Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Camera Obscura
• The name Camera is derived
from camera obscura, Latin
for "dark chamber”.
• May have been discovered by
the Chinese in the 4th century.
• The earliest ones were the size
of an entire room!
• It functioned much like a
modern camera, except there
was no way at this time to
record the image short of
tracing it. (Vermeer/ Davinci
used it!)
Joseph Niecephore Niepce
• This is the first known photograph,
ca. 1826.
• There is little merit in this picture
other than that fact.
• The exposure lasted eight hours, so
the sun had time to move from east
to west, appearing to shine on both
sides of the building.
• It was made on a substance called
Bitumin of Judea, a kind of
asphalt. It hardened as it was
exposed to light.
William Henry Fox Talbot
• Though Fox Talbot was not the
first to produce photographs, he
made a major contribution to the
photographic process as we know it
today.
• His inability to draw led him to
experiment with photography.
• His “Calotypes” or “Talbotypes”
used a paper negative that
produced a hazy, textured image.
• Although not as popular as
Daguerre’s sharper images,
Talbot’s process utilized a positive/
negative process that allowed the
making of multiple prints.
Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre
• He regularly used a camera obscura
as an aid to painting in perspective,
and this had led him to seek to freeze
the image.
• In 1826 he learned of the work of
Nicephore Niépce, and partnered
with him.
• His process was called the
Daguerreotype.
• It reduced the exposure time from
hours to minutes.
• It was a mirrorlike image on a
metal plate.
• It was a oneofakind image (no
enlargements were possible)
• It was very fragile.
• It was fairly expensive.
Tintypes
• The Tintype , or ferrotype
process allowed for faster
exposures than the earlier
daguerreotype and ambrotype.
• Hence, more candid shots
outside the photographer's
studio, like this image, were
easier to achieve.
• In addition, Tintypes were
cheaper to produce, allowing a
broader spectrum of society to
have their likeness captured.
Cartesdevisites
• Cartesdevisite were small visiting card
portraits.
• By 1854, a number of photographs could
be made on one plate.
• Small, light and cheap to collect, many
people began to place these in
photographic albums
• Collections of pictures, particularly of
royalty, became highly treasured (there
was no television, of course, in those
days).
• Cartesdevisite were Albumen prints
(egg white), and it is on record that in
Britain half a million eggs were being
delivered yearly to one photo studio
alone!
Frederick Scott • Archer invented the wetplate
collodion process which
Archer preceded the modern gelatin
emulsion.
• He used calotypes and was
dissatisfied with the poor
definition, contrast and the long
exposures needed.
• Reduced exposure times to two
or three seconds
• The “Wet/ Glass Plate process
enabled photographers to
combine the fine detail of the
daguerreotype with the ability
to print multiple paper copies
like the calotype.
• He died in poverty as he didn't
patent the collodion process and
made very little money from it.
The Portable
Wet Plate
Darkroom
• The Wet plate process was complex and cumbersome.
• Photographers had to mix their own chemistry (often in a portable
darkroom).
• They had to coat a large glass plate of glass with emulsion
(collodion), load the (very large) camera, take the photograph and
develop it without allowing the plate to dry out!
The American
Civil War • This was the first time that anyone
had seen the realities of war
firsthand as distinct from previous
"artists' impressions".
• Matthew Brady employed over 20
men to photograph the war
including Alexander Gardner &
Timothy O'Sullivan.
• Due to his deteriorating eyesight,
he made few photographs during
the war, but took credit for them
anyway.
• During the war Brady spent over
$100,000 to create 10,000 prints.
He expected the U.S. government
to buy the photographs when the
war ended, but when the
government refused to do so he
was forced to sell his New York
City studio and go into bankruptcy.
Eadweard Muybridge
• A Britishborn photographer, known for his early use of multiple cameras to capture motion.
• By 1878, Muybridge had successfully photographed a horse in fast motion using a series of fifty
cameras.
• The cameras were arranged along a track parallel to the horse's, and each of the camera shutters
was controlled by a trip wire which was triggered by the horse's hooves.
• This series of photos, taken at what is now Stanford University, is called The Horse in Motion,
and shows that, indeed, the hooves all leave the ground when the animal is galloping.
Julia Margaret
Cameron
June 11, 1815 – January 26, 1879
• Groundbreaking British female
photographer who used the wet
plate process.
• She became known for her portraits
of celebrities of the time, and for
Arthurian and similar legendary
themed pictures.
• Cameron's photographic career was
short (about 12 years) and came
late in her life (began at age 48).
• Her work had a huge impact on the
development of modern
photography, especially her closely
cropped portraits which are still
mimicked today.
Pictorialism
• Pictorialism was a photographic
movement in vogue from 1885 and
declined rapidly in 1914 after the
widespread emergence of
Modernism.
• Pictorialism largely subscribed to
the idea that art photography
needed to emulate the painting
and etching of the time.
• Among the methods used were
soft focus, special filters and lens
coatings, heavy manipulation in the
darkroom, and exotic printing
processes.
George Eastman/ Kodak
• He introduced the Kodak box
camera incorporating roll film.
• His slogan was "You press the
button, we do the rest”.
• He brought photography to the
masses.
• The box camera had a simple lens
focusing on 8 feet and beyond. One
roll of film took a hundred images,
all circular in shape.
• The entire camera would be mailed
to the factory where the film was
processed and the camera reloaded
and returned to the user.
Jacques Henri Lartigue
• He started taking photos when he
was 6, his subject matter being
primarily his own (privileged) life
and the people and activities in it.
• Born outside of Paris, he is most
famous for his stunning photos of
automobile races, planes and
fashionable Parisian women from
the turn of the century.