Glossary of Terms
Photography
Photography: The art of recording images by capturing light on surfaces sensitized by a chemical process or by digital means.
Albumen Print: An albumen print is created by the process developed by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard in 1850, which uses egg whites and photographic chemicals to produce a print on paper from a negative.
Autochrome: Autochrome refers to the colour “screen-plate” process developed by the Lumière brothers in 1903. It was the principal colour photography process until it was replaced by colour film in the mid-1930s.
Calotype: A calotype is a photomechanical method for reproducing photographic images. While it is no longer practiced as a commercial process, it was considered the height of fine art photography beginning in the 1970s.
Carbon Print: First produced in 1864 by Joseph Wilson Swan, a carbon print is a photographic print created by immersing a carbon tissue in a solution of potassium bichromate, carbon, gelatin and a colouring agent.
C-Print: Developed in 1930, the c-print is the most universal type of colour photograph, created using at least three emulsion layers of light sensitive silver salts. Each layer is sensitized to a specific primary colour. As a result, each layer records different information for the colour make up of an image.
Collodion Negative: A collodion negative is produced by the colourless, high quality duplication process developed by Frederick Scott Archer and Gustave Le Grey in 1850.
Cyanotype: Cyanotype is an older printing method which uses a monochrome photographic process to produce a cyan-blue print.
Daguerreotype: The Daguerreotype was the first commercial photographic process. Named for Louis-Jacques Monde Daguerre, it is a positive print on a light-sensitive copper plate.
Digital print: Digital photography refers to electronically captured images composed of digital values, or pixels. Iris prints, giclee prints, and digital archival prints are three examples of popular digital printing methods.
Dye Destruction Print: Dye destruction prints are characterized by their vibrant colour. These prints are created using three emulsion layers, each one specifically sensitized to a different primary colour and containing a dye relevant to that colour. During the process, different information is recorded from each layer creating the final image in which three layers are perceived as one.
Dye Transfer Print: Dye transfer prints are created from three separate negatives by photographing the original negative through red, green, and blue filters. The result is a richly coloured image on gelatin coated paper.
Montage / Photomontage: This term refers to a single image formed from assembling many existing images such as photographs or prints.
Photogenic Drawing: Photogenic drawing was the first cameraless photographic process, discovered by William Fox Talbot in 1839. Talbot used a high quality sheet of paper which was immersed in a solution of table salt. After the paper dried, he brushed it with silver nitrate creating a light sensitive surface and placed small objects such as leaves and lace on the paper. The result was a light image of the object against a dark background, or a negative image.
Photogram: This process, created without the use of a camera, records photo-sensitive material by exposing it to light. Similar to an X-ray, the final image records silhouetted images on photographic paper.
Photogravure: Developed in the 1830s by Henry Fox Talbot, photogravure, the intaglio printmaking process, produces images from a flat, etched copper plate.
Platinum Print: Created in 1873 by William Willis, platinum prints utilize the light sensitivity of iron salts to produce an image. During the developing process, chemical reactions dissolve the iron salts and replace them with platinum. Platinum prints were extremely popular until the 1920s when the price of platinum rose and became too expensive. They are valued for their range of tonal variations and permanence.
Polaroid: Polaroid refers to the synthetic plastic sheet used to polarize light, typically associated with the instant camera and self-developing film.
Salt Print: The earliest form of photographic positive paper, salt prints were the most common print type until the invention of the albumen. Developed in 1840 by William Fox Talbot, they were created by soaking a sheet of paper in a salt solution and coating it with silver nitrate. This created a light sensitive paper which typically produced sepia prints with a matte surface.
Silver Print: Silver prints are created by the most common method for producing black and white prints in photography. These prints are generated using papers coated with gelatin that contain light-sensitive silver salts. By 1895, the Gelatin-silver print had replaced the Albumen print, because it did not yellow with age and was easier to produce.
Woodburytype: The term woodburytype refers to the photomechanical process in which continuous tone is created in slight relief. In this process, a gelatin film is exposed under a photographic negative and hardened according to the amount of light. The film is then placed in hot water removing all unexposed gelatin, dried, and pressed into a sheet of lead. As a result, an intaglio plate is created, filled with pigmented gelatin, and pressed onto paper producing a final image.