The Civil War, Tinted

I haven't had a people of the civil war post in a long time, which is a shame as the photographs are striking to look at and started me into this blog in the first place. Fortunately I got sucked into the Library of Congress's collection for a few hours today (when I should have been studying for a photo history exam, ironically), so I have rather a lot of material now to draw from! Expect more of this in the coming months. 

Today's theme: hand-tinting. People were crazy about photography right away, but sad it didn't yet come in colour. So a market sprung up for the tinting of photographs with paints, aided by the fact that photography put many former painters of miniatures out of work. They tinted daguerreotypes (like this one), and when they moved on to tintypes, ambrotypes, and glass negative-paper photography, they tinted those even more. You almost always see some degree of tinting in ambrotypes and higher-end tintypes, especially the cheeks. Jewellery and buttons are also often painted with gold. (just glance through this post of civil war portraits!). However, it didn't always stop there. Parts of clothing, all the clothing, parts of the backdrop, tablecloths... all were potentially coloured. Sometimes this is a nice effect. Sometime it's.... not. (Though, granted, sometimes the different rates of deterioration in the imaging substance and the paints means the colour looks more drastic today than it did originally. Sometimes, though, it was just flat out badly done).

Portraits were done very widely in the civil war, as ambrotypes and tintypes, and there was a similar wide variety of tinting going on.

From the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress

A Confederate captain. Ambrotype. Source

Library of Congress

Union soldier with bayoneted musket. Ambrotype. Source

Library of Congress

Unidentified Confederate soldier. Ambrotype. Source

Library of Congress

Union soldier. Ambrotype. Source

Library of Congress

Soldier in Confederate 2nd Lieutenant's uniform. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Union soldier.  Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Union soldier. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Illinois soldier. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Tinting to make you cringe. Two unidentified Union sailors. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Union soldier. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Mary Bannister, wife of Private George H. Bannister. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Sergeant Robert Black and Private Herman Beckman. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Soldier in Union artillery uniform. Ambrotype. Source

Library of Congress

Solder in Union 2nd Lieutenant's uniform. Tintype. Source

Library of Congress

Confederate soldier. Source

Library of Congress

Private William B.  Haberlin of the Pennsylvania Light Artillery. Source

The Photographer Photographed

People's pictures of people taking pictures

 Gjon Mili, LIFE © Time Inc.

Composer Darius Milhaud taking a photo of photographer Gjon Mili, San Francisco, 1957. Source

Library of Congress. 

A little girl photographing her doll, c.1917. Source

State Library and Archives of Florida

Photographers taking pictures of a model, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, 1946. Source

Library of Congress

Frances Benjamin Johnson photographing on a balcony, cyanotype, 1888. Source

Library of Congress

A crowd around the camera of Frances Benjamin Johnson, 1890-1910. Source

John Dominis, LIFE © Time Inc.

A cop taking a quick shot of Dwight Eisenhower as he boards a plane, Houston, 1952. Source

Library of Congress

G. Eric Matson photographing in Petra, 1934. Source

Frances Benjamin Johnson, Library of Congress

Women being photographed, c. 1890, cyanotype. Source

Library of Congress

A photographer taking a picture of Wilbur Wright (left), Pau, France, 1909. Source

State Library and Archives of Florida

A photographer amidst mounds of oyster shells, Apalachicola, Florida, 1895. Source

Ralph Morse, LIFE © Time Inc.

LIFE photographer Andreas Feiniger with a (homemade!) camera, 1941. Source

Library of Congress

Kodak girl, c. 1909. Source

Nationaal Archief

A photographer on the beach, the Netherlands, c. 1930. Source

Library of Congress

FSA photographer Dorothea Lange (taker of this famous photograph), on a car with her camera, California, 1936. Source

Ben Shahn, FSA, Library of Congress

An itinerant photographer in Columbus, Ohio, 1838. Source

LIFE © Time Inc.

Elaine Anderson, with her husband John Steinbeck, taking a picture with her Rolliflex on holiday in Venice, 1947. Source

George N. Barnard, Library of Congress

A more subtle one. In the upper left, on the parapet, photographer Samuel Cooley photographing a soldier. Fort Sumter, Charleston, North Carolina, 1865. Source

Larry Burrows © Time Inc.

A young woman with a baby snapping a shot, Japan, 1966. Source

Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Archives

American soldiers having a picture taken, c. 1918. Source

Esther Bubley, OWI, Library of Congress

A woman photographing the wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington, Virginia, 1943. Source

Nationaal Archief

A press photographer on a mooring photographing the visit of the French president, Amsterdam, 1911. Source

Library of Congress

Photographers photographing the cherry blossoms in Washington DC, 1922. Source

Library of Congress

Men taking each other's pictures on a roof, 1909-1932. Source

More Life in Early Colour

I am off to George Eastman House today to look at early colour photographs, so it seemed like a good time to have another set of them here. These are autochromes, the first commercially viable means of photographing colour. Soon I hope to go back and add more information about processes and photographers to these posts, but for now, an autochrome is a colour positive on a glass slide, commerically produced from 1907-1932. And they're lovely. 

If you missed the earlier autochrome posts: The Art of Early Colour, Life in Early Colour, and World War One in Colour Part One and Two. 

Mostly from the George Eastman House, though a few from the Bibliotheque de Toulouse, and one each from the Swedish National Heritage Board, and the State Library of New South Wales. See source links for specifics. 

State Library of New South Wales

Sisters, c. 1909, Killara, Australia. Source

George Eastman House

A nurse and child, c. 1907-1932, by Charles C. Zoller. Source

George Eastman House

Nurses and "Uncle Sam" at a WWI support parade, US, c. 1917, by Charles C. Zoller. Source

George Eastman House

Orchids, c. 1909, by Charles C. Zoller. Source

Bibliothèque de Toulouse

Flowers in a vase, c. 1903, by Eugene Trutat. Source

George Eastman House

Family group, c. 1915. Source

George Eastman House

Arnett YMCA, USA, 1907-1932. Source

George Eastman House

Native American man, c. 1910, by Mrs. Benjamin F. Russell. Source

George Eastman House

Woman in a throne, c. 1915. Source

Swedish National Heritage Board

Villa Bonnier, Stockholm, c. 1930. Source

George Eastman House

Louis Lumiere, of the Lumiere brothers, inventors, film innovators, and creators of the autochrome itself. c. 1910. Source

George Eastman House

Woman with a crazy pinecone-feather hat, c. 1910. Source

Bibliothèque de Toulouse

Street and castle view, Foix, France, c. 1903, by Eugene Trutat. Source

Bibliothèque de Toulouse

View of a snowy mountain, France, c. 1903 (?), by Eugene Trutat. Source

George Eastman House

Women under a tree, c. 1915. Source

George Eastman House

A stereograph autochrome of a woman, c. 1915. Source