Color Photography in the 19th Century and Early 20th Century: Sciences, Technologies, Empires

Whether Mechanical Mimesis: A Sensitometric look at Colour Photography in the 19th century.
Presenter: Rahul Sharma
This presentation aims to be a provocation for theoretical discussion on the notion of mimesis and referentiality in colour photography in the 19th century. To this end, I will present a brief summary of constraints colour reproduction faced in the 19th century (and still faces today) from a colour science and sensitometric perspective. To do so, I will use examples like Photochrom (Aäc) process, and Maxwell’s Tartan Ribbon, and compare them with hand painted photographs.
Here, Photochrom is a colour photolithographic process that could generate colour prints from single black and white negatives. Maxwell’s Tartan Ribbon was a demonstration carried out in 1861, wherein a tartan ribbon was photographed in three monochrome plates using Red, Green, and Blue colour filters; and the resultant positive images projected together to create the world’s first three colour image.
I will argue that colour in photographs as a mechanistic process, approached (and still does) absolute fidelity asymptotically. This is due to technical constraints still being resolved to date.  Rather, any semblance of colouristic ‘reality’ in most 19th century photographs was a result of considerable manipulation by the practitioner. I will further contend that the extent of the manipulation is such that there exist close parallels between three colour prints, and hand-painted photographs.
 
Rahul Sharma is a graduate of the program in photograph conservation from University of Amsterdam, and the conservation program of the National Museum Institute, New Delhi, specializing in technical imaging. In addition to his conservation practice, Sharma is a practicing darkroom printer.
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Suggested readings:

• Arthur von Hübl, Three Colour Printing and Production of Photographic Pigment Pictures in Natural Colours (https://archive.org/details/threecolourphoto00hbrich)
• E.J. Wall, History of Three Colour Photography, Ch. 1, 10, 11. (https://archive.org/details/historyofthreeco00ejwa)
• R.M. Evans, Some Notes on Maxwell’s Colour Photographs (https://www.aic-color.org/resources/Documents/preaic1961maxwell-evans.pdf)
• R.W.G. Hunt, The Reproduction of Colours, Ch. 1, 2, 4, 7.(Ch. 7 might be a bit technical, but I would recommend skipping the math and parsing it as prose.) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dkYghUfWnal3LY8ASSKngGVJ-af-kH9x/view?usp=share_link)

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Target audience: Newcomers to the research on color photography circa 1900, PhD students, curators, conservators, established researchers.

HOLIDAY SPECIAL: Focus Sessions, Q&A, & Social Gathering!
In order to kiss 2022 goodbye and to go into the new year filled with optimism, joy, and color photography inspiration, Janine and Hanin have prepared December special just for you! This informal session will be organized as follows:
1. Janine Freeston: "Women Making Color Photographs" (15 + minutes)
Who are the women who produced color photographs? How did they contribute to the nascent trichromatic color photography processes at the turn of the last century? Are there more of them languishing in archives who have yet to be fully appreciated and how scholars uncover it?  As the history of photography continues to evolve in its appreciation of women photographers, the substantial significance that women contributors made to color photography requires consolidation, such as Angelina Acland, Agnes Warburg, Violet Blaiklock, Marjory T. Hardcastle and Olive Edis to name a few. This talk highlights women working on unresolved color processes that demanded more technical, scientific and methodological prowess than that required from their counterparts working in monochrome. For example, some processes lacked chromatic fidelity, and yet a cohort of experimenting highly skilled photographers, a significant number of whom were women, persevered to offer numerous nuanced improvements that had evolved through their practical experiences or supplied work that supported the commercial potential that color photography presented.
I hope to appeal to members of this working group to interrogate their own resources and work together in amassing geographical, technical and biographical findings from the locations they are familiar with to provide a cogent and geographically balanced historical perspective highlighting the means and methods of contributions made by women beyond the exhibition of images. 
2. Looking backwards/looking forwards: 2023 schedule aka what we have in store for you! (10 minutes)
3. For you
The rest of our time together during this session will be spent socializing, asking questions, discussing in break-out rooms in a relaxed setting whilst Hanin tells her jokes. Why? Because we would love to get to know each and every one of you better and continue building our color photography community. This has been an beautiful journey for us and we are thrilled to be heading to 2023 together with you. Feel free to invite your friends and colleagues to join. Pets are also welcome. We love seeing them on camera!
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Target audience: Gender Studies, History of Science, History of Physics, Group Members, Interested Parties.

Colour Empires of Prokudin-Gorskii
Presenter: Nadezhda Stanulevich
During the presentation, we will consider facts about colour photographs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii and his activity in Russia and France. We will look at the scientific career of a famous photographer, as well as questions around the identification of Prokudin-Gorskii's photographs, concreting types of photographic materials like negatives and slides, prints, postcards, etc. We will reference different Russian State and private collections. Moving to the colour prints of the French period will allow you to look at the work of the photographer and his family more than through the prism of Russian imperialism.
 
Nadezhda Stanulevich is a photo historian. She defended her Candidate of Science dissertation entitled Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii and his contribution to the development of colour photography in 2019. Most of her peer-reviewed articles focus on the history of photographic techniques, cultural aspects of photography at the beginning of the 20th century or museums photo collections. Since September 2019, she has been a Researcher at Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera).
 
Target audience: Russian Studies scholars & enthusiasts, French studies scholars & enthusiasts, three-color photography scholars, curators.
 
The resource made available for you is Nadezhda Stanulevich's published article "Prokudin-Gorskii’s technique of colour photography: colour separation, additive projection and pigment printing".

**Note Special Time**
Tuesday, October 18, 2022 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm BST
Presenters: Catlin Langford 
Talk Title: Autochromes and Representation
Please refer to the resource section for reading material. 
In this session, we will consider ideas around autochromes and representation. We will look at means of representing the unique materiality of autochromes, as well as questions around the representation and exploration of the process through the lens of colonialism, imperialism, and ethics, reflecting on accessibility, exposure, interpretation, and learning. We will initially reference the V&A’s collection of over 2,500 autochromes, noting recent activities to explore, catalogue, publish and exhibit this collection, before moving to the collections of the National Geographic and Albert- Kahn Museum, the latter having recently reopened in Paris following extensive renovations.    
 
Target audience: Newcomers to the research on color photography circa 1900, PhD students, curators, conservators, established researchers.
 
Reading material:
Doug Peterson, ‘Preserving the National Geographic Society’s Autochrome Collection’, Digital Transitions Heritage, 11 March 2019, https://heritage-digitaltransitions.com/preserving-the-national-geographic-societys-autochrome-collection/
 
Kjetil Ansgar Jakobsen and Milena Nikolova, ‘The Kahn Archive: A Visual Memory That Is Truly Comopolitan?’, in Cosmopolitics of the Camera: Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet, Intellect, 2020 (pages: 155-77) https://nordopen.nord.no/nord-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2688900/Jakobsen.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y
Suggested further reading:
Brian Hochman, Savage Preservation: The Ethnographic Origins of Modern Media Technology, University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
 
Please note that the reading material "Colour Mania" written by Catlin Langford has been posted for the purpose of study and should not be transmitted to third parties without the consent of the author.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Researching Color Photography in the 19th & early 20th Century Today: Reflections on History, Science, and Materiality
 
Presenters: Janine Freeston + Dr. Hanin Hannouch 
Please refer to the resource section for reading material. 
 
The co-conveners of this working group Janine Freeston and Dr. Hanin Hannouch introduce color photography circa 1900 as a nascent field of inquiry. Moreover, they will present key research questions about it and avenues to consider when delving into the numerous technologies which the term “color photography” encompasses, as well as the historical complexity out of which these processes emerged. They will also address the interrelatedness of color photographies and other media that were necessary to the creation and dissemination of knowledge about them during European imperialism. 
For example, can we really speak of “the first” color photograph and how is this fraught notion entangled with imperialism? How does the lack of chemical uniformity challenge the international history of certain color processes? How to formalize the relationship between color photography and other scientific disciplines and practices such as anthropology, spectrography, medicine etc.? How to integrate the research of scientists in the “Global South” about color photography, as well as the position of women and other marginalized groups? What role do the technical objects of color photography play in museum collections and in broadening the history of the medium?

Target audience: Newcomers to the research on color photography circa 1900, PhD students, curators, conservators, established researchers.