Apap Wrote:
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> Wo. Sorry Jon. I also have a degree in
> photography and was just sharing what I found with
> another enthusiast. There really wasn't an and.
>
> For what it's worth, I wasn't necessarily implying
> that the candle wax was a remnant of the
> photographic process. There were hundreds of
> years of visitors lighting their way with fire
> before Daguere figured things out.

Wo I was joking.. :)
The 'ridiculousness' of using a candle to illuminate a photo with a five ISO film.
They had it tough in those days. Glass plates, flash explosions, cyanide developer. Or was it arsenic? either way most of them didn't live very long.
Rutherford would have had it easy with his 120 roll film, small camera and blue flashbulbs.
I like to figure out how early photographers worked in less than ideal conditions.

As far as the staining is concerned I think everyone now agrees that it is some kind of stain made by some kind of fluid flowing from the shaft. IMO I don't think it's candle wax for the reasons Romulus gave. The flow pattern.
No idea what it is other than it's a stain and it's been photographed on numerous occasions, over numerous decades, by numerous cameras, and numerous formats, and numerous lighting techniques.
Ori's suggestion is the best, north facing, open shaft, open to torrential rain once every twenty years for a thousand years. That's 50 torrential rainstorms. It's gonna get wet.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 19-Aug-17 00:41 by Jon Ellison.