Making a Stereoscopic Calotype at Lacock Abbey, with Jo Gane and Robert Douglas – The Stereoscopy Blog

I thought about commemorating Sir Charles Wheatstone on the 150th anniversary of his death. I will share a stereoscopic calotype negative that I recently made, with a lot of help, at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.

Charles Wheatstone commissioned the first photographs of his invention of the stereoscope in 1840. In December of that year, he wrote to the English inventor of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot, at Lacock Abbey, to thank him for the photographs he had sent, but to inform him that, unfortunately, the angle between the two images was too large to be combined into 3-D.¹

Positive cross-view stereoscopic salt paper, made from a negative calotype, by Robert Douglas. He may have heard of a 3-D expert attending his workshop!

Talbot designed the Calotype (sometimes called the Talbotype) in the fall of 1840, and further refined the process when he patented it in 1841 (except in Scotland). This was the first photographic process to use negative paper to produce multiple positive prints; this involves sensitizing high-quality paper with chemicals, exposing it to light in a camera to form a latent image, and then developing it in a dark room. The resulting negative paper can then be used to print several positive images onto another sheet of sensitized paper. One of the most important parts of the process, as Rob explains in the workshop, is the quality of the paper used.

When I saw that Lacock Abbey, arguably the birthplace of stereoscopic photography, was offering a one-day workshop on the historic photographic process with two calotypists I followed and admired, I jumped at the chance.

Robert Douglas (left) and Jo Gane (right) introduce the workshop at Lacock Abbey. Note the amazing camera behind Rob!

Jo Gane is a photographic artist and educator, and you can learn more about her work and research here.

Robert Douglas is a 21st century calotypist and process historian, and you can learn more about his work and research here.

Photogenic image exposed to sunlight.

In the morning, we learned about photogenic images and made our own by sensitizing pre-salted paper with silver nitrate, trimming the historic Botanic Garden at Lacock Abbey as material for making sun prints, arranging them all in print frames, and then exposing them to the bit of sunlight we were grateful to receive on an October morning. The group then washed, repaired and washed the prints in the darkroom and everyone was happy with the results.

In a dark room with photogenic images of the group.

Final rinse of photogenic images.

In the afternoon we learned about the calotype process so we could make our own negatives. The paper has been pickled, washed, coated with potassium iodide and silver nitrate, washed and dried. We sensitize the prepared paper with a weak solution of silver nitrate and acetic acid with distilled water. The paper was sandwiched between glass, inserted into a suitable camera back plate, and the group had to use some of Jo and Rob’s amazing cameras to take photos.

Jo Gane demonstrates how to use the camera.

Part of the group set out to find subjects for their calotype photographs, in the magical setting of Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.

Target acquired: Entrance to Lacock Abbey.

I was very fortunate to be able to use Rob’s Wista Field camera, and, with a lot of guidance from him, my workshop colleague and I individually took the left and right callotype negatives of the stereoscopic pair of entrances to Lacock Abbey by carefully moving the camera and tripod. By this time, we had been blessed with beautiful sunlight and both exposures took about 3 minutes each. I have to thank my workshop friends here for letting me rope them in to make a negative stereoscopic calotype; who knows if we were the first people silly enough to try it at Lacock since Talbot!

Rob’s Wista Field camera, while taking a 3 minute exposure for the right half of the calotype negative.

Jo spoke to some of the group as they photographed Lacock Abbey.

Rob prepares to take his own calotype photo.

We all then returned to the darkroom, removed the negative calotype from the plate, started the first development with gallic acid and distilled water, and continued with the second development using a gallic acid solution with sensitizer. The calotype is then washed through several trays for 30 minutes, fixed in two hypo (sodium thiosulfate) baths, taken home in water, then washed for at least 2 hours and dried flat.

Darkroom chemicals to develop negative calotypes.

Washing and repairing calotypes.

Our calotype negatives are digitized…

The next stage was to make a salt mold from the calotype negative, however, due to lack of time and experience, I’ve cheated and used Photoshop to make the positive, cleaned it up a bit, and used Stereo Photomaker to create a digital stereoscopic counterpart for this post.

…made into positive digital….

…and finally a stereoscopic positive digital calotype, created using StereoPhoto Maker.

But never fear, while I was in the workshop I bought a Rob Douglas book John Adamson’s Callotype Processwhich includes a great step-by-step guide, and he has kindly reached out to me via email and given me lots of advice, so, in the end, I hope to create my own positive results.

This workshop really helped me appreciate the experience, patience and effort that goes into becoming a calotypist. Being able to produce a good negative definitely takes a lot of skill and I am very grateful for all the help I received from Jo and Rob, and it really was a LOT of help 😉 It was a great day, and I really enjoyed the magic of the calotype process, more than I expected.

I look forward to attending more of their workshops and I highly recommend you keep an eye on their website and the National Trust’s Lacock Abbey social media if you too would like the opportunity to attend. The Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock opened in 1975 and to celebrate they are offering a special program of workshops, exhibitions and events celebrating early photography.

1. You can learn more about the factual early history of stereoscopy at Stereoscopy: 3-D Dawn, written by Denis Pellerin and Edited by Brian May (London: London Stereoscopic Company, 2021). To make the book more accessible so people can learn the history of stereoscopy accurately and to pay tribute to Sir Charles Wheatstone on the 150th anniversary of his death, The London Stereoscopic Company is offering an incredible 25% discount on the book until 25 October 2025.

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