The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1911-07-14
Professor Nz2Zza17 D1aoeC


Morse, there was taken in 1889
the first photograph Of the human
face The photograph was that OF
Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper, and
the man who took it was her brother,
DR.. John William Draper, professor
of chemistry in the university. He
had gone step beyond Daguerre and
by this photograph he established him
self Is one of the great inventors OF
the nineteenth century.
Not long ago occurred the hundredth
anniversary of Doctor Diapers birth
and it was celebrated. in the auditori-
UNI of the university at AQueduct ave-
nue. and One Hundred and Eighty-first
street.
1t was on the roof of the old build
Ing on Washington place that there
was set up. in 1910, the first photo
graph gallery in the world To this gal
lery there came to be amazed and de-
lighted all the notables of the day, in
GLIDING Theodore Frelinghuysen, the
candidate for vice-president on the
Henry Clay ticket.
Professor Draper took the pictures.
His camera was cigar box and his
tense the glass from a pair of spec
this gallery. the man who posed the
,sitters and attended to the artistic de-
tails, was Prof s. F. B. Morse. who
only five years before and in the same
building had operated the first tele-
graph line.
were developed by Professor Draper,
for 1t was his experiments in regard
to the chemical action of light that
had enabled him to improve the proc
ess Of Daguerre almost as soon as the
1atter's discovery was made known.
1t was in 1889 that Daguerre gave his
process to the world, but it was not
then adaptable to landscapes or por-
traits. In the same year Professor
Draper announced that he had found
the way to photograph the human face
and to overcome those obstacles which
made the Frenchman's process imper-
feet and impractical.
which Doctor Draper gave at this time
for taking photograph are interest
ing. At first, he said, he had tried
busting the face of sister with white
powder, but he later found that this
was unnecessary. On a bright day
and with a sensitive plate, he an.
nounced, portraits could be obtained
In the course of five or seven minutes.
"The hands of the sitter" he said
IN these directions to the camera
hends OF that day. Should never rest
upon the chest, for the motion of res
piration disturbs them so much as ia
make them Of thick and clumsy an.
pearance. destroying also the repre-
sentation of the veins on the back
which, II they are held motionless. are
copied with surprising beauty.
A person dressed in a black coat
and open waistcoat of the same colo,
must put on temporary front of 8
drab or flesh color or by the time that
his face and the fine shadows of his
wooden clothing are evolved his shir,
will be solarized and will be blue ant
black with white halo around it.
Owing to the circumstances tina,
yellow and yellowish browns reouir,
long time to impress the substanc,
OF the daguerrotype. persons who's,
faces are freckled all over give rise t,
the most ludicrous results. whit,
portrait mottled with Just as man,
black dots as the sitter has yellow
ones"
On March %. 1910. Doctor Drape
took from the roof OF the building til
first photograph ever taken Of tn
moon. His plate was exposed 90 mir
utes and the image was about an inc
In diameter. The photograph was prt
scented to what was then the Lyceur
OF Natural History II created q gres
sensation at the time. not only her
but abroad. Daguerre's name wa