As I was using the family
bathroom for a darkroom and washing negatives and prints on turkey
platters in the kitchen, I was rather put to it when it came to
giving an exhibition. It was scarcely my fault if men could not
handle the paper they manufactured so that it produced the results
that I obtained, so I said I thought the difference might lie in
the chemical properties of the water, and sent this man on his way
satisfied. Possibly it did. But I have a shrewd suspicion it lay in
high-grade plates, a careful exposure, judicious development, with
self-compounded chemicals straight from the factory, and C. P. I
think plates swabbed with wet cotton before development,
intensified if of short exposure, and thoroughly swabbed again
before drying, had much to do with it; and paper handled in the
same painstaking manner had more. I have hundreds of negatives in
my closet made twelve years ago, in perfect condition for printing
from to-day, and I never have lost a plate through fog from
imperfect development and hasty washing; so my little mother's rule
of `whatsoever thy hands find to do, do it with thy might,' held
good in photography."
Thus had Mrs. Porter made time to study and to write, and editors
began to accept what she sent them with little if any changes. She
began by sending photographic and natural history hints to
~Recreation, and with the first installment was asked to take
charge of the department and furnish material each month for which
she was to be paid at current prices in high-grade photographic
material.
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