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History of Photography

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Alejandro Carlos Calero
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12 views3 pages

History of Photography

Uploaded by

Alejandro Carlos Calero
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The history of photography began with the discovery of two critical principles: The

first is camera obscura image projection, the second is the discovery that some
substances are visibly altered by exposure to light.[2] There are no artifacts or
descriptions that indicate any attempt to capture images with light sensitive
materials prior to the 18th century.

Around 1717, Johann Heinrich Schulze used a light-sensitive slurry to capture


images of cut-out letters on a bottle. However, he did not pursue making these
results permanent. Around 1800, Thomas Wedgwood made the first reliably documented,
although unsuccessful attempt at capturing camera images in permanent form. His
experiments did produce detailed photograms, but Wedgwood and his associate Humphry
Davy found no way to fix these images.

In 1826, Nicéphore Niépce first managed to fix an image that was captured with a
camera, but at least eight hours or even several days of exposure in the camera
were required and the earliest results were very crude. Niépce's associate Louis
Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced
and commercially viable photographic process. The daguerreotype required only
minutes of exposure in the camera, and produced clear, finely detailed results. On
August 2, 1839 Daguerre demonstrated the details of the process to the Chamber of
Peers in Paris. On August 19 the technical details were made public in a meeting of
the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Fine Arts in the Palace of Institute.
(For granting the rights of the inventions to the public, Daguerre and Niépce were
awarded generous annuities for life.)[3][4][5] When the metal based daguerreotype
process was demonstrated formally to the public, the competitor approach of paper-
based calotype negative and salt print processes invented by William Henry Fox
Talbot was already demonstrated in London (but with less publicity).[5] Subsequent
innovations made photography easier and more versatile. New materials reduced the
required camera exposure time from minutes to seconds, and eventually to a small
fraction of a second; new photographic media were more economical, sensitive or
convenient. Since the 1850s, the collodion process with its glass-based
photographic plates combined the high quality known from the Daguerreotype with the
multiple print options known from the calotype and was commonly used for decades.
Roll films popularized casual use by amateurs. In the mid-20th century,
developments made it possible for amateurs to take pictures in natural color as
well as in black-and-white.

The commercial introduction of computer-based electronic digital cameras in the


1990s soon revolutionized photography. During the first decade of the 21st century,
traditional film-based photochemical methods were increasingly marginalized as the
practical advantages of the new technology became widely appreciated and the image
quality of moderately priced digital cameras was continually improved. Especially
since cameras became a standard feature on smartphones, taking pictures (and
instantly publishing them online) has become a ubiquitous everyday practice around
the world.

Etymology
The coining of the word "photography" is usually attributed to Sir John Herschel in
1839. It is based on the Greek φῶς (phōs; genitive phōtos), meaning "light", and
γραφή (graphê), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing of light".[6]
[5]

Early history of the camera


Main article: Camera obscura
Further information: History of the camera

Principle of the camera obscura

Principle of a box camera obscura with mirror


A natural phenomenon, known as camera obscura or pinhole image, can project a
(reversed) image through a small opening onto an opposite surface. This principle
may have been known and used in prehistoric times. The earliest known written
record of the camera obscura is to be found in the 4th century BCE, in two
different places in parallel: by Aristotle[7][8] in Greece and by Mozi in China.[9]
[8] Alhazen (or Ibn al-Haytham) is said to be the first that actually built a
camera obscura. Until the 16th century the camera obscura was mainly used to study
optics and astronomy, especially to safely watch solar eclipses without damaging
the eyes. In the later half of the 16th century some technical improvements were
developed: a biconvex lens in the opening (first described by Gerolamo Cardano in
1550) and a diaphragm restricting the aperture (Daniel Barbaro in 1568) gave a
brighter and sharper image. In 1558 Giambattista della Porta was the first to write
a description of using the camera obscura as a drawing aid[5] in his popular and
influential books. Della Porta's proposal was widely adopted by artists and since
the 17th century portable versions of the camera obscura were commonly used—first
as a tent, later as boxes.

The box type camera obscura was the basis for photographic cameras, as used in the
earliest attempts to capture natural images in light sensitive materials. This was
the first step in the path that Walter Benjamin described in The Work of Art in the
Age of Mechanical Reproduction.[10]

Physiognotrace

Physiognotrace of Hans Lindholm by Gilles-Louis Chrétien


A physiognotrace is an instrument, designed to support semi-automated portrait.[5]
[11] It was invented in the 18th century and was abandoned when light-sensitive
materials were discovered. It was popular for several decades. The sitter sat in a
wooden frame and turned to the side to pose. A pantograph connected to a pencil
produced a contour line on a plate within a few minutes.

Camera lucida

Camera-lucida-scheme
A camera lucida is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists. The camera
lucida projects an optical image of the subject being viewed, on the surface upon
which the artist is drawing. The artist sees both scene and drawing surface
simultaneously, as in a photographic double exposure. This allows the artist to
duplicate key points of the scene on the drawing surface, thus aiding in the
accurate rendering of perspective.[5]

Light sensitive materials


Fixing
Note: In the process discussed here, the "Fixing" step is mentioned. This is a step
in the negative development process as well as in the chemical printing process.
(Of course not required in digital printing). At this stage, all remaining light-
sensitive materials are removed so that the product (film or print) can be exposed
to light without the image being further affected by the light.[12][13]

Before 1700: Light sensitive materials


The notion that light can affect various substances—for instance, the sun tanning
of skin or fading of textile—must have been around since very early times. Ideas of
fixing the images seen in mirrors or other ways of creating images automatically
may also have been in people's minds long before anything like photography was
developed.[14] However, there seem to be no historical records of any ideas even
remotely resembling photography before 1700, despite early knowledge of light-
sensitive materials and the camera obscura.[15]

In 1614 Angelo Sala noted that[16] sunlight will turn powdered silver nitrate
black, and that paper wrapped around silver nitrate for a year will turn black.[17]

Wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals in 1694.[18]

1700 to 1802: earliest concepts and fleeting photogram results


Schulze's Scotophors: earliest fleeting letter photograms (circa 1717)
Around 1717,[19] German polymath Johann Heinrich Schulze accidentally discovered
that a slurry of chalk and nitric acid into which some silver particles had been
dissolved was darkened by sunlight. After experiments with threads that had created
lines on the bottled substance after he placed it in direct sunlight for a while,
he applied stencils of words to the bottle. The stencils produced copies of the
text in dark red, almost violet characters on the surface of the otherwise whitish
contents. The impressions persisted until they were erased by shaking the bottle or
until overall exposure to light obliterated them. Schulze named the substance
"Scotophors" when he published his findings in 1719. He thought the discovery could
be applied to detect whether metals or minerals contained any silver and hoped that
further experimentation by others would lead to some other useful results.[20][21]
Schulze's process resembled later photogram techniques and is sometimes regarded as
the very first form of photography.[22]

De la Roche's fictional image capturing process (1760)


The early science fiction novel Giphantie[23] (1760) by the Frenchman Tiphaigne de
la Roche described something quite similar to (color) photography, a process that
fixes fleeting images formed by rays of light: "They coat a piece of canvas with
this material, and place it in front of the object to capture. The first effect of
this cloth is similar to that of a mirror, but by means of its viscous nature the
prepared canvas, as is not the case with the mirror, retains a facsimile of the
image. The mirror represents images faithfully, but retains none; our canvas
reflects them no less faithfully, but retains them all. This impression of the
image is instantaneous. The canvas is then removed and deposited in a dark place.
An hour later the impression is dry, and you have a picture the more precious in
that no art can imitate its truthfulness."[24] De la Roche thus imagined a process
that made use of a special substance in combination with the qualities of a mirror,
rather than the camera obscura. The dark place in which the pictures dried suggests
that he thought about the light sensitivity of the material, but he attributed the
effect to its viscous nature.

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