THE FATAFAT

The camera used probably stems from the turn of the century or even earlier and operates in an intriguing way. It remains a fixed distance from the object (about 6ft). The photographer loads the camera with negative paper (preferably fiber based for a better result of the negative). There’s no shutter so he exposes the paper by taking off the lens cap and count to guess the exposure time – 2 to 3 seconds in daylight and 15 to 20 seconds in subdued light. During the exposure of the paper, the client must stay utterly still and not blink or change facial expression or else a blur will result. To end the exposure, the photographer replaces the lens cap. To develop the print, he uses the back of the camera itself as a kind of darkroom. Inside there is a tray containing homemade developing fluid. He pulls the paper out from behind the lens and dips it in the developer while looking at it through a red glass panel (which prevents white light from reaching the negative paper). Once it is sufficiently developed, he removes it from the camera and dips it in a fixative tray (held underneath the camera) for a few seconds; then he washes the paper negative in a bucket of clean fresh water. He dries this as much as he can and then mounts the negative print on the frame that can be attached in front of the camera lens and re-exposes the print for 10 to 15 seconds, again depending on the light conditions. Because he is re-photographing the original negative on to a further sheet of negative paper, he ends up with a positive print which he develops in the same way (back through the two solutions in the rear of the camera, washed in water and dried). It is then ready for the customer to take away. The whole process is while-you-wait – about 20 minutes from start to finish, no film, no plate.
In the standard manuals and histories of photography, there is no clear exposition of this unique and incredibly economical process. To guess at the nature of the invention: it appears that the early street photographers managed to hybridise two 19th century technologies: the calotype camera and the portable darkroom into a single apparatus. Perhaps because of the sheer problems of having to carry the whole apparatus and having to present the client with a finished paper print quickly, they by-passed the luxuries of both plate and film photography and the Fox Talbot calotype itself (which all require separate development locales). How they arrived at this remarkable hybrid – a kind of Polaroid avant la lettre – is unknown. It is documented, however, that unique local variations on the calotype were being used in India before 1853, and presumably, therefore, within a decade of Fox Talbot’s announcement of the process.
Clearly then, this photographer’s method is a form of calotype, the process first announced by William Henry Fox Talbot to the Royal Society on 31st January 1839 (six months prior to the publication of Daguerre’s plate method), therefore one of the earliest photographic processes known, and the only known method of using light-sensitive paper in the camera itself. There are however several differences between Fox Talbot’s original procedure and those of the traditional Indian street photographers, though the differences are minimal. Fox Talbot prepared his own paper, while the street photographers use modern photographic paper. In the original calotype process, the negative image was taken from the camera, developed, pressed against photo-sensitive paper and exposed to sunlight to achieve the positive image. By contrast, the street photographers actually re-photograph the negative to get a positive. This suggests that the Indian street situation is probably unique. It’s a variation on the calotype and identical with it until the point of negative-positive conversion. The calotype involved a darkroom process, outside the camera – whereas the Indian process involves developing the negative inside the camera, re-photographing, and then re-developing the new positive (also inside the camera itself).

* (Text by Alec McHoul used with permission)

** More images of the camera and the process on my previous posts “Maharaja portrait photography in 21st century India“, “Working with an old wood camera” and “Portrait Photography in a Daylight Studio”