William Fox Talbot
The Father of Modern Photography
Lacock Abbey is as photogenic today as in the time of William Fox Talbot (1800-77) who invented the negative-positive photographic process here.
By brushing silver nitrate solution onto paper which had been soaked in common salt, he produced a light-sensitive medium. He was thus able to record negative images of subjects placed in contact with the paper.
In 1802, Thomas Wedgewood had discovered this process but was unable to control the darkening. In
February 1835, Fox Talbot found that a strong solution of salt fixed the image. He went further: he used a camera obscura to focus an image onto his paper to produce a negative, then - by exposing a second sheet of paper to sunlight transmitted through the negative -- he produced a positive picture of which he was able to make further copies at will. Niepce and Daguerre, whose work predated Fox Talbot were unable to do this.
Lacock Abbey Oriel Window
In August 1835, Fox Talbot put a miniature camera obscura on the mantelpiece of the South Gallery opposite this oriel window. The resulting negative is in the Science Museum in London. A positive taken from it can be seen next to the window in the Abbey. There is an excellent exhibition of Fox Talbot's work in the Museum of Photography to be found at the entry to Lacock Abbey.
Both the Exhibition and the Abbey are administered by The National Trust.
In January 1999 Fox Talbot is to be honoured with a new stamp issued by the Royal Mail and available at all UK Post Offices from Tuesday January 12th.
The design of the 43p stamp uses a number of his original prints of leaves as the starting point for a modern interpretation by husband and wife photographers Zafer and Barbara Baran.
The stamp is one of a series to be issued to celebrate the dawning of the new millennium. The first four, including the Fox Talbot stamp, pay tribute to the leading role that Britain has played in the creation of machines and processes that have changed and defined the world.
Copyright © 1996/9 by
Hugh Collins
This Page Last Updated
18 November 1999