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HELP FOR PHOTOGRAPH TYPES

AMBROTYPE— A variant of the wet collodion process to produce a direct-positive camera original. The collodion is coated on glass, the image underexposed and then underdeveloped, the glass backed with black lacquer or black cloth, and the whole mounted in a case or frame. Occasionally, the image was made on ruby glass.

CABINET PHOTOGRAPH— Card photographs on mounts measuring 4 1/4 by 6 1/2 inches.

CARTE-DE-VISITE— Card photographs on mounts measuring about 4 by 2 1/2 inches. Primarily used for portraits and functioning as calling cards; flourished from the 1860s to the 1880s.

CYANOTYPE— Photographic process using iron salts and producing a blue-toned photographic print.

DAGUERREOTYPE— An early photographic process producing a direct positive image on a silver-coated copper plate. Named after the Nineteenth century photographer who created the process, Jacques Louis Daguerre.

HALFTONE— Used to describe an image, or to denote the effect itself, when the image has been photographed through a fine-patterned screen, breaking it into small dots or other shapes. This allows printing from plates or blocks of an image containing tonal areas.

PANORAMA— Photographs that show a wide view produced by panoramic camera or by joining photographs together.

PHOTOGRAPH— An image obtained through the process of exposing sensitized surfaces to light or, more generally, to any form of radiant energy.

POSTCARD— Cards on which a message may be written or printed for mailing without an envelope. Often containing a pictorial image on one side.

SNAPSHOT— Photographs made with simple cameras without artistic pretensions or commercial considerations; beginning especially in 1888 with the appearance of the first roll film box camera. Snapshots thus are often recognizable in that they were processed not by the photographer but by a commercial concern.

STEREOGRAPH— A card upon which is affixed a pair of photographs taken with two lenses such that, when viewed with special devices, the two images appear to form a single, three-dimensional image.

TINTYPE— A variant of the wet collodion process producing a direct positive image on a thin sheet of lacquered metal (usually iron, never tin).