The art, process, or job of producing a permanent image by the action of radiant energy and light on a sensitive surface ( such as film). A forever changing form in the eyes of everyone; by taking a closer look at this art, process, and job, I will be going back centuries, researching the men who paved the road for the photography we all know in today’s society, and what process’s they may have explored in doing so, in order to find out if the firsts methods were really an essential part of this field.
The first real documentation on photography dates back to a man by the name of Joseph Niepce, in 1814. Niepce discovered what was known as “Camera Obsucra,”a soon to be common form of photography in that time. Camera Obscura is Latin for darkened chamber room, for it was the process of using a device that had a room with a hole in one side. The hole, also known as a pinhole, was used to project an external scene through it and onto a surface inside the room or “box,” the smaller the pinhole the sharper the image. Once the re-image was projected onto the surface the artist or “photographer” could then trace the image with key precision, thus reproducing the image with amazing accuracy. Most often when using the Camera Obscura method, the image is projected at a rotated 180 degrees, but in the 1800’s, mirrors were positioned and repositioned to project the image right-side up. Although Niepce managed to capture a photographic image, it required over eight hours of light to expose the photograph and faded quickly afterwards. Not much time passed after this sensation hit that another one was on its way.
Twenty-three years later, in the year 1837, a man by the name of Louis Daguerre created what is famously known as the “Daguerreot...
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Kretschman, Matthais. Niepce’s Camera Obscura and the History of the First Photograph. Kremalicious, Kretschman ,Matthias, 10. June. 2012. Web. 06. March. 2014 http://kremalicious.com/niepces-camera-obscura-and-the-history-of-the-first-photograph/
Pederson, Scholer, Mark. The Silver Dry Gelatin Plate Process, Alternative Photography. N.p., 20. February. 2010. Web. 06 March. 2014 http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/processes/gelatin-silver/silver-gelatin-dry-plate-process
Wikipeadia. Thomas Sutton, Photographer, Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. N.p., 20. December. 2013. Web. 06. March. 2014. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sutton_(photographer)>
Ament, Phil. George Eastman, The Great Idea Finder. Ament, Phil. 09. October. 2006. Web. 06 March. 2014. http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/eastman.htm
Photogenic drawing is an invention which is an early photographic procedure made by William Henry Fox Talbot. According to Malcolm Daniel his invention, which was made during the industrial revolution, opened up a whole different world for photography (Malcolm Daniel, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) and the Invention of Photography, Metmuseum.org). Moreover, Talbot’s innovation became the foundation of 19th and 20th century photography. The photogenic drawing concept led through many impacts on modern world.
Tolmachev, I. (2010, March 15). A history of Photography Part 1: The Beginning. Retrieved Febraury 2014, from tuts+ Photography: http://photography.tutsplus.com/articles/a-history-of-photography-part-1-the-beginning--photo-1908
Camera Lucida was Roland Barthes’ last written piece, published posthumously in 1980. This book deals with the topic of photography and the death of Barthes’ mother in 1977. The role of photography is questioned; he asks what about photography makes it a valid media? We read about the operator (the photographer), spectrum (the subject) and spectator (the viewer), also about the studium (what we see in the photograph) and the punctum (the unclassifiable, the thing that makes the photograph important to the viewer). According to Barthes the photograph is an adventure for the viewer, but it is ultimately death, the recording of something that will be dead after the picture is taken. This idea is the main focus of Barthes’ writing, the photograph “that-has-been”, in Latin “interfuit: what I see has been here, in this place which extends between infinity and the subject; it has been here, and yet immediately separated; it has been absolutely, irref...
"History of Art: History of Photography." History of Art: History of Photography. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 May 2014. .
Gustavon, Todd. Camera: A History of Photography from daguerreotype to Digital. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing, 2009. Intro p.2
In the chapter, “The Mirror with a Memory”, the authors, James Davidson and Mark Lytle, describe numerous things that evolved after the civil war, including the life of Jacob Riis, the immigration of new peoples in America, and the evolution of photography. The authors’ purpose in this chapter is to connect the numerous impacts photography had on the past as well as its bringing in today’s age.
The first type of using light to make a picture was the daguerreotype. Both Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre and Nicephore Niepce, who passed away before the public was introduced to the daguerreotype, founded this type of picture taking. However, before this Louis Daguerre made a "theater without actors." Beaumont Newhall explains that this was an illusion made by extraordinary lighting effects that made the 45 ½ foot by 71 ½ foot pictures appear to change as one looked at them (2).
Weaver, Mike. British Photography in the Nineteenth Century: The Fine Art Tradition . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
In the nineteenth century, the innovation and invention of new technology took off. More inventions and innovation came out of the nineteenth century up until World War I than any other time period in history. From the concept of time, the improvement of transportation, and even the telephone; the camera has definitely made its mark in history. In 1839, the camera had gradually become the new major medium used in the nineteenth century. It was the invention that changed artwork and gave everyone a new way to represent itself to the world. Gay-Lussac called it “a new art form in a new civilization.” Photography represented Paris in three major ways. The new technology influenced a new way of painting where the artist began capturing their subjects in action versus a still portrait pose. And with the Daguerreotype being available to everyone in the public, it was becoming easy to travel to Paris for events. The regular working class people and artists to go to Paris to see the city and bring imaged back home. And finally, because of how photography represented Paris, the tourism industry began to grow gave the city of Paris the money and inspiration to reconstruct their city into the city we picture it to be, a city full of change, innovation, and excitement.
.... 'It is a moment when the visible escapes from the timeless incorporeal order of the camera obscura and becomes lodged in another apparatus, within the unstable physiology and temporality of the human body'. Crary further demonstrates the shift in vision's location from camera to body by examining the way in which it was reproduced in various optical devices invented during this same period, specifically the stereoscope, the kaleidoscope, the phenakistiscope, and the diorama. His examination is based on a provocative premise: 'There is a tendency to conflate all optical devices in the nineteenth century as equally implicated in a vague collective drive to higher and higher standards of verisimilitude' (110). According to Crary, such an approach tends to neglect entirely how some of these devices were expressions of what he calls 'nonveridical' models of perception.
The first models of the Camera Obscura were large chambers that could be entered by the artist. At first, this invention was recognized as an aid to artists who could trace the images to create a more realistic impression of the scene. The difficulty with the chamber was that it was not readily portable, and was therefore useless to an artist. This issue was solved when advancements were made in the seventeenth century when inventors developed a portable version of the optical device. Also, those using the instrument found that the image produced was inaccurate in that it defied the rules of perspective because it was formed by a single lens. Inventors discovered a way to correct this problem, as explained in the History of Photography:
As seen in paintings of battle scenes and portraits of wealthy Renaissance aristocracy, people have always strived to preserve and document their existence. The creation of photography was merely the logical continuum of human nature’s innate desire to preserve the past, as well as a necessary reaction to a world in a stage of dramatic and irreversible change. It is not a coincidence that photography arose in major industrial cities towards the end of the nineteenth century.
"History of photography and photojournalism.." History of photography and photojournalism.. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. .
Camera History.The first camera like devices can be seen as far back as Ancient Greece and China. This piece of early technology was called the Obscura, the invention of this was an important part in developing cameras and photography. A camera Obscura is a dark closed space that is shaped like a box with a hole on the other side of it. The light that comes through the tiny hole projects an image that meets the wall of the box. The image was then drawn by an artist; however, the image was projected upside down.
If we go back beyond Lumière Brothers’ projection of their cinematography in Paris over Christmas 1895, which is too straightforward birth narration of cinema; ancient visual forms like Egyptian hieroglyphics or pre-cinematic technologies of image capture and projection, known as magic lanterns, employing a series of lenses and light sources, were early proof of humanity mesmerised by the play and tricks of light and shades.