Editorial comment for this plate:

“BY THE SEA.”

Our striking marine picture this week is from a small hand camera negative by Mr. Ernest Edwards, President of the New York Photogravure Company. The negative was only 3¼ × 4¼ inches in size, so it was enlarged to nine times its original size in making the present photogravure.

The exposure was one-fiftieth of a second with a Beck lens f/16; and the plate was developed with eikonogen developer by a method which Mr. Edwards has found very successful in connection with instantaneously and under-exposed plates.

He makes two solutions: One containing full strength of eikonogen with but a few drops of alkali; the other containing full strength of alkali. He places the negative first in the eikonogen solution and allows it to remain there until the image begins to appear, then he transfers it to the alkali solution and leaves it there until the proper amount of density and detail have been acquired. Mr. Edwards says that the film becomes so thoroughly saturated with the eikonogen when it is in the first solution that the image grows in detail and density gradually in the second solution without any danger of fogging, and he is thus enabled to get all that is possible out of a short exposure.

The scene depicted was found on Manhattan Beach, Coney Island, on the morning of the 4th of July last. A Cramer Isochromatic plate was used in the hand camera employed, and the result is a very pleasing marine picture with natural water and a good distance.

Ernest Edwards: 1837-1903