Wichita eagle., 1889-08-25
OUR NEW YORK LETTER.
IMPORTANCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN
THE BUSINESS OF LIFE.

! iiHTOh AWE OF FhO iO0hHfHr in
THE BUSINESS OF LIFE.
Many Thousands of People Make Their
Living by Means Of 1t, and Many Mil
lions of Dollars Are Invested IL TIRE
| producing Books-Detective Work.
Especial Correspondence
New YORK, Aug There are over sc, 900
persons in the United States and Canada who
make living out Of photography, and the
| capital invested in the various branches OF
its application and in the production and i'm
portation of materials for it is, at a low COM
putation, over twenty million dollars. This
is exclusive Of the additional large invest
nent By amateurs. And the business, in
every department, is steadily and rapidly in
creasing from year to year. 1t is estimated
that not less than half million dollars are
expended annually in New York alone for
| photographs for private, commercial and IL
Illustrative purposes. 1t may be possible to
obtain by simple reorganization Of the vari-
GUS divisions of that army of workers some
adequate idea Of how scattered and diversi-
fled are the connected interests involved.
graphic material houses, which manufacture
and import the manifold requisites of the art.
The principal ones are in New York, but
.hers are many scattered in all the other
cities and most of the large towns of the
Union, and each necessarily employs a large
force of assistants Photographers chemi-
Gals, including acids, nitrate of silver, gun
cotton, collodion, magnesium and a thou
sand other things, are in sufficiently constant
demand to keep several large manufacturing
concerns busy exclusively on them Then
there are several large factories for the max
ing of gelatine dry plates, each using up an
aually many tons of glass-mostly imported
thousands Of pounds of French or Swiss
gelatine and hundreds of pounds Of nitrate Of
silver. The apparatus makers are legion
In themselves, and the variety OF cameras,
camera stands, posing chairs, printing
frames, etc, that they produce is almost end
less And the machinists, who are all the
time getting up new tangled burnishers,
lamps rollers, etc, are another legion. There
are not so many opticians engaged in making
lenses for photographers cameras-special
lenses for portraiture, for architectural work,
for copying, for landscapes and what not else
but considering the noise they make, there
are quite enough of them.
The albuminizers of imported paper-many
thousands of reams of which are used annu-
ally; the makers Of ''gelatino bromide of
of silver paper" which is coated in great
rolls, thirty inches wide and of any length
desired, and OF which enormous guam
titles are annually consumed; the photo
graphic cardboard factories and those that
make a speciality Of the iron plates used in
taking ''ferrotypes;" the transparent cellu-
loid film makers, whose product threatens to
supersede glass for many uses to which dry
plates are applied; the scenic artists who
paint backgrounds and "set pieces" for pho
tographic galleries-all these, and many more
of minor Importance, belong to the grand
army who simply make things ready for
others to use. Next follow the thousands
who live by the utilization of those materials,
first among whom, of course, is the profess
sional photographer, the chap who takes
your picture while you wait"-and finishes 1t
up at his own sweet leisure. He has to have
his staff of special experts for private and
commercial work, in and out door work,
operators, retouchers, printers, mounters, etc
The photo-engravers and photo-lithogra-
piers are respectively numerous bodies and as
the demand for their work is constantly in
creasing, SO are their numbers Not so abun-
dant, but prominent by their artistic stand
ing, are the photo-gravure or photo-mechani-
cal printers. The makers of photographs
upon wood for engravers; upon porcelain, for
decorative purposes; upon watch dials, for
rashly imprudent lovers; upon magic lantern
slides, for advertising and political uses; upon
cards, with ghostly backgrounds for credu-
louS spritualists; and a thousand other prac-
teal applications Of the art in every day life,
are host in themselves. And beyond them
are the chaps who do nothing but reproduce
pictures of actors and actresSes-of which
from &, 1000 to 100000 are sold annually in
this country-and of statesmen and prize
fighters, who alike sell in greater or lesser
numbers according as they are, or are not, on
the winning side. The makers of stereoscope
pictures, in which there is good steady
trade, must not be forgotten. And the stats
of the five journals of photography published
in this country, all erudite and brilliant
should not be missed from tho list. Every
reader will readily comprehend that there are
very many more trades indirectly dependent
upon the several industries enumerated, such
as the makers Of zinc and copper plates, the
electricians and the album makers, that might
justly be included among those to whom pho
Biography is bread winner, but the list is
already long enough to be sufficiently indica-
tive
The great interest, commercially, is in
photo-engraving, which is rapidly suppressed
ing wood engraving for the illustration Of
books, magazines and newspapers 1t is q very
simple and, comparatively, an exceedingly
cheap process, which produces admirable re-
suits 4 picture is sun printed from q mega
tive upon the bicEromated gelatine coating
of q metal plate. 1t ia then linked over. The
ink adheres to the portions where the light
has acted and which are to be relief, while it
readily washes off, with the underlying gela-
tine, from the rest of the surface. Acid bites
down the exposed metal and leaves untouched
the parts protected by the ink, making d
plate in sufficient relief for power press print
ing. from which duplicates are readily made
either by cast or electric deposit.
Another use for photography that has late
~ come into prominence is in the reproduc-
ton of printed books, page by page, in gela-
tine plates fit for printing from. Il is q
simple process and cheap. enabling the re-
printing here of costly foreign works at
prices far less than would be otherwise pos
sible. For instance, a page of the "Encyelo-
p9edia Britannica" that must have cost about
ST originally for composition, being all fine
rule and figure work. can be reproduced in
this way, at profit, for fifty cents
Artistic photo-mechanical printing is yet
in process Of evolution. although there are
several methods of 1t, for each Of which per
lection is claimed Some of them produce
superb work, but are sill too delicate and
slow 70 be available for the Illustration OF
any but very costly books and the expensive
rnr,r-.it,L,.tn--s oS u-o-l-S ~ Il l. b.