Several forms of apparatus have been designed, and I
believe have been, to a certain extent, employed successfully in
portraiture. But it has been well known for many years that the
electric light was just the light that would answer the photographer's
requirements, owing to its possessing great actinic power; but the
cost of its production was too great for general adoption; indeed,
such might be said of it now as far as dynamo-electric machines and
steam or gas motors are concerned, for the majority of photographers.
It is true that several influential photographers have already adopted
the use of the electric light for portraiture, but the primary cost of
the apparatus employed by these firms is far beyond the reach of most
portraitists. The apparatus about to be described is one that has been
carefully worked out to meet the wants of the photographer in almost
every particular; in fact, with this apparatus, portraits can, and
have been, produced in an ordinary sitting room, as good and as
perfect as if taken in a well-lighted studio.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The generator of the electric current consists of a series of voltaic
elements of zinc and carbon--forty-eight in number--these elements
being made up of ninety-six zinc plates and forty-eight carbon plates;
thus the generator consists of forty-eight voltaic elements arranged
in rows of twelve; they are all carefully screwed upon suitable bars
of wood, and these bars are joined by other cross bars, which bind the
whole in a compact form; the battery being suitably connected so as to
produce a current of very high electro-motive force, and so arranged
over their exciting trough that the plates can be raised or lowered at
will, as seen in Fig.
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