When Jayne Hinds Bidaut saw her first tintype, she was so struck by it

When Jayne Hinds Bidaut saw her first tintype, she was so struck by its rich creamy tones that she could hardly believe this photographic process had been abandoned. She set out to revive it. Bidaut had been searching for a way to photograph insects from her entomological collection, but paper prints simply seemed too flat to her. The tintype, an image captured on a thin, coated piece of iron (there is no tin in it), provided the detail and dimensionality she wanted. The image-containing emulsion can often create a raised surface on the plate.

For the photographer Dan Estabrook, old albumen prints and tintypes inspired a fantasy. He imagines planting the ones he makes in flea markets and antique shops, to be discovered as “originals” from a bygone time that never existed.

On the verge of a filmless, digital revolution, photography is moving forward into its past. In addition to reviving the tintype process, photographers are polishing daguerreotype plates, coating paper with egg whites, making pinhole cameras, and mixing emulsions from nineteenth-century recipes in order to coax new expressive effects from old photographic techniques. So diverse are the artists returning to photography’s roots that the movement is more like a groundswell.

The old techniques are heavily hands-on and idiosyncratic. That is the source of their appeal. It is also the prime reason for their eclipse. Most became obsolete in a few decades, replaced by others that were simpler, cheaper, faster, and more consistent in their results. Only the tintype lasted as a curiosity into the twentieth century. Today’s artists quickly discover that to exploit the past is to court the very uncertainty that early innovators sought to banish. Such unpredictability attracted Estabrook to old processes. His work embraces accident and idiosyncrasy in order to foster the illusion of antiquity. In his view, time leaches meaning from every photograph and renders it a lost object, enabling us to project onto it our sentiments and associations. So while the stains and imperfections of prints made from gum bichromate or albumen coatings would probably have been cropped out by a nineteenth-century photographer, Estabrook retains them to heighten the sense of nostalgia.

This preoccupation with contingency offers a clue to the deeper motivations of many of the antiquarian avant-gardists. The widely variable outcome of old techniques virtually guarantees that each production is one of a kind and bears, on some level, the indelible mark of the artist’s encounter with a particular set of circumstances. At the same time, old methods offer the possibility of recovering an intimacy with photographic communication that mass media have all but overwhelmed.

1. In the context of the third paragraph, the function of the phrase “on the verge of a filmless, digital revolution” (Highlighted) is to

(A) highlight the circumstances that make the renewed interest in early photographic processes ironic
(B) indicate that most photographers are wary of advanced photographic techniques
(C) reveal the author’s skeptical views regarding the trend toward the use of old photographic techniques
(D) suggest that most photographers who are artists see little merit in the newest digital technology
(E) imply that the groundswell of interest by photographers in old processes will probably turn out to be a passing fad

2. Based on the passage, which one of the following most accurately describes an attitude displayed by the author toward artists’ uses of old photographic techniques?

(A) doubtful hesitation about the artistic value of using old techniques
(B) appreciative understanding of the artists’ aesthetic goals
(C) ironic amusement at the continued use of techniques that are obsolete
(D) enthusiastic endorsement of their implicit critique of modern photographic technology
(E) whimsical curiosity about the ways in which the processes work

3. Information in the passage most helps to answer which one of the following questions?

(A) What are some nineteenth-century photographic techniques that have not been revived?
(B) What is the chemical makeup of the emulsion applied to the iron plate in the tintype process?
(C) What are the names of some contemporary photographers who are using pinhole cameras?
(D) What effect is produced when photographic paper is coated with egg whites?
(E) What were the perceived advantages of the innovations that led to the obsolescence of many early photographic techniques and processes?

4. Which one of the following most accurately describes the primary purpose of the passage?

(A) to make a case for the aesthetic value of certain old photographic processes
(B) to provide details of how certain old methods of photographic processing are used in producing artistic photographs
(C) to give an account of a surprising recent development in the photographic arts
(D) to explain the acclaim that photographers using old photographic techniques have received
(E) to contrast the approaches used by two contemporary photographers

5. Which one of the following is most analogous to the use of old photographic techniques for artistic purposes by late-twentieth-century artists, as described in the passage?

(A) A biomedical researcher in a pharmaceutical firm researches the potential of certain traditional herbal remedies for curing various skin conditions.
(B) An architect investigates ancient accounts of classical building styles in order to get inspiration for designing a high-rise office building.
(C) An engineer uses an early-twentieth-century design for a highly efficient turbocharger in preference to a new computer-aided design.
(D) A clothing designer uses fabrics woven on old-fashioned looms in order to produce the irregular texture of handwoven garments.
(E) An artist uses a computer graphics program to reproduce stylized figures from ancient paintings and insert them into a depiction of a modern city landscape.

6. Based on the information in the passage, it can be inferred that Estabrook believes that

(A) photography in the nineteenth century tended to focus on subjects that are especially striking and aesthetically interesting
(B) artists can relinquish control over significant aspects of the process of creating their work and still produce the aesthetic effects they desire
(C) photographs produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were generally intended to exploit artistically the unpredictability of photographic processing
(D) it is ethically questionable to produce works of art intended to deceive the viewer into believing that the works are older than they really are
(E) the aesthetic significance of a photograph depends primarily on factors that can be manipulated after the photograph has been taken

7. The reasoning by which, according to the passage, Estabrook justifies his choice of certain strategies in photographic processing would be most strengthened if which one of the following were true?

(A) When advanced modern photographic techniques are used to intentionally produce prints with imperfections resembling those in nineteenth-century prints, the resulting prints invariably betray the artifice involved.
(B) The various feelings evoked by a work of art are independent of the techniques used to produce the work and irrelevant to its artistic value.
(C) Most people who use photographs as a way of remembering or learning about the past value them almost exclusively for their ability to record their subjects accurately.
(D) People who are interested in artistic photography seldom see much artistic value in photographs that appear antique but are not really so.
(E) The latest photographic techniques can produce photographs that are almost completely free of blemishes and highly resistant to deterioration over time.