These can be divided between those acting as the official organs of photographic societies and others that may be defined as ‘independent’. Such journals were published weekly, fortnightly, and monthly since the 1850s and were complemented by almanacs and annuals.
During the 1840s knowledge of the technology and processes of photography was distributed through a number of published manuals and other existing channels such as the periodical press. A single issue of a French publication, Le Daguerreotype, revue de la photographie, appears to have been published in June 1847 and is cited as the only journal of photography in this decade. From the early 1850s many industrialized countries saw the publications of journals of photography. These were primarily the publication organs of newly formed photographic societies, particularly in Britain and its empire. In parallel, a number of the most commercially successful and influential journals were ‘independent’. Several survive to this day.
The content of 19th-century journals included papers presented at meetings of photographic societies together with other administrative business of the societies; articles, primarily on photographic technology and processes; letters, reviews, and news. Reprinting articles from other, sometimes foreign, publications was also common. Coverage of photography's applications remained limited during the 19th century and this was reflected by the advertisements placed in journals that were dominated by equipment and materials manufacturers. Paradoxically, photographic illustration was not widely used in 19th-century photographic journals.
The first successful English-language journals were published in the USA: the Daguerreian Journal Devoted to the Daguerreian and Photogenic Arts (1850-2), renamed Humphrey's Journal of the Daguerreotype and Photographic Arts (1852-62), and the monthly Photographic and Fine Art Journal (1851-60), which included the innovation of pasted-in photographic prints. Subsequently, the
The first successful European photographic journal, La Lumière (1851-67), was founded by the Société Héliographique, but continued independently after the latter's demise. It was followed in 1855 by the Bulletin de la Société Française de Photographie, and still exists today. Various other journals were published in France from the mid-1850s but ceased publication within a decade. Journals also proliferated in the German-speaking countries, albeit with a high turnover, and there were 24 by 1900. Most notable were the Photographische Rundschau und Mitteilungen (1864) and the more professionally orientated Atelier des Photographen (1894).
In Britain, the first and longest-lasting photographic journal was the Journal of the Photographic Society of London, which commenced publication on 3 March 1853 and, renamed The Photographic Journal in 1859, has appeared continuously ever since. Other titles followed in the 1850s. The Liverpool Photographic Journal (f. 1854) became the Liverpool and Manchester Photographic Journal in 1857 and the British Journal of Photography in 1860, still extant. Another early creation was Thomas Sutton's polemical Photographic Notes (1856-67). In 1858 the weekly Photographic News appeared, and continued until 1908 when it merged with the Amateur Photographer (f. 1884). The size of the market for early British journals is interesting. There was a print run of 2, 000 copies of the first issue of the Journal of the Photographic Society of London in 1853. A year later this had risen to 4, 000, though by February 1855 circulation was recorded as 2, 750 copies per issue. The Photographic News had the highest circulation figures of any British 19th-century photographic journal, with c.7, 000 copies per issue in 1869. The reason was perhaps partly because it was independent of any society, partly because it had the best information service.
First in Japan was the short-lived Datsuei Yawa (Tales of Photography, 1874), followed by Shashin Zasshi (Photography Magazine, 1880-1), then Shashin Shimpo (Photographic News), which was founded in 1882, relaunched in 1889 and 1896, and lasted until 1940. Under the editorship of Fukusawa Yokitsu, it acted as an important conduit for information from abroad and in the 1890s moved close to the Japan Photographic Society. Shashin Geppo (Monthly Photo Journal) started in 1894 as a promotional hand-out for the photographic firm Konishi Honten (precursor of Konica), but became an important art photography journal, also surviving until 1940. Many more titles appeared in the 20th century, with the Second World War as a major watershed.
Increasing numbers of photographic societies and the advent of amateur and art photography from the 1880s gave further impetus to journals of photography. Some catered primarily for the social and hobbyistic aspects of the medium, and acted as important vehicles for photographic advertising. Others, such as Camera Work, Die Kunst in der Photographie, and the privately circulated Linked Ring Papers were identified with pictorialism and addressed a public whose concerns were more exclusively aesthetic. Secessionist art magazines such as The Studio and Ver Sacrum also opened their pages to the cream of fin de siècle art photography.
— Anthony Hamber
Bibliography
- Taft, R., Photography and the American Scene: A Social History, 1839-1889 (1938).
- Gernsheim, H., Incunabula of British Photographic Literature 1839-1875 (1984).
- Sennett, R. S., The Nineteenth-Century Photographic Press: A Study Guide (1987).
- Tucker, A. W., et al. (eds.), The History of Japanese Photography (2003)
