To establish priority he rushed samples of his work to The Royal Institution in London where, on the evening of January 25, 1839, Michael Faraday showed them to the members. They consisted of
flowers and leaves; a pattern of laces; figures taken from painted glass; a view of Venice copied from an engraving; some images formed by the Solar Microscope [and] various pictures representing the architecture of my house in the country . . . made with the Camera Obscura in the summer of 1835 . . .
Sir John Herschel at once became interested in the work of his friend Talbot. In a letter to him dated February 28, 1839, he used the word photographed, and took occasion to explain in a footnote why he considered it more appropriate than photogenic. This has led to the conclusion that Herschel coined the noun photography, which was immediately absorbed by every Western language.
 |
| talbot: Sketch made near Bellagio in 1833, probably with a camera lucida. Royal Photographic Society, London |
The photogenic drawings were reversed. They showed the shadows light and the lights dark. Talbot noted that “if the picture so obtained is first preserved so as to bear sunshine, it may be afterwards itself employed as an object to be copied; and by means of this second process the lights and shadows are brought back to their original disposition.” The original, reversed, picture Herschel named the negative. Its re-reversed copy he named the positive.
Thus Talbot had the advantage over Daguerre: from a single negative he could print any number of positives. This discovery of the negative-positive concept was epochal; all modern photographic techniques are based upon it.
However in point of excellence the photogenic drawing was eclipsed by the daguerreotype. Talbot's warmest supporters had to admit it: Herschel told Arago that “compared to the masterful daguerreotype, Talbot produces nothing but mistiness.” Furthermore Talbot’s method of preserving the pictures was not reliable: much of his earliest work has faded so badly that the images are no longer recognizable. Herschel proposed that the unused silver chloride be removed with the chemical then known as the hyposulphite of soda (now described as sodium thiosulphate), which he had found in 1819 to be a solvent of silver salts. Talbot adopted the suggestion and, with Herschel’s consent, described this use of hypo in a letter to J. B. Biot, which was published in the Comptes rendus of the Academy of Sciences. From this description Daguerre may have learned of its value.
A second improvement increased the light sensitivity of the paper by alternately bathing it in silver nitrate and potassium bromide. In May, 1840, the
 |
| talbot: Paper negative of a latticed window, 1835, reproduced in actual size. The inscription is in Talbot's own hand. Science Museum, London |
| talbot: Photogenic drawing, made by exposing lace in contact with sensitive paper. Collection Miss M. T. Talbot |  |
Graphic Society showed in London a series of Talbot’s photographs which, to judge from the account of them in the Literary Gazette, were far superior to his earlier work. They were mostly camera pictures.
Various views of Lacock Abbey . . .: of trees; of old walls and buildings, with implements of husbandry: of carriages; of tables covered with breaklast things: of busts and statues; and. in short, of every matter from a botanical specimen to a line landscape, from an ancient record to an ancient abbey . . . given with a fidelity that is altogether wonderful.
In the fall of 1840 Talbot invented a modification of his process so radical that he gave it a new name, the calotype, but which, at the suggestion of friends, he later called the talbotype. Previously he had allowed his sensitive paper to remain exposed to light in the camera until the image became visible. Now he found, as had Daguerre, that it was possible to give a much shorter exposure and yet secure a brilliant image. When the paper was removed from the camera no image could be seen, but by development the latent image appeared as if by magic.
He bathed the paper first in silver nitrate and then in potassium iodide. The relatively stable silver iodide which was formed became, he found, highly light sensitive tvhen bathed in gallic acid and silver nitrate, a solution he named gallo-nitrate of silver. After exposure the paper was bathed in the same solution which gradually brought out the image. To fix these negatives Talbot used at first potassium bromide and later a hot solution of hypo.
This technique was restricted to the making of negatives. Talbot printed them with his silver chloride paper, or by the improved technique of the toxicologist Alfred S. Taylor, who added ammonia to the silver nitrate sensitizing bath until a precipitate was thrown down which was then dissolved by adding nitric acid. Warmer and more pleasing tones could thus be secured.
Late in the spring of 1844 Talbot began the publication of a handsome quarto, The Pencil of Nature. On the title page he put a Latin verse from Virgil’s Georgics: ‘‘It is a joyous thing to be the first to cross a mountain.” It
 |
| talbot: Breakfast table. Photogenic drawing. 1840. Science Museum, London |
 |
| TALBOT: The Open Door. Calotype. Plate VI of The Pencil of Nature, 1844. Collection Miss M. f. Talbot |
was a show book, an account of the history of the invention, a demonstration of its accomplishments in the form of twenty-four actual photographs, and predictions of its use. He wanted to put on record "some of the early beginnings of a new art, before the period, which we trust is approaching, of its being brought to maturity by the aid of British talent." The photographs were mostly of architecture, still-life arrangements, or works of art. Accompanying each was a page or two of text explaining the significance of the picture and occasionally offering predictions not realized for decades.
The most interesting plates show scenes of daily life around Lacock Abbey. Talbot said:
We have sufficient authority in the Dutch School of art for taking as subjects of representation scenes of daily and familiar occurrence. A painter’s eye will often be ar-
 |
| Talbot's Calotype Establishment at Reading, England, showing copying of a picture, portraiture, printing in the sun, and photographing a statue. Collection Miss M. T. Talbot |
rested where ordinary people see nothing remarkable. A casual gleam of sunshine, or a shadow thrown across his path, a time-withered oak, or a moss-covered stone may awaken a train of thoughts and feelings, and picturesque imaginings.
The Art Union, reviewing the book, spoke particularly of Plate VI, The Open Door: “It is, of course, an effect of sunshine, and the microscopic execution sets at nought the work of human hands.”
Eleven years after his unsuccessful attempts to sketch Lake Como, Talbot could write:
there is, assuredly, a royal road to Drawing; and one of these days, when more