…[in 1900] everybody got down off his stilts; henceforth nobody drank absinthe with his black coffee; nobody went mad; nobody committed suicide; nobody joined the Catholic Church; or if they did I have forgotten.

After much demand, William Henry Fox Talbot’s original Calotype process is returning to Lacock Abbey. Dan Estabrook, a modern master and artist using Talbot’s original process will instruct a small group of students in making calotype negatives and the salted paper prints.

Roger Watson, curator of the Fox Talbot Museum will give a short lecture and introduction on the invention of photography and the work of William Henry Fox Talbot at Lacock Abbey.

This four day course will give participants the opportunity to work closely with Dan and learn various techniques and manipulations within this rare process. Participants will learn Talbot’s original formula but also some of the chemical modifications which rapidly developed after the announcement of the process in 1840. Students will be introduced to the historically common practice of pencil retouching on paper negatives to achieve a desired result, artistic or otherwise. The final day of the workshop will consist of salted paper printing from their calotype negatives.

In this class we will learn the first viable process for making paper negatives, the Calotype, from 1841, using the original method invented by William Henry Fox Talbot. Talbot’s first formula is notoriously fickle, and gave trouble to nearly all its early practitioners, but with some small adjustments we will be making our own calotype negatives in no time. We will also go over other advancements, such as the various French formulae, as well as practical considerations like paper choice, coating techniques, waxing for transparency and printing.