BY ARTHUR MORRISON. THE FIRST INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPH. E propose to show in this article some instances of the wonderful things which have of late been done in the direction of quick photography; but with the object of correcting the popular notion that "instantaneous" photography, as it is usual to call it, is entirely a production of the last ten years or so, we reproduce first a view of New York harbour, with vessels in full motion, taken by Mr. Werge, now of Berners-street, so far back as 1854. The original was a daguerreotype-a product of that beautiful process just then giving way before the newly-invented collodionised plate of Scott Archer. The art of the daguerreotypist is now almost lost, Mr. Werge being, with perhaps a single exception, its only living exponent. It was a careful, laborious, but very beautiful process, and, in regard to permanency, absolutely a different thing from the fugitive silver-printing which pleases us to-day. The labour and skill involved are difficult things to be understood by the slap-dash photographic amateur of these times; but as to the beauty and permanence of the results-one has only to inspect the specimens still in the possession of Mr. Werge, with their delicate gradations of tone, just as they were forty years ago, to acknowledge modern decadence in these respects. The picture here copied was taken with a simple and rather clumsy wooden drop-shutter, of Mr. Werge's own manufacture, used in front of the lens, and none of the elaborate machinery available now. The fact being understood that instantaneous photographs are not altogether new things, the further fact must be admitted that during the later years of the reign of the dry plates great things have been done in carrying this quick work nearer perfection, and the apparatus and material now available render possible feats startling enough to bring good Monsieur Daguerre from his grave. To photograph a bird actually upon the wing is an achievement to the point of which neither he nor any of his early fellow-labourers upon sunlight brought his work. Nevertheless, we print a reproduction of such a photograph on this very sheet of paper. The picture is the work of Herr Ottomar Anschütz, of Lissa, in Prussia, a gentleman who has carried instantaneous photography to its furthest at present. The stork as he appears leaving his nest is not imposing as a model of winged grace, and exhibits a curious humped and headless appearance which no artist would dare to give him on canvas. This, indeed, is one of the great aims of this quick work; it gives us surprising evidence as to the real By Ottomar Anschütz.] STORK LEAVING NEST. jumping. The second hound behind him seems likely to land at the foot instead of the top of the opposite bank, and no artist would have dared to draw his fore-feet so low in relation to the others, considering that he has only begun his jump. Observe also the little spirts of dust kicked up by the feet of the others. action of animals in motion, which the eye fails to follow. It has been of vast use to M. Marey, the great authority upon animal action, of whom more anon. Meanwhile, attention will not be wasted upon the fine English photograph of a flock of sea-gulls here represented. Considerably more than two hundred birds are to be seen in every imaginable flying attitude, and many swimming. The interesting picture of a pack of hounds, jumping and running, which we print, was taken with a blind shutter operating near the plate by Herr Anschütz. The positions of the animals as they are caught are interesting, and sometimes quaint. Observe the dog who is just landing from his jump. The fore half seems that of a dog standing quite still, and taking a leisurely look ahead; the hind half is DOG JUMPING. to spare, but is travelling at the rate of 19 yards a secondvery little less than forty miles an hour. The animals' forelegs seem jointless wooden stilts, and out of time with the hind legs altogether. A picture exhibited in the Royal Academy with horses galloping like these would be received with howls of laughter. Nevertheless, although it would not be a true representation of what the artist saw, it would be true of what the horses The photographs of the gymnast clearing the vaulting - horse, another leaping over his friend, and of the acrobats, one throwing the other a summersault, are selections from a series taken by Herr Anschütz. These series of photographs are the results of the latest development of instantaneous photography, an arrangement snatchers. The unconventional attitudes of the flying horses are the striking thing about this picture, as is always the case with snap-photographs of horses. The mare La Tosca is winning with a little ACROBAT TURNING SUMMERSAULT more being devised by which a number of pictures of a moving object are taken in succession, thus showing the movement gone through in all its details. These arrangements are of different kinds, designed to take ten, twenty, forty, or even photographs a second of the same object. Perhaps the first to devise an effective apparatus of this kind was Mr. Muybridge, of San Francisco. He employed a number of cameras placed in a line. The path of the running man, galloping horse, or whatever the object was, was crossed by threads, which were broken in succession by the object. Each of these threads actuated the shutter of camera, and thus Mr. Muybridge secured some really brilliant results, of great value to the anatomist and to the artist. Other motions beside running were in the same way intercepted by threads, and equally good pictures were made. M. Marey, whose name has been already mentioned, saw a number of these pictures in Paris, and was greatly impressed with the value of such productions in such researches in animal motion as he was then conducting. He set to work himself to invent a single instrument which should produce the same results, and shortly brought into practical use his "Gun Camera," working on the principle of the revolving pistol, and fitted with a stock and butt in the manner of an ordinary gun. With this a bird could be covered in its flight, and a very rapid succession of exposures given, each of a second in duration. Other machine cameras were invented in this country by Messrs. Greene & Evans and others, and the latest of these instruments are, of course, worked by electricity, an intermit tent current crowding a marvellous number of separate exposures into a single second. Odd as many of the moving animals in the pictures thus produced appear to our unaccustomed eyes, it needs but to place them in their proper order in the Zoetrope or a similar instrument, to observe the reproduction of the motions as we see them in the most marvellously natural manner. Herr Anschütz has carried this branch of instantaneous work to a very high degree SOLDIERS MARCHING. By Ottomar Anschuts.] SOLDIERS MARCHING. of perfection. He has a very admirable series of photographs of soldiers marching -too long a series to be reproduced here, although we give two, showing very different stages of the step. Of the series which give all the successive motions of a horse and rider taking a jump, we select four concerned in the most interesting part of the feat-the actual leap itself. Perhaps the most striking of these photographs is the first. A close examination will show that the horse is actually standing on one leg, about the last attitude one would imagine a horse to adopt in "taking off" for a jump. The two hind legs, it will be observed, are drawn up together, preparatory to bringing them down against the ground to give impetus to the spring. In TT |