A short chronology of Hercule Florence’s photographic process
On World Photography Day, we selected some of the first records of Hercule Florence, the precursor of photography. Check out what the artist, traveler, and inventor recorded about his most celebrated invention
FLORENCE, HERCULE - Photographie.
[Camera obscura drawing] - Undated - Ferrogalic ink on paper - 20,6 x 19,1 cm Institute Hercule Florence Collection (São Paulo) - Photo Patricia De Filippi and Millard Schisler.
Today is World Photography Day. To celebrate this day, we selected some of the first records of Hercule Florence, a precursor of photography, from his Livre d’annotations et de premiers matériaux, Arnaldo Machado Florence Collection, Institute Hercule Florence.
January 15, 1833
Hercule Florence writes down what may be his first record about photography.
“I believe I see in the future that one day we shall print by the action of light. Everyone knows that light discolors objects; at least, I have seen it happen with the folds of Indian pieces that are exposed to daylight. If I were a chemist, I might know of a substance that colors or discolors in light, that changes color, or that darkens. Silver nitrate is, the only substance about which I know the virtue of darkening in the sun. But what would be preferable to all, is a substance that from black becomes white, by the action of light, or at least, whose color becomes easily lighter...”
January 20, 1833
The traveling artist recorded his first two experiments with the photographic process. In both he used, in his own words, a “very imperfect” camera obscura and silver nitrate - the essence of the photographic concept based on the negative-positive system.
“What I said in the previous article, [dated] on [day} the 15th, was confirmed today by two very fortunate experiments.
February 2, 1833
The following month Hercule makes some observations about his study of the action of light.
“The master idea of printing with light, establishes in principle immense advantages; some inconveniences remain, they will disappear. This discovery will cause us to study more specifically the action of light upon the body which is to be subjected to its influence; and then the chemical action of another upon this body, in order to increase its darkness or other dark color to perfection.”
April 8, 1833
About the search for a fixing agent and the urine experiment, Hercule wrote:
“We soaked a side of letter paper and exposed it to the sun, hiding a part of it with an opaque body. The exposed part became darker. And then, to prevent the hidden part from undergoing the same transformation as soon as it was exposed to light, we dipped the paper, a little at random, in urine for a quarter of an hour.”
October 22, 1833
The inventor was a pioneer in the use of the word “photographie” [photography] as shown by his entry in a document, which is part of the Cyrillo Hercule Florence Collection, dated October 22, 1833. Whereas, in his Livre d’annotations et de premiers matériaux the verb “photographier” [to photograph] was employed by Hercule on January 21, 1834.
“It is very likely that we can photograph drawings in a way that they would be silver in the colored field, because there are ways to accelerate the reduction or revival of silver nitrate by light. Ammonia helps in this reduction.”
