use the iron. Taking a piece of wax in the left hand, an iron well heated being pressed against it, it may rapidly be made to flow over the whole surface with much evenness, the surplus wax being afterwards removed by ironing between blotting-paper. When good, it should be colourless, free from gloss, and having the beautiful semi-transparent appearance of the Chinese rice-paper. To iodize the paper completely, immerse it in the following solution:
| Iodide of potash | 200 grains. |
| Mannite | 006 drachms. |
| Cyanide of potash | 005 grains. |
| Distilled water | 020 ounces. |
Allow it to remain three hours, taking care that air-particles are perfectly excluded, and once during the time turning over each sheet of paper, as many being inserted as the fluid will conveniently cover, as it is not injured by after keeping. It should be then removed from the iodide bath, pinned up, and dried, ready for use. When required to be excited, the paper should, by the light of a candle, be immersed in the following solution, where it should remain for five minutes:
| Nitrate of silver | 004 drachms. |
| Glacial acetic acid | 004 drachms. |
| Distilled water | 008 ounces. |
Being removed from the aceto-nitrate bath, immerse it into a pan of distilled water, where let it remain about a quarter of an hour. In order to make this paper keep a week or two, it must be immersed in a second water, which in point of fact is a mere reduction of the strength of the solutions already used; but for ordinary purposes, and when the paper is to be used within three or four days, one immersion is quite sufficient, especially as it does not reduce its sensitiveness in a needless way. It may now be preserved between blotting-paper, free from light, for future use. The time of exposure requisite for this paper will exceed that of the ordinary unwaxed, given in the previous directions. The picture may be developed by a complete immersion also in a saturated solution of gallic acid; but should it not have been exposed a sufficient time in the camera, a few drops of the aceto-nitrate solution added to the gallic acid greatly accelerates it. An excess of aceto-nitrate often produces an unpleasant red tint, which is to be avoided. Instead of complete immersion, the paper may be laid upon some waste blotting-paper, and the surface only wetted by means of the glass rod or brush. The picture may now be fixed by the use of the hyposulphite of soda, as in the preceding process.
It is not actually necessary that this should be a wax-paper process, because ordinary paper treated in this way acts very beautifully, although it does not allow of so long keeping for use after excitement; yet it has then the advantage, that a negative may either be waxed or not, as shall be deemed advisable by its apparent depth of action.
Hugh W. Diamond.
Exhibition of recent Specimens of Photography at the Society of Arts.—This exhibition, to which all interested in the art have been invited to contribute, was inaugurated by a conversazione at the Society's rooms, on the evening of Wednesday, the 22nd of December: the public have since been admitted at a charge of sixpence each, and it will continue open until the 8th of January.