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Du Xiang-guo Papers (杜香國文書)

Author: The Archives of Institute of Taiwan History

Du Xiang-guo was a member of local gentry and industrialist in Dajia Town, Taichung County. His father, Du Qing, was dedicated to improving quality of Dajia Straw hats and mats and exporting them to Europe and the United States. Being a successor of his father’s business, Du Xiang-guo was active in manufacturing and financial industry. The Du Xiang-guo Papers, with coverage date from 1908 to 1946, contains his correspondence on business matters, diaries during attending schools, and literary works.

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IV. The equipment and technique of photography that John Thomson applied

The photography technique that John Thomson applied was wet-plate collodion, which was invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. The equipment included a wooden camera, a portable tent to be a dark room, glass plate negatives, collodion and silver nitrate used to be sensitizers and developers. However, walking in the old-growth forest with the equipment was not convenient at all. Hence, John Thomson hired several porters assisting him to take photographs. Since the exposing process of wet-plate collodion took several seconds to 2 minutes, the photographer’s expertise and his interaction with the models were both tested. Surprisingly, there were no serious conflicts between the plain aborigines in Taiwan and western people. It was likely that Dr. Maxwell’s introduction already won the trust from Taiwanese plain aborigines. Therefore, they were calm and comfortable when facing John Thomson’s lens. According to what Thomson wrote in Through China: with a Camera, we can know that Taiwanese plain aborigines were very hospitable.


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