Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/625



E propose to show in this article some instances of the wonderful things which have of late been done in the direction of quick photography; but with the object of correcting the popular notion that "instantaneous" photography, as it is usual to call it, is entirely a production of the last ten years or so, we reproduce first a view of New York harbour, with vessels in full motion, taken by Mr. Werge, now of Berners-street, so far back as 1854. The original was a daguerreotype—a product of that beautiful process just then giving way before the newly-invented collodionised plate of Scott Archer. The art of the daguerreotypist is now almost lost, Mr. Werge being, with perhaps a single exception, its only living exponent. It was a careful, laborious, but very beautiful process, and, in regard to permanency, absolutely a different thing from the fugitive silver-printing which pleases us to-day. The labour and skill involved are difficult things to be understood by the slap-dash photographic amateur of these times; but as to the beauty and permanence of the results—one has only to inspect the specimens still in the possession of Mr. Werge, with their delicate gradations of tone, just as they were forty years ago, to acknowledge modern decadence in these respects. The picture here copied was taken with a simple and rather clumsy wooden drop-shutter, of Mr. Werge's own manufacture, used in front of the lens, and none of the elaborate machinery available now.

The fact being understood that instantaneous photographs are not altogether new things, the further fact must be admitted that during the later years of the reign of the dry plates great things have been done in carrying this quick work nearer perfection, and the apparatus and material now available render possible feats startling enough to bring good Monsieur Daguerre from his grave. To photograph a bird actually upon the wing is an achievement to the point of which neither he nor any of his early fellow-labourers upon sunlight brought his work. Nevertheless, we print a reproduction of such a photograph on this very sheet of paper. The picture is the work of Herr Ottomar Anschütz, of Lissa, in Prussia, a gentleman who has carried instantaneous photography to its furthest at present. The stork as he appears leaving his nest is not imposing as a model of winged grace, and exhibits a curious humped and headless appearance which no artist would dare to give him on canvas. This, indeed, is one of the great aims of this quick work; it gives us surprising evidence as to the real