Photographed by Bachrach

Rick Fox showed me this book. David Bacharach Jr., German born, a photographer's assistant, was sent to Gettysburg to photograph the dedication of the cemetery (to which President Abraham Lincoln had been invited).

Collins, D. (1992). Photographed by Bachrach. New York: Rizzoli











Lincoln is supposed to be in this photograph. Bacharach had gotten to Gettysburg on a "bulky, horse-drawn portable darkroom necessary for the production of wet-collodion negatives then used by most phtotographers." p.16

"Wet-collodion negatives were ...heavy, breakable glass plates that were made camera-ready by flowing a sticky, photochemically sensitive liquid across the surface of the glass." ibid

"Arriving in Gettysburg, his plates still intact, Bachrach took up a position on a temporary platform about ninety feet from the speaker's stand." (pp. 16-17)

Edward Everett, the principal orator, went on for two hours. Then Lincoln rose. Historians state that a photographer was nearby, perhaps the one Bachrach had been sent to assist. The apocryphal story has it that the photographer could not get a picture of Lincoln because the President spoke for three minutes. His remarks did not impress. "A Chicago newspaper described the address as the silly, flat, dish-watery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.