CALOTYPE

CALOTYPE

At the same time as Daguerre, another inventor was working in England — Henry William Fox Talbot.

While traveling in Italy in 1823–1824 and admiring its landscapes, Talbot attempted to make sketches using a camera obscura, but without success. These failures led him to the idea of fixing the image produced by the camera obscura through chemical means.

Being well-educated in the field of chemistry, he began experimenting with fixing images using silver salts.

Talbot named his photographic process calotype (from the Greek kalos, meaning “beautiful”) and patented it in England in 1841.

“The sun, in Mr. Daguerre’s process, paints views upon silver… this is already something quite aristocratic… Mr. Talbot’s light-sensitive paper, however, is simple and inexpensive; working with it requires no great precautions, and its preparation is not particularly difficult…” — this is how Talbot’s supporters spoke of the advantages of the calotype process.

Biblioteka dlya chteniya, 1839, vol. 36, p. 7.

The main distinction was that Talbot’s method was based on a two-stage negative–positive process. This meant that photographs could be reproduced and multiplied.

Talbot carefully preserved his archive and donated more than 4,000 negatives to a scientific museum.

Interestingly, in the capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, it was the “Talbot drawings” that appeared earlier than the “Daguerre mirrors.”

Talbot was an outstanding inventor who made a major contribution to the history of photography: he was among the first to experiment with flash and artificial lighting, continuously improved the design of the camera and its components, and devoted the remainder of his life to unsuccessful attempts to obtain color photographic images.

Calotype remained in use until around 1855.

The Dillwyn Llewelyns

The Dillwyn Llewelyn family,  relatives of Henry Talbot, played an important role in popularizing photography both in Wales and throughout Great Britain. Their works and archives have been preserved in museum collections and are considered valuable evidence of the early stages of photographic development.

Some of the first subjects in Talbot’s photographs were plants. The technique was considered suitable, as contemporaries said, “for copying images of leaves and flowers with mathematical precision,” and the resulting images became scientific documents. This was especially valuable for traveling botanists, who could use photography to record their discoveries. Images of fauna are encountered less frequently. In the online exhibition, one can see several photograms by Linnaeus Tripe: a zoological study, enlarged views of a fly’s eye, and a spider’s leg.

Early photographic techniques were well suited for photographing objects and copying works of art. In a report to the Royal Society, Talbot noted:

“I have copied very fine and delicate engravings with numerous small figures, which were reproduced with great accuracy.”

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Last updated on 17.12.2025