Glass Plate Negatives from the 1900's

[alexvaras]

I'm not at all certain that they are beyond Jason Lane's Pictoriographica (and now from a young man in Slovenia, operating under the "Lost Light" brand), and these are all hand-coated. Kodak for sure and Ilford I think continued to sell them for scientific purposes through the 90s, not sure how far past that they went. The boxes of commercial plates I have are all NOS; mine date from the 50s, I believe, and are rather fogged.

Robert

Now that you mention him, I contribute with small amount every month to his huge efforts and develoments in photo and plates, he did his own laboratory from a container and I was really impressed, when I saw he started to coat his own plates I began supporting him, it's very nice to see so young (under 30) people doing this stuff, he started to sell the plates and it's a good option for EU since the mail from States is getting really expensive and as I see in internet it's equally good to JL Plates ones, sadly I had a bad experience with the shipping with JL Plates and I still have some Ilford FP4 before going to ortho.

[Brazile]

Yes, I've followed Nejc for a while and I wish him all success. I tend to be a believer in local production in general; both for environmental reasons and because it's more resilient in these uncertain times. Jason's done very well and I've supported him in various ways (including the fact that recent batches of his plates have likely been dried in a drying box I built for him last year) but there's plenty of room for others, including people making their own!

And now I've thoroughly hijacked Graham's thread, so I'll try to drag it back to his topic with some more glass plate negatives from the 1900s:

First, a family shot from a box marked only, "Florida":


FF-055, Family portrait by Robert Brazile, on Flickr

Next up, a bronzed traffic cop (remember: the first plates were sensitive to blue light only, so he must have been quite ruddy!) in what I've determined to be Quincy center (Massachusetts, just south of Boston).


FF-030, Traffic cop, Quincy First Parish church by Robert Brazile, on Flickr

A seaside holiday (or perhaps lakeside: other plates in the box with it give hints that it might possibly be one of the Great Lakes):


FF-008, At the beach, early 20th century by Robert Brazile, on Flickr

And, lastly, a speech being given from the back of the Old State House (dates to colonial times) in Boston, guessing 1920s, but could be earlier:


FF-031, Old State House speech by Robert Brazile, on Flickr

Robert

[GrahamS]

And now I've thoroughly hijacked Graham's thread, so I'll try to drag it back to his topic with some more glass plate negatives from the 1900s:

Robert

I don't mind at all, Robert. In fact I welcome your contributions, which are very enlightening. In the first image, the family appear to be quite wealthy. Their dress is of good quality and very fashionable and the man is wearing a timepiece on a (gold?) chain - all signs of upper middle class. The Signage in the second image is amusing. "Go to (the) right" and not "Keep Right!" as would be the case today - so polite. In the swimming scene, all of the people are wearing Victorian swimming dress - can you imagine how uncomfortable it must have been to swim in a full skirt? It may be my imagination, but the "wife" in the first image may be the same woman as in the swimming image - the one in the dark swim dress. The image quality is amazing - I would be more than delighted if I could achieve similar quality today from digital cameras, but I don't think that I could.