c1895 glass plate photograph by Jacob Stroh – courtesy of the WPL collection
Toronto. Giass was king of the photographic base materials for decades covering wet plate, dry plate, and into the film era. Glass was an ideal medium for photography. It was transparent, flat, grain free – if carefully made – and light sensitive emulsions could be made to adhere to it.
The only draw back was weight. The larger the glass plate negative, the heavier. This was overcome by use of smaller size plates and eventually by film and of course digital when it arrived.
One fine example is held by the Waterloo Public Library just an hour or so west of us. George Dunbar writes, “An interesting archive, particularly for those interested in glass negative images. Jacob Gaukel Stroh’s glass negative collection (126 images) – Waterloo Public Library” (WPL).
The photo at left by Stroh is of his daughters c1895 on a boulder? stump? in a field. Visit the WPL for more photos by Stroh and others. This is another example of historic photos held in archive collections.
