Clutching what is believed to be a memorial bouquet, a woman looks towards the Pocantico River in the village of Sleepy Hollow in New York state. This allegorical work is a symbolic death tribute to American author Washington Irving, 1783-1859, whose 1820 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow inspired photographer William’s own 1887 series of photogravures contained within the volume The Land of Sleepy Hollow and The Home of Washington Irving.

After Irving died in 1859, his friend and fellow writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made several references in his tribute poem to Irving: In the Churchyard at Tarrytown—contained within the title of William’s photograph— Indian Summer, and the Pocantico, (The river he loved and glorified). Other clues from the poem like dry leaves also appear in the photo:

In the Churchyard at Tarrytown

Here lies the gentle humorist, who died
In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!
A simple stone, with but a date and name,
Marks his secluded resting-place beside
The river that he loved and glorified.
Here in the autumn of his days he came,
But the dry leaves of life were all aflame
With tints that brightened and were multiplied.
How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

Sleepy Hollow is a village in the town of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York metropolitan area.—Wikipedia (2026)

The Pocantico River is a nine-mile-long (14 km) tributary of the Hudson River in western central Westchester County, New York, United States. It rises from Echo Lake in the town of New Castle south of the hamlet of Millwood, and flows generally southwest past Briarcliff Manor to its outlet at Sleepy Hollow. Portions of the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining are within its 16-square-mile (41 km²) watershed.—Wikipedia (2026)

Dr. James Leon Williams: 1852-1932

Williams, a pioneering American prosthodontist with the rather unusual historical distinction of having discovered dental plaque, was also an amateur photographer working in the Naturalistic school. The artist himself is believed to be shown sitting next to an ancient Beech tree at center of photograph. The title to this work references the namesake of English author Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel.

The following biographical excerpt courtesy of Harvard University:

“James Leon Williams was a dentist, scientist, scholar, artist, and philosopher. While he is most noted as the first to discover plaque and the inventor of modern dentures, he was also a photographer of considerable ability, using photographic techniques for both artistic and scientific purposes. As a scientist, his microphotographic research confirmed the relationship between bacteria and tooth decay. As an artist, he was amongst the few American photographers to fully recognize the photogravure process as not only a technique for reproducing photographs, but an artform in its own right. Williams’ work is most akin to the school of photography founded by Peter Henry Emerson, where creating an atmospheric composition with soft peripheral focus would most closely resemble nature. He produced two fine photogravure picture books, “The Home and haunts of Shakespeare” (1892), and “The land of Sleepy Hollow and the home of Washington Irving” (1887). His work on the home of Washington Irving was a collaborative effort with the well known Irving illustrator, Felix Darley. The book celebrates the work of Washington Irving, his literary importance and enduring popularity.”—James Leon Williams: Dentist, Photographer, Philosopher– posted May 12th, 2015 by (Todd) Bachmann

Sun & Shade: An Artistic Periodical

“Within the covers of Sun and Shade…We shall especially endeavor to encourage the artistic side of direct photography in all its phases,”—Ernest Edwards, president & publisher, 1889

In July, 1888, the first issue of Sun & Shade: A Photographic Record of Events, was published in New York City by The Photo-Gravure Company. Essentially a high-class art periodical, each issue featured eight or more beautiful hand-pulled photogravures as well as plates printed in photogelatine, (collotype) and halftone. These were collected within a stapled, folio-sized magazine issued monthly.  The subject matter included the work of leading amateur and professional photographers, as well as works of art—many from the galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. The December issue—Christmas themed—featured a specially designed cover printed in green ink.  Success was swift. The first issue sold 1000 copies “in a fortnight”. (1.) Within the first year, Sun & Shade quickly increased circulation to 4000 copies a month. With a public demand for reprinting earlier issues, this success lead to a rebranding, after which, beginning with the September, 1889 issue, the magazine was renamed Sun & Shade: An Artistic Periodical. The final issue was March, 1896, when financial issues to the parent company, spurred by the eventual May, 1896 bankruptcy of the N.Y. Photo-Gravure Company, forced its closure.

Sun & Shade would become the ultimate statement of the many skills and inquisitive mind of Englishman Ernest Edwards. (1836-1903) Essentially his own printed passion project, the magazine was fueled by his ongoing love of photography in the field (issues featured many plates by him over the years) and a deeply scientific mind which pushed the advancement of the state of photo-mechanical reproduction and fine printing.

The son of a clergyman from Bloomsbury in London, he initially made a name for himself taking photographic portraits of eminent people in his Baker Street gallery. (Charles Darwin sat for him several times) His love of the outdoors also bore fruit and he became an accomplished alpine photographer. But his real interest centered around photo-mechanical reproduction. In 1869, he took out a patent in England for his own rudimentary collotype process called heliotype. In the Fall of 1872, he moved across the pond along with his wife Charlotte, and became superintendent of Boston’s Heliotype Printing Company after selling the American rights to American publisher James Ripley Osgood. (1836–1892) Edwards ran the Heliotype Printing Co. there until the end of 1884. The following year the James R. Osgood & Co. went bankrupt, although not a result of the heliotype division.

Growing restless in Boston, he then moved to New York City, where he established a new firm in March, 1885: The Photo-Gravure Company, (subsequently renamed The New York Photo-Gravure Company) with offices in Manhattan and a leased printing factory in Brooklyn. In 1887, his company received perhaps the one commission it’s best known for today: the printing of  781 collotypes, which Edwards called photogelatine plates, making up the monumental publication:

Animal Locomotion. An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements, 1872-1885, with the landmark sequenced motion study photographs taken by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge. 

Restructured in 1891 as the New York Photogravure Co., Ernest Edwards continued to advance the state of photo-mechanical printing during his final decade, with Sun & Shade publishing some of the earliest examples of his own invention by 1894: plates printed in a three-color process called chrome-gelatine, a variation of his heliotype process.

Quality Rather than Quantity

Even though it survived less than eight years in print, describing Sun & Shade in Ernest Edward’s own words is perhaps the best posterity for this important photographic periodical with an artistic heart. One year after its’ debut, he wrote the following, published in The Photographic Times for August 2, 1889:

“A year ago we commenced the publication of our novel venture in journalism Sun and Shade, a Picture Periodical without letterpress, almost as an experiment, with a modest list of less than fifty subscribers. To-day we are printing an edition of 4,000 copies monthly. A sufficiently convincing proof of the wisdom of our hope that there was room for us.

“In our rapid growth the wish has been indicated unmistakably for the higher grade of pictures, and of the higher class–always for quality rather than quantity. Following rather than leading such a wish, we feel that we make no mistake in marking the future career of the magazine to be rather that of an artistic periodical than a photographic record of events.

*Our efforts shall be directed in the future to make Sun and Shade an artistic periodical which shall be not only pleasing but educational in its broadest sense, Some of our plans may be briefly referred to.

“We shall reproduce the leading pictures in the great collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Within the covers of Sun and Shade will be found from time to time, reproductions of the works of American artists. We shall especially endeavor to encourage the artistic side of direct photography in all its phases, And we shall supplement these special features with examples of sculpture, architecture, and industrial art. If in the future we receive as hearty a response to our efforts as we have received in the past, our task will be indeed pleasant and our road to success a royal one.” (p. 394)

1. Notice: Sun & Shade: October, 1888. The August and September issues did not appear.