Henry Wilhelm

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Henry G. Wilhelm is an American researcher and author known for his studies of the archival properties of photographic printing processes. [1] [2] In 1981, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Photographic Studies [3] to continue his work studying photographic processes. [4]

He is the co-author, along with Carol Brower Wilhelm, of the 1993 book The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures. [5] [6] They are the founders of company Wilhelm Imaging Research.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photography</span> Art and practice of creating images by recording light

Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing, and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photograph</span> Image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface

A photograph is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created using a smartphone or camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see. The process and practice of creating such images is called photography.

The following list comprises significant milestones in the development of photography technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kodachrome</span> Brand name of an Eastman Kodak film

Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still photography. For many years, Kodachrome was widely used for professional color photography, especially for images intended for publication in print media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyanotype</span> Photographic printing process that produces a blue print

The cyanotype is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300 nm to 400 nm known as UVA radiation. It produces a monochrome, blue coloured print on a range of supports, often used for art, and for reprography in the form of blueprints. For any purpose, the process usually uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate, and potassium ferricyanide, and only water to develop and fix. Announced in 1842, it is still in use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Negative (photography)</span> Image on photographic film

In photography, a negative is an image, usually on a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film, in which the lightest areas of the photographed subject appear darkest and the darkest areas appear lightest. This reversed order occurs because the extremely light-sensitive chemicals a camera film must use to capture an image quickly enough for ordinary picture-taking are darkened, rather than bleached, by exposure to light and subsequent photographic processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky</span> Russian chemist and photographer (1863–1944)

Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky was a Russian chemist and photographer. He is best known for his pioneering work in colour photography and his effort to document early 20th-century Russia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Color photography</span> Photography that reproduces colors

Color photography is a type of photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of showing shades of gray.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gelatin silver process</span> Photographic process

The gelatin silver process is the most commonly used chemical process in black-and-white photography, and is the fundamental chemical process for modern analog color photography. As such, films and printing papers available for analog photography rarely rely on any other chemical process to record an image. A suspension of silver salts in gelatin is coated onto a support such as glass, flexible plastic or film, baryta paper, or resin-coated paper. These light-sensitive materials are stable under normal keeping conditions and are able to be exposed and processed even many years after their manufacture. The "dry plate" gelatin process was an improvement on the collodion wet-plate process dominant from the 1850s–1880s, which had to be exposed and developed immediately after coating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Imaging Research</span> American photographic company

Wilhelm Imaging Research is an American company with expertise in the permanence of photographic and digital printing materials. It provides testing services and conservation advice.

Ilfochrome is a dye destruction positive-to-positive photographic process used for the reproduction of film transparencies on photographic paper. The prints are made on a dimensionally stable polyester base as opposed to traditional paper base. Since it uses 13 layers of azo dyes sealed in a polyester base, the print will not fade, discolour, or deteriorate for an extended time. Accelerated aging tests conducted by Henry Wilhelm rated the process as producing prints which, framed under glass, would last for 29 years before color shifts could be detected. Characteristics of Ilfochrome prints are image clarity, color purity, and being an archival process able to produce critical accuracy to the original transparency.

Print permanence refers to the longevity of printed material, especially photographs, and preservation issues. Over time, the optical density, color balance, lustre, and other qualities of a print will degrade. The rate at which deterioration occurs depends primarily on two main factors: the print itself, that is, the colorants used to form the image and the medium on which image resides, and the type of environment the print is exposed to.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of photography</span>

The history of photography began with the discovery of two critical principles: The first is camera obscura image projection, the second is the discovery that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or descriptions that indicate any attempt to capture images with light sensitive materials prior to the 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hand-colouring of photographs</span> Manually applying colour to black-and-white photographs

Hand-colouring refers to any method of manually adding colour to a monochrome photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the image or for artistic purposes. Hand-colouring is also known as hand painting or overpainting.

The conservation and restoration of photographs is the study of the physical care and treatment of photographic materials. It covers both efforts undertaken by photograph conservators, librarians, archivists, and museum curators who manage photograph collections at a variety of cultural heritage institutions, as well as steps taken to preserve collections of personal and family photographs. It is an umbrella term that includes both preventative preservation activities such as environmental control and conservation techniques that involve treating individual items. Both preservation and conservation require an in-depth understanding of how photographs are made, and the causes and prevention of deterioration. Conservator-restorers use this knowledge to treat photographic materials, stabilizing them from further deterioration, and sometimes restoring them for aesthetic purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black and White Photography</span>

Black and white photography is a form of photography that captures scenes or subjects with a grayscale of brightness, without recording any natural colors. The resulting images, often referred to as monochrome, display a range of shades of gray, from black to white. This style of photography predates color photography and has remained a significant, timeless and versatile artistic and documentary medium for over a century.

A chromogenic print, also known as a C-print or C-type print, a silver halide print, or a dye coupler print, is a photographic print made from a color negative, transparency or digital image, and developed using a chromogenic process. They are composed of three layers of gelatin, each containing an emulsion of silver halide, which is used as a light-sensitive material, and a different dye coupler of subtractive color which together, when developed, form a full-color image.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to photography:

The conservation and restoration of film is the physical care and treatment of film-based materials. These include photographic film and motion picture film stock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservation and restoration of photographic plates</span>

The conservation and restoration of photographic plates is the practice of caring for and maintaining photographic plates to preserve their materials and content. It covers the necessary measures that can be taken by conservators, curators, collection managers, and other professionals to conserve the material unique to photographic plate processes. This practice includes understanding the composition and agents of deterioration of photographic plates, as well as the preventive conservation and interventive conservation measures that can be taken to increase their longevity.

References

  1. "Who Is Henry Wilhelm...". Popular Photography . June 1990.
  2. Anders, George (July 31, 2003). "In a Digital Age, Who Knows When Photographs Will Fade". The Wall Street Journal .
  3. "Guggenheim Fellows". Guggenheim Foundation.
  4. Riper, Frank Van (November 24, 1995). "Watching the Colors Fade". The Washington Post . Retrieved April 17, 2018.
  5. Hendriks, Klaus (August 1994). "The Permanence and Care of.. (Review)". Popular Photography .
  6. Moore, Kevin D. (2010). Starburst: Color Photography in America 1970–1980. Distributed Art Pub Incorporated. ISBN   9783775724906.