{"id":652,"date":"2011-02-03T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T06:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/?p=652"},"modified":"2023-06-09T14:33:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T14:33:38","slug":"1888","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/2011\/02\/03\/1888\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 28 – 1888: The Art and Practice of Silver Printing by William de Wiveleslie Abney and Henry Peach Robinson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published: London, 1888<\/p>\n

\"\"In the year of this book\u2019s publication, Lewis Mills Norton established MIT\u2019s first chemical engineering program. \u00a0It\u2019s not hard to imagine this young group of chemical engineers perhaps using their labs after hours, carefully following the authors\u2019 directions for preparing both the silver solution and the albumenized paper necessary for producing silver prints.<\/p>\n

But the authors\u2019 pre\"\"<\/a>face suggests that not every photographer believed in their espoused process. \u00a0\u201cThe one defect of silver printing,\u201d they write, \u201cis the possibility of its results fading; but surely it is better to be beautiful, if fading, than permanent and ugly. It is better to be charmed with a beautiful thing for a few years, than be bored by an ugly one for ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors\u2019 apologetic tone seems unnecessary today, since the gelatin silver process has remained the preferred method of executing traditional black-and-white photography. \u00a0Indeed, Abney and Robinson themselves contributed to the chemical advancements that have since enabled the process to provide both beauty and permanence.<\/p>\n

Find it in the library<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published: London, 1888 In the year of this book\u2019s publication, Lewis Mills Norton established MIT\u2019s first chemical engineering program. \u00a0It\u2019s not hard to imagine this young group of chemical engineers perhaps using their labs after hours, carefully following the authors\u2019 directions for preparing both the silver solution and the albumenized paper necessary for producing silver prints. But the authors\u2019 preface suggests that not every photographer believed in their espoused process. \u00a0\u201cThe one defect of silver printing,\u201d they write, \u201cis the possibility of its results fading; but surely it is better to be beautiful, if fading, than permanent and ugly. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":false,"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4152,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions\/4152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/150books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}