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a guide to investing in fine art photography and the investment potential on collecting photographic art

Author: Distil Ennui | Post Date: 05-08-2024

Investing in fine art photography offers a unique opportunity to combine cultural appreciation with potential financial gains. After more than 170 years of existence, photography has emerged as an essential medium of expression in the arts, humanities and sciences. Whether as a document, metaphor, evidence or fiction, photographs play an active role in our understanding of our past, present and future. In the 21st century, the art of photography is enjoying unprecedented appreciation.

Photographs have been collected since its invention. However, with the increasing number of artists today using it as their primary medium, photography has become a collectible fine art equal to the more traditional arts, such as painting, sculpture and printmaking.

Opportunities for starting a photography collection have never been greater. New discoveries of historical material continue to be made. There are more exhibitions and better quality books available than ever before, in print and on-line. The number of resources for acquiring photographs continues to grow around the world.

This guide is intended as a reference tool for those interested in acquiring fine photographs. Its purpose is to answer common questions and to provide a resource for further insight, information and understanding. At the end you will find a full glossary of terms used to define photography and its mediums.
 

image courtesy AIPAD
 

While many photographs prove to be fine investments, an increase in value is never guaranteed especially if you do not do your research. There are many important considerations to keep in mind. When contemplating a purchase, try to familiarise yourself with the photographer’s body of work or oeuvre through books and visits to reputable galleries, art fairs and museums. From there, you can try to understand the importance of a single image within the context of the larger body of work.

With older works, learn about the photographer’s significance in the history of photography and the technical or aesthetic contributions they have made. For contemporary works, consider the photographer’s standing, exhibition history, critical appeal, technical expertise and potential for lasting and significant impact in the field. 

Consider the quality of the print, as well as its rarity, condition and provenance. Study the price history of the photographer’s work.  A trusted dealer can provide invaluable advice about the investment potential of a work. But most importantly, buy a work that you connect with because, all things considered, it may not appreciate in value. However if the artist has a long standing commitment to his or her craft, chances are your investment will do very well whilst also bringing daily pleasure to your life.

For those of you that are new to the Distil Ennui Studio, my name is Alexander James Hamilton, and I am an artist and collector myself. I created this guide to help you along your way, with some pointers that may well help your decision making.

'Morpho Amathonto 0220' from the 'Swarm' series  2008-2013

How to predict which photographers will be successful.
Many artists receive their greatest recognition late in life or posthumously. If an artist is already well known, his or her work will sell for higher prices because of exposure, reputation and market performance. It is difficult to predict the success of either contemporary artists or those recently rediscovered from the past. The extent to which the work has been published and exhibited is one indicator that an artist’s future looks promising. The attention of recognised critics also helps to identify a rising talent. You should examine as many prints as possible for qualities such as innovation, consistency and seriousness of intent. However, an artist’s current or anticipated popularity is not the best criterion for deciding to make a purchase. Instead, your own experiences and instincts, along with the insights reputable dealers can provide, will be your most reliable guides.

How to determine the value of a photograph.
Photographs, like any other work of art or collectible, are valued based on connoisseurship qualities, the supply and demand at a particular moment in time and what the market will bear in terms of price. Factors such as the photographer’s reputation or the work’s subject, rarity, historical importance, medium, condition, provenance, edition size, print date and quality will help determine the market’s response. Recent comparable sales of the same or similar works both privately and at auction can help guide you in considering how much to pay. 

Keep in mind that photographs are more akin to paintings than artists’ prints in that the variety of photographic prints produced from a single negative often varies widely. This is especially true of photographs created prior to the 1970s, which was the advent of the photography market as we know it today. Contemporary works executed in editions often have remarkable homogeneity and may be indistinguishable within the edition. A common practice among contemporary artists that affects the price of editions is to employ a graduated price increase so that earlier numbers in the edition are priced lower. Collectors should keep in mind that there are no set rules to valuing a photograph. An reputable dealer can help you understand trends in collecting photography and how the market has varied for any particular photographer or genre. Just as in any other market, values rise and fall according to the demands and fashions of the day. For that reason it is best to focus on acquiring works you feel will give you enjoyment for a long time and not purely for investment purposes. 

 

Andrey Kolesnikov curated by Oleg Deetz

How do you know when a photograph was printed?
Photographic prints are not necessarily created at the time the image is taken. The term ‘vintage’ refers to a photograph that was printed at, or near to, the time the exposure was made. Although the word appears frequently in discussions around a work.

The medium is included, however, to indicate whether the print was made in a manner in keeping with the artist’s practice around the time the image was taken. 

If a photograph has been printed some time after the date of the original image, this is most commonly indicated in auction cataloguing by the phrase ‘printed later’ or 'posthumous' if after the artists death.

 

a backlit 8 x 10 inch film plate from 'Transparency of a dream illuminated' 2014
a PDF atalogue of 15 butterfly artist proofs is available to downloaded here

Is it possible to know how many prints of a given image exist?
The answer to this depends entirely on the artist in question. Some photographers, or their estates, have good records of this information; for many, it does not exist.

Where a photograph is numbered from an edition, this is a great indicator, since editions specify the number of prints of a given image in a particular size. It is more typical for contemporary photographs to come from an edition than older prints.

This is of particular importance with my own work, as in 2013 I decided to never again produce photographic editions, instead opting to create only one unique print and 2 artist proofs (each a different size & execution). 

I am provoked by the notion that a painting is intrinsically more valuable than a photograph primarily because of its singular uniqueness. I intend to counter this perception by producing single edition prints exclusively in an attempt to challenge the ideas concerning the spiritual and economic valuation of artworks and to create an exciting tension between their individual present and relinquished, reproducible past.

Does the condition of a print affect its value?

The condition of a photograph generally affects the overall value of the work, but not always. In prints from the early, experimental days of photography, for instance, condition issues are to be expected given the age of the works and the fact that the process was not yet fully developed.

By contrast, contemporary photographs may be expected to be in much better condition; processes & techniques for modern prints are known and make for exceptional lightfastness. 

200 x 150 cms darkroom print 'Grace' by Alexander James Hamilton 2010.
a PDF catalogue of 'Vanitas' works is avaiable to download here.

Verifying the authenticity of a photograph
Authentication begins with notations such as stamps, signature, title or date combined with a photographer’s characteristic style, negative and print process, and typical method of presentation such as whether it is mounted or not. A careful examination of other photographs by the same artist will aid in spotting any uncharacteristic features of the work under consideration. If there is a dating question for a photographic print presumed to be from before the mid-1950s, the use of an ultra-violet light may be useful in testing for optical brightening agents (OBAs) introduced into photographic paper around that time (the presence of OBAs might indicate a later printing date).

Finally, the absence of a signature is not necessarily significant, especially on prints made before 1900. If an unknown and unsigned photograph has a recognisable style or content, an attribution can be made. Dealers who represent photographers or their estates are likely to have access to primary source material that will be useful in verifying a work. Or, if a dealer has had a long history of handling a photographer’s work, chances are that they have accumulated experience, as well as their own archive of information, which can be helpful for verification.

In the case of my oeuvre, every piece that has ever left the studio is logged in the studio's catalogue raisonné dating back to 1990, and, since 2021 all darkroom prints are authenticated with an artist signed provenance document with an electronic tamper proof NFC tag. Since 2020 I make all of my own frames by hand in the studio and in this case the NFC tag is attached directly to the back of the mount. 

GLOSSARY

ALBUMEN PRINT
Albumen printing is a process that uses egg white as a binder for the silver image. It was introduced in 1850 by Louis-Desiré Blanquart-Evrard and was in wide use until 1900. A thin, high quality paper was coated on one side with one or two layers of albumen into which halide salts had been dissolved. The paper was then packaged for sale. For its use, the photographer had to first render the paper light-sensitive by brushing a solution of silver nitrate onto the albumen coating. Once dry, the paper was exposed to daylight in contact with a negative, most commonly a collodion wet plate, until the image printed-out.

Before being fixed, albumen prints were often toned with gold chloride solution to cool the brown colour and improve the permanence of the photograph. Today, albumen prints often have yellowed highlights and a purple to brown image. 
 

AMBROTYPE
Although often confused with a daguerreotype, an ambrotype is, in essence, a collodion wet plate negative; its support is therefore not metal but glass. It differs from the wet plates used for printing on paper in that the silver image was developed to a grayish white by means of the addition of mercuric chloride or nitric acid to the developer. When backed with a black lacquer or a dark textile, the grayish white portions take on the appearance of highlights, and the black backing fills in the shadows, thereby giving the image the appearance of a positive. Ambrotypes were displayed in cases and frames similar to those used for daguerreotypes in order to protect them and make them presentable. An ambrotype can be
distinguished from a daguerreotype in that it will always appear as a positive no matter the angle of viewing, whereas a daguerreotype will switch from a positive to a negative depending upon the angle of viewing. The ambrotype process was in general use from 1855 to around 1865.

ARCHIVAL PROCESSING
The term archival processing describes the best practice for chemically processing photographic materials. The objective is to sufficiently fix the image and remove superfluous substances from the emulsion and substrate to insure the longevity of the photograph. The process usually includes multiple fixing baths, toning with gold, selenium, or sulphur, and effective washing.

AUTOCHROME
This ancestor of the modern colour transparency was invented in 1904 by Auguste and Louis Lumière and was in use until the 1930s. Autochromes were the most successful of a number of screen plate processes that appeared on the market at the beginning of the 20th century. The glass plate support of an Autochrome holds a very thin layer of dyed potato starch particles that are held in varnish, behind which a gelatin silver emulsion is found. The starch layer essentially forms a grainy and somewhat subdued screen of minute red, green and blue filters that give the positive image its colour. Autochromes are viewed either by backlighting in specially made cases or by projection.

BLIND STAMP
A blind stamp is an identification mark embossed onto the photograph or its mount. The stamp usually indicates the name or address of the photographer, publisher or distributer.
 

BROMOIL PRINT / BROMOIL TRANSFER
The bromoil process was popular from 1907 into the 1930s; it is still occasionally made today. Its name derives from a combination of a bromide print and a pigmented oil-based ink. The origin of a bromoil print was a gelatin silver bromide print that was bleached in a potassium bichromate solution. The bichromate salt hardened the emulsion in proportion to the amount of silver that made up the original image. A greasy ink was then dabbed onto the dampened surface of the print, and where the gelatin had absorbed water (in the non-hardened highlights), it repelled the oil-based ink. Repeated applications of ink gradually built up the image. The print hereby created was either dried or was used in a press to transfer the inked image to another surface, thereby creating a bromoil transfer. The surface of a bromoil print shows a slight relief unless it is a transfer print. Bromoil prints have a grainy image similar to that of a gum bichromate print, and selective use of a brush offers a wide range of artistic manipulation of the image.
 

CALOTYPE / TALBOTYPE
The calotype, or Talbotype, a paper negative process, was discovered by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1840 and patented in 1841. The process was used for about a decade until it was gradually superseded by the collodion wet plate negative. The calotype was revolutionary at the time, because, for the first time, multiple positives could be made from a single negative. This was not possible with its only contemporary rival, the daguerreotype, which is a direct process yielding a single image. A calotype was made by applying multiple coatings of salts and sensitising solutions to a sheet of fine writing paper, exposure of that sheet–still damp–in a camera, development of the image, a fixing bath, and final washing. The transparency of the paper negative could be improved by waxing the sheet. Most commonly, salt prints were made from calotype negatives. 

CHROMOGENIC PRINT / COLOuUR COUPLER PRINT / C-PRINT
A chromogenic print is a colour print made from a colour negative. The emulsion has three layers of silver salts, each of which is sensitised to one of the three primary colours (red, green, and blue) and records information about that color makeup in the photograph. In the initial development, a silver image is formed in each layer. With further development, embedded dye couplers react with products of the silver development to form yellow, magenta, and cyan dyes in the respective emulsion layers. The silver is then bleached out of the emulsion, leaving only the dyes. When seen against the white stock of the photographic paper, the layers appear as a full-colour image. The first chromogenic emulsions were used in slide films in 1935, and they have by means of many improvements remained the most dominant system for colour photography in transparencies, negatives, and prints since then. Type C was a chromogenic colour paper marketed by Eastman Kodak Co. that was replaced, primarily by Ektacolor in the USA, in 1958, and it has not been available since that time. Type C, or C-print, is an archaic term which is often (inaccurately) generically used to identify a chromogenic print. 

 

COLLODION ON GLASS NEGATIVE / COLLODION WET PLATE
The collodion wet plate process was invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1848, published in 1851, and practiced as the most popular negative process from the mid-1850s until the 1880s, when it was gradually superseded by the gelatin dry plate. A glass plate was evenly coated with collodion (cellulose nitrate dissolved in alcohol and ether, to which salts had been added), rendered light-sensitive in a bath of silver nitrate, exposed in a camera, and finally developed, fixed, and washed, all before the collodion layer dried. The resulting negative was ordinarily varnished to preserve and protect it. Although the glass was fragile and the process was awkward (having to be performed quickly and in the dark while the plate was still wet), the advantages greatly outweighed the disadvantages. Unlike the daguerreotype, the collodion process produced a negative from which multiple prints could be made. The exposure time was also considerably shorter than that demanded by other processes. Collodion wet plates were most often contact printed onto albumen papers and rendered prints with extremely fine details. Mammoth plates, usually measuring 18 x 22 inches, were the largest available, and were generally used for photographing landscapes. Most collodion on glass negatives were wet plates. Dry collodion processes were also developed, allowing for the plates to be coated further in advance of their use. However, collodion dry plate negatives never achieved great commercial success, as they produced inconsistent results and required longer exposure times than wet plate negatives.

COLLOTYPE
A collotype is a highly detailed, photomechanical image printed from a photographic plate. Patented in 1855, this process became fully commercially viable in the 1870s, and is still occasionally used today. The collotype was used frequently by publishers who wished to have a means of photomechanical reproduction that would mimic the appearance of an actual photograph. In making a collotype, a glass plate was coated with a layer of hardened gelatin. A second layer of gelatin, made light-sensitive by the addition of a bichromate salt, was added. The plate was then dried in a warm oven under strict control, causing the gelatin to swell and buckle and finally fracture into tiny fissures, forming a distinct pattern called reticulation. The plate was then exposed to light under a negative, during which the bichromated gelatin hardened in proportion to the amount of light it received. Finally, the plate was rinsed in water to remove excess bichromate. In printing, the reticulation of the gelatin surface controlled the amount of ink which was either accepted or rejected by the gelatin layer. The result was an ink image with fine detail, and a reticulation pattern only barely visible to the naked eye.


CONTACT PRINT / CONTACT SHEET
A contact print is produced by placing the negative in direct contact with the photographic paper rather than projecting the image onto the paper through an enlarger. Contact prints are the same size as their negative and show extraordinary sharpness of detail. All early photographs were made by contact printing on printing-out papers, since successful enlarging became possible only in the 1890s. Contact sheets are contact prints of rolls of film negatives that have been cut into strips and laid next to each other on the photographic paper.


COPY PRINT
A copy print is made from a negative that is produced by photographing an existing print. A photographer may choose to make a copy negative of a master print if the original negative has been lost or damaged, or if the master print was the product of numerous exposures and/or manipulations not easily replicated. In the case of a manipulated print, the photographer is likely to consider a copy negative his master negative since it alone produces the desired final print. The term is also sometimes used to describe a press print, which is not a fine art print

CYANOTYPE
Sir John Herschel discovered the cyanotype process in 1842. (Herschel, an astronomer and inventor, was the first to use the terms “negative” and “positive” to describe the manufacture of a photographic print. A portrait of him by Julia Margaret Cameron is perhaps his most well-known memorial today.) A cyanotype is made by applying a mixture of two iron salts to a sheet of paper, exposing this light-sensitive surface in contact to a negative until an image appears, then washing the print in water to remove unexposed salts. No fixing is required. The resulting, characteristic blue image is composed of ferric ferrocyanide, also known as Prussian blue. The cyanotype was among the very earliest permanent processes; in the 1870s, it became known as blueprint, and until recently, it was still used to reproduce architectural plans.

DAGUERREOTYPE
A daguerreotype is a photograph made by the method published by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in France in 1839. It became the first photographic process to gain widespread commercial success. A daguerreotype was made by suspending a polished, silver-plated copper sheet over iodine (and later also bromine) vapours, thereby rendering the silver surface light-sensitive. The plate was exposed in the camera for as long as 20 minutes in daylight, which explains the often stiff posture of the sitter. Further, the daguerreotype camera produced an image that was reversed right to left unless the lens was equipped with a reversing mirror. Following exposure, the plate was developed over hot mercury fumes, resulting in an image made up of a particulate deposit of mercury-silver amalgam in the highlights, and areas of plain polished silver forming the shadows. The image was fixed and finally toned with gold chloride to improve its color, contrast, and permanence. For their own protection, daguerreotypes were kept sealed behind glass in small wooden cases in the USA, and often in frames in mainland Europe. The daguerreotype image is actually a negative; to be seen as a positive it must be held at an angle to minimise reflections. Each daguerreotype is unique and precious. This, along with its early date in photographic history, accounts for its desirability as a collectible. Portraits are relatively common, while outdoor scenes are rare. The larger, full-plate daguerreotypes were more expensive to make as well as to buy at the time, and are therefore scarcer today than smaller daguerreotypes. The making of daguerreotypes went out of fashion after the introduction of the ambrotype in the 1850s. 

DIGITAL ORIGINAL / DIGITAL IMAGE / DIGITAL NEGATIVE
The term digital original often refers to an image file created with a digital camera or digital imaging software on a computer; it is analogous to the traditional photographic negative, holding all of the information needed to create a final version of the image. The term may also refer to the digital file used to create a physical negative that can be printed in a traditional darkroom. A digital image, or digital negative, is formed within a digital camera or scanner by a chip called a Charged Couple Device (CCD) that hold a grid of light-sensitive sensor circuits. These circuits emit electrical signals, which are proportional to the intensity of the light received during their exposure. These signals are converted to a series of binary digits, which are translated into a grid of individual picture elements, called pixels, which make up the resulting digital image. The information is then stored in an electromagnetic form usually on a hard drive where it can be retrieved at a later date for printing. 

EDITION
An edition is a designated limitation on the number of prints from a single negative. As in traditional printmaking, the edition limitation is noted in the form of a fraction with the numerator noting the print number in the series, and the denominator noting the total number of prints (e.g. 1/25). Photographs in an edition are not necessarily printed in advance, as the painstaking process involved in making one fine art print is indeed self-limiting. Sales demand may determine whether or not the entire set of prints is ultimately produced. Therefore, the number of existing prints may be less than the stated edition size Most photographs prior to 1980 are not editioned. Research indicates that for the vast majority of non-editioned images, it is rare to find more than five copies of any one image. Most photographs after 1980 are made in a predetermined limited number (e.g. 1/25). This is not to say that all are printed in advance, as the painstaking process involved in making one fine-art print forces the photographer to make only a few from an edition at any one time. Sales demand dictates whether or not the entire set of prints is ultimately produced. Therefore, the existing number of prints is often less than the stated edition number indicates. Generally speaking, editions of prints from artists using photography are lower (e.g. 1/3) than those from traditional photographers (e.g. 1/25). 

GELATIN SILVER PRINT / SILVER BROMIDE PRINT / SILVER CHLORIDE PRINT
First proposed in the 1870s, the manufacturing of gelatin silver prints, black-and-white paper coated with an emulsion consisting of gelatin and silver, began in earnest in the mid-1880s. This paper is the longest lasting photographic material in continuous use. The type of silver salt suspended in the emulsion determines what method of printing is used. Papers containing silver chloride were less sensitive to light (“slower”) and generally used for printing-out in contact with a negative. Papers containing silver bromide are “faster” and typically used for enlargements. Chloro-bromide papers, which contain a combination of the two silver salts, may be used for either method of printing. The ratio of the silver salts in an emulsion’s formula contributes to the differing tonalities in papers, although the exposure, developing agents, and post-development toners such as gold chloride play a larger role. The tone of a gelatin silver bromide print is generally neutral black while a gelatin silver chloride print is warmer in tone. Prints on a chloro-bromide paper can lean towards a warm, brownish-black tone. Gelatin silver papers, once produced in great variety by a copious number of manufacturers, were available in a range of contrasts, weight, surface textures and sizes. 

INKJET PRINT / PIGMENT PRINT
Since the 1990s, inkjet has become one of the most popular digital print processes for printing digital files on a great variety of supports. In photography, digital images are most often printed on a glossy RC-base or on a matte, fine-art cotton-based paper, both of which have been specially coated for inkjet. Inkjet prints on etching-type papers are often known as giclée prints, and a great number of names, including piezo print and pigment print, have been introduced for other inkjet applications. In inkjet, tiny droplets of coloured liquid ink (typically yellow, magenta, cyan, and black) are sprayed onto a support to form an image. Monochrome images are sometimes printed with carbon-based inks of varying densities of gray. Modern inkjet prints can be extremely beautiful in terms of colour, tonal range, and sharpness, and they may surpass traditional photographic prints in terms of permanence. A trained eye is needed to distinguish an inkjet print from other forms of prints, since the pattern of printed ink dots is often below the resolution limit of the human eye. 

 

LIMITED EDITION
As applied to fine art photographs, the term limited edition is usually understood to mean a stated number of prints of an image in a particular size and in a particular format. When no additional photographic prints in any size or format will be made from a particular negative, that concept is usually communicated by a phrase such as “the negative has been retired” because negatives are rarely destroyed. 

PHOTOGRAM
A photogram is a photographic print made without a negative or a camera, by placing objects directly on light-sensitive paper and exposing the assemblage to light. Depending upon the opacity or translucency of the objects used, the photogram usually has a shadowy image of various tones, gray to white, on a dark background. Man Ray, having thought that he and Lee Miller invented this process in 1921, called them Rayographs. In fact, William Henry Talbot was the first to use this camera-less process.

PHOTOGRAVURE
A printing process based on William Henry Fox Talbot’s photographic engraving patent of 1852, photogravure exploits the original image capture of photography expressed in time-tested printer’s ink. A photo-sensitised metal printing plate is exposed under a photographic positive and then etched. Reproducing the original image with great fidelity, this plate is then cleaned of all photographic chemicals and can be employed in a standard printing press, yielding finely detailed and tonally rich prints that are completely stable. The resulting image is strikingly similar to a platinum print, but under magnification the image pattern can appear grainy and soft, with dark areas and shadows standing above the paper surface. The plate leaves an indented impression, often retained in untrimmed prints. Talbot greatly improved the tonal rendition with his photoglyphic engraving process of 1858 and later innovations; in 1879, this was commercialised in Austria as the Talbot-Klič process by the Czech printer Karel Klič. J. Craig Annan and other Photo-Secessionist photographers turned to this process as a preferred form of artistic expression, with Alfred Stieglitz using it to illustrate his pioneering journal Camera Work. Commercial rotogravure expanded it to mass markets, providing higher quality reproductions than letterpress halftone. Many contemporary artists continue to pursue Talbot’s difficult but beautiful process of the hand-pulled photogravure. 

PLATINUM PRINT / PALLADIUM PRINT
The platinum printing process was used primarily from 1873 to the First World War, when the need for platinum in manufacturing explosives caused the metal to be withdrawn from other commercial applications. As a result, William Willis’ Platinotype Company incorporated palladium in the sensitiser solution, replacing platinum for the most part. Willis’ company continued the manufacture of commercially available papers until 1937 when the demand for the faster, more sensitive gelatin silver paper forced it out of business. Platinum and palladium prints are produced by means of the light sensitive iron salt ferric oxalate, which, in solution with potassium chloro-platinate, is coated onto a sheet of high quality paper. Following contact printing under a negative in daylight, the paper is developed, during which the chloro-platinate salt is reduced to metallic platinum. The paper is fixed in a series of weak acidic baths and finally washed in water. Without an emulsion or baryta layer, the final print has a matte surface that was sometimes waxed to create a surface sheen. Depending on the choice of processing chemicals, the hue may range between neutral gray to warm brown. This process is enjoying a revival among contemporary photographers, since the permanence and delicate rich tones and ranges of grays of the platinum/palladium print remain unobtainable in silver prints. 

TINTYPE / FERROTYPE
The wet plate process of the tintype, or ferrotype, produces a positive image on a thin, black lacquered sheet of iron. Like an ambrotype, the sheet was coated with collodion, then rendered light-sensitive in a silver nitrate bath immediately before placing it in the camera. Development immediately followed exposure. When dry, the fragile collodion image was often coated with a clear lacquer for protection. Tintypes were mainly used for portraiture and were extremely popular from the 1850s to the turn of the century. Their popularity was largely due to the fact that they were quite inexpensive and relatively easy and quick to produce. A tintype, like other 19th century processes, is enjoying a resurgence of interest among contemporary photographers.

TRANSPARENCY / SLIDE
Positive photographic images on a transparent support, such as glass or film, are called transparencies or slides. They were generally made for projection, although hand-held viewing devices have also been used. The first colour transparencies were screen plates, such as autochromes. Kodachrome, the first chromogenic transparency film, was introduced in 1935; it set a standard for quality and format, the latter being the typical 35 mm slide mounted in a small frame for projection. Transparencies became immensely popular in both amateur and professional photography in many different formats. 

 

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