Photographic Section

Photographic Conversazione.
The photographic section of the Philosophical Institute which was formed as the Amateur Photographic Society five years ago, and now, under the fostering care of the Institute, has about a hundred members, held a very successful conversazione in Hobbs's Assembly Rooms last night. There was a large attendance of members and their lady friends, and the proceedings were opened by the President, Mr H. S. Webb, who briefly sketched the history of photography, which, he said, he had taken up as an amateur fifty years ago, though even he had to yield the palm as the oldest amateur photographer to another gentleman present, Mr B. W. Mountfort.
Each member had to hand in, as a ticket of membership, a lantern slide or photographic picture of his or her own production, and the very creditable slides so presented were shown by Mr Beardsley, with an oxy-hydrogen lantern.

Tea, coffee and other light refreshments were served in an ante-room, and a number of other slides prepared by various members were exhibited. There was also an admirable display of photographic work — negatives, enlargements and other prints, lantern slides and specimens of cameras and other appliances for the use of the photographer. One of the most interesting was a series of exhibits illustrating the use of photography in preparing by a "wash-out gelatine process" the matrices for producing the water-marks on paper, a method enormously more expeditious than the old plan of preparing a wire frame for the purpose.

Another exhibit of great interest illustrated the modern mode of photographic printing in natural colours, whereby, practically, three negatives are obtained for red, yellow and blue prints respectively, and then the picture is produced in natural colours by a process similar to ordinary colour-printing. Both these exhibits were the work of Professor Husnik, of Prague, and were shown by Mr I. von Gottfried. Mr Beardsley exhibited lantern slides of photographs of the human hand and foot, taken by the Rontgen process.

Star, Issue 5569, 19 May 1896, Page 1