When I was doing research in nineteenth century photography
some years ago as a graduate student at Yale, I recall reading of numerous
instances of photographers getting ill or even dying as a result of
experimenting with chemicals. These incidents would not be indexed in any
bibliographical source material, as they were mostly in the form of news
snippets of the trade as covered by the popular journals for the photography
profession published in the United States and Britain. I would suggest
perusing the news sections of any of these journals and you are bound to come up
with examples - just pick any year, especially from the 1850s to the 1870s which
were years ripe with experimentation. This of course would require some
perseverance and initiative on the part of the student who might prefer
resorting to the internet for an easy solution. I've mentioned this
before, but original research in primary sources is still the best approach -
the internet is only a possible starting point. One still needs to explore
the vast untapped resources of the library.
Many
photographers perished from accidentally setting fire to their studios the
result of experimenting with flammable chemicals. Early flash photography
was most hazardous - the flash was created with gunpowder, with often disastrous
results.
Raymond Smith / R.W. Smith
Bookseller
New
Haven
*********************
Hi. Does
anyone know of a nineteenth or early twentieth century photographer who became
ill as a result of using one of the processes or chemicals of that medium?
I have a student looking for the info. I've checked the art databases and
Google and got nowhere.
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