Philip Henry Delamotte

Philip Henry Delamotte (born April 21, 1821 in Sandhurst , † February 24, 1889 in Bromley , Kent ) was a British photographer , painter and illustrator .

life and work

Delamotte was born in 1821 at the Royal Military College Sandhurst , the son of William Alfred Delamotte , a drawing teacher of French ancestry . Like his two brothers, he was a talented illustrator and engraver .

From 1855 to 1887 he taught as a professor of drawing and perspective at King's College London and took photographic trips in Yorkshire with his friend, photographer and editor Joseph Cundall .

technology

Delamotte was an established photographer as early as the late 1840s who mastered the technique of the collodion process and offered both portrait photography and prints . He apparently had permission from Talbot to work with the invention of the calotype , an early negative process , which he patented in 1841 . The permanent negative offered the possibility of producing any number of prints, and it was a revolution in the technique of photography.

In 1853 he published a photographic handbook, The Practice of Photography , in which he went into detail on the photographic processes of Talbot, Gustave Le Gray , Joseph Cundall, Hugh Welch Diamond and others.

In 1856, his friend John Dillwyn Llewelyn invented the Oxymel process , which Delamotte brought to the public. The innovation was that after the collodion process, another step was added, namely a bath in Oxymel, an emulsion made from honey and vinegar. This treatment of the photographic plates made the negatives less sensitive and made it possible to dry coat the plates in advance, take them with you and then expose them instead of making the plates on site and exposing them wet, as was usual.

subjects

Image of the Crystal Palace by Delamotte (1854)

Glass fountain inside the Crystal Palace by Philip Henry Delamotte, 1851

Delamotte was one of the first photographers to devote himself to the systematic documentation of public infrastructure. Bridges, railways, public buildings and squares were his primary motifs.

In 1851 the world exhibition took place in London , for which the Crystal Palace was built in Hyde Park . The success was so great that the structure, consisting of iron bars and glass segments and built using the then revolutionary modular construction method , was moved to Sydenham in the County of London and reopened in 1854.

Philip Henry Delamotte was hired after the World's Fair to document the construction of the Crystal Palace in Sydenham from 1851 to 1854. A year after the glass building was reopened, Delamotte, with the help of his friend Cundall, published the documentation in the book Photographic Views of the Progress of the Crystal Palace, Sydenham .

In 1977 his photographic works were shown at documenta 6 in Kassel in the 150 Years of Photography department .

Publications

• The Practice of Photography. 1853 (Reprint: Arno Press, New York 1973, ISBN 0-405-04903-X ).
• The Oxymel Process in Photography. 1856 ( archive.org ).
• Photographic Views of the Progress of the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. With 160 photographs, 1855.

literature

• Delamotte, Philipp Henry . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 8 : Coutan-Delattre . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1912, p. 584 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Ian Leith: Delamotte's Crystal Palace. A Victorian pleasure dome revealed. English Heritage, Swindon 2005, ISBN 1-85074-949-3 .

Web links

Commons : Philip Henry Delamotte  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Luminous Lint. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
2. ↑ John Hannavy: Dating AU Accessed on May 26, 2013.
3. ↑ Masters of Photography , accessed May 26, 2013.
4. ^ English Heritage. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
5. ↑ Darkestroom: Philip Henry Delamotte ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 26, 2013.