Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1897-08-18
PHOTOGRAPHERS AND DUST.
How 10 Affects Thsir Plates And whaa
 They Do to Escape IG

Among the many evils which are attributed to the all peryading. never to be escaped city dust there Is one which constitutes a grievance peculiar to photographers alone IL is the injury which the flying par ticles, eifting into tho room through every possible aperture. cause to the delicate films and sensitive plates. All dlms are made of prep arations of gelatin, and a large proportion of the glass plates now used are also coated with this sub stance. which, because of its soft, sticky nature. Is particularly likely to attract every atom of dust in the surrounding air. The particles. however small. leave their impress tnSthe form of opaque spots upon the sensitive surface and seriously mar its perfection. To remove the damage. a great amount of retOuch. ing is necessary. which Is not only laborious and tiresoma but which cannot always be satisfactorily &C., complished if the dust is very thick
 What Is known as the "carbon proc ess" in photography Is probably more easily injured by dust than any other, because an extremely delicate film of gelatin Is used. Chiefly on account of this drawback the carbon process is seldom em- ployed in this country. although photographs are made which resem ble tho resl carbon pictures so close- ly in color that they are called "car- bontypes. In England, where the carbon process is more common, II has become customary for London photographers to send their devel- oping work out of town to be done, in order to escape the dust and smoke of the city, but this practice has not gained much ground here.
 The photographers in this city, as a rule. perform all their operations in the same building in which theii studios are situated, and, for the sake of thus keeping the developing process at home. they are obliged to be at great trouble in protecting it Some of the methods employed for this purpose were mentioned to a reporter the other day by 6 well known Broadway artist
 ''In the firat place, !" he said, "we not only keep our darkroom itself. but the whole top floor in which it Is situated. spotlessly clean. The floors are all oiled until there is not a crack in their surface to haTbOr dust. and they are thoroughly washed every morning before we begin our days work. All the ta- bles. trays and everything we uss are kept equally clean The win dows. instead of being in the sldc walls, whore the wind would strike them and bear the dust in with it, are in the roof. and very little dust can come in that way. All cracks in the doors or around the window frames are stopped up and we keel the darkroom tightly closed as much of the time as possible. With these precautions. we manage to get along pretty we'll. but a certain. quantity of dust seems bound to creep in, and it causes us a goOd many hours of extra work in re touching."
 Practically the same struggle against dust is the experience oi every photographer in the city. Onc remedy which has been tried occa siOnally with success consists in i'll ing the room in which the plates are kept with steam for a few mo ments each morning. This usually suffices to lay the dust for the entire | day.-New York Tribune.