History of Photography
• Photography was one of the many inventions of
the 19th century– the electric light, the safety pin,
dynamite and the automobile are just a few– and
of all of them, photography probably created the
most astonishment and delight.
• Today, most people take photography for
granted, but early viewers were shocked and
amazed.
• Photography took over what had previously
been one of the main functions of art– to record
factual visual information.
Timeline
• 500 BC: Mo-Tsu may be
the earliest to describe a
camera obscura or “dark
room” in ancient China.
• 400 BC: Aristotle
describes a camera
obscura in ancient
Greece.
• 1000 AD: Alhazen, an
Islamic scholar, is
credited with describing
the principles of the
camera obscura in detail.
Timeline
• 1267: English scientist
Roger Bacon is said to
be the first to describe the
camera obscura in
scientific detail with the
benefit of knowledge from
previous Arabic scholars.
• 1490: Italian Leonardo
DaVinci describes the
camera obscura in detail.
He uses the technology
extensively.
Timeline
• 1558: Italian Giovanni
Battista della Porta
suggests that the camera
obscura can be an aid to
rendering an image on to
paper.
• 1550-1575: The use of
lenses is introduced, and
the camera obscura
becomes smaller and
portable.
Timeline
• 1614: Italian Angelo Sala observed that silver
nitrate turns black when exposed to sunlight.
• 1676: The use of a reflex mirror with the camera
obscura is introduced.
• 1685: The use of a “telephoto” lens with the
camera obscura is introduced.
• 1725: German Johan Heinrich Schulze made
stencil images on bottles containing silver nitrate
Timeline
• 1777: Swede Carl Wilhelm
Scheele discovered that
ammonia removed unexposed
silver nitrate, leaving darkened
metallic silver residue.
• 1795: Englishman Thomas
Wedgwood (unaware of
Scheele’s work) experimented
with transferring an image from
a camera obscura on to paper
and leather treated with silver
nitrate. Insufficient exposures
and inability to “fix” the image
frustrated his success.
Nonetheless, a scientific paper
was published in 1802.
Timeline
• 1819: German-born
Englishman Sir John
Frederick William
Herschel introduced
the “negative” and
“positive” process
along with the use of
sodium thiosulfate
(then called sodium
hyposulfate = “hypo”)
as a fixer.
Timeline
• Frenchman Joseph
Nicephore Niepce
experimented with
light-sensitive
varnishes on papers
sensitized with silver
chloride.
• Coins the term
“photographie.”
1826
Joseph Nicephore Niepce is said to be the first to create a permanent
photographic image (using an 8 hour exposure!). This was called a
heliograph.
1834: Daguerre and Talbot
• Frenchman Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre communicates with J.
Niepce and they exchange information until Niepce’s death in 1833.
• Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot begins experiments with
creating permanent photographic images on paper with marginal
success, until hearing of Daguerre’s innovations in France.
• Appropriating Daguerre’s process along with Herschel’s
breakthroughs, Talbot patented the “calotype” (later known as the
“talbotype”) and aggressively asserted his patent rights in England,
effectively stifling competition and experimentation along similar
lines in Great Britain until 1855.
• Talbot also disputed Daguerre’s recognition by the Academie des
Sciences in France, only to have the French government purchase
the patent rights from Daguerre then release the patent without
restriction to the world in 1839!
Competitors
• Daguerre
• Talbot
Daguerrotype Process
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The Daguerreotype was the first successful photographic process, the
discovery being announced on January 7, 1839. The process consisted of:
exposing copper plates to iodine, the fumes forming light-sensitive silver
iodide. The plate would have to be used within an hour.
exposing to light - between 10 and 20 minutes, depending upon the light
available.
developing the plate over mercury heated to 75 degrees. This caused the
mercury to amalgamate with the silver.
fixing the image in a warm solution of common salt (later sodium sulphite
was used.)
rinsing the plate in hot distilled water.
His first plates were 8 1/2" by 6 1/2"; The quality of the photographs was
stunning.
Daguerrotype Advantages: unique one of a kind images, fast overall
exposure times, great image quality.
Daguerrotype Disadvantages: the pictures could not be reproduced ,the
surfaces were extremely delicate (which is why they are often found housed
under glass in a case), the image was reversed laterally (mirror image), the
chemicals used (bromine and chlorine fumes and hot mercury) were highly
toxic, and the images were difficult to view from certain angles.
Daguerrotypes
Calotype Process
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The Calotype was a positive/negative process introduced in 1841 by Fox
Talbot, and popular for the next ten years or so.
In 1844 Fox Talbot opened a photography establishment in order to mass
produce prints. Renamed the process Talbotype
A piece of paper was brushed with weak salt solution, dried, then brushed
with a weak silver nitrate solution, dried, making silver chloride in the paper.
This made it sensitive to light, and the paper was now ready for exposure
(up to half an hour).
To make a print, the negative was placed on top of more photo paper, laid
flat in a glass frame, and allowed to develop in sunlight.
The Calotype process was not as popular as its rival one, the
Daguerreotype.
Calotype Disadvantages: the materials were less sensitive to light,
therefore requiring longer exposures, the imperfections of the paper
reduced the quality of the final print, they did not have the sharp definition of
daguerreotypes, the process itself took longer, as it required two stages
(making the negative and then the positive), and the prints tended to fade.
Calotype Advantages: unlimited number of prints from one negative,
retouching could be done on either negative or print, prints on paper were
easier to examine and far less delicate, and the calotype had warmer tones.
Calotypes (Talbotypes)
Collodion Process
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In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer found collodion. The use of collodion
caught on very quickly indeed, and within a few years fewer people used
either the Daguerreotype or Calotype process. Collodion Prints were
either Ambrotypes or Tintypes.
Collodion was a viscous liquid - guncotton dissolved in ether and alcohol which had only been invented in 1846, but which quickly found a use
during the Crimean war; when it dried it formed a very thin clear film,
which was ideal for dressing and protecting wounds.
The plate had to be sensitised, exposed and developed while the plate
was still wet; the sensitivity dropped once the collodion had dried. It is
often known as the wet plate collodion process for this reason.
Advantages: more sensitive to light than the calotype process, it reduced
the exposure times drastically - to as little as two or three seconds,
because a glass base was used, the images were sharper than with a
calotype, the process was never patented so this type of photography
became far more widely used and the price of a paper print was about a
tenth of that of a daguerreotype.
Disadvantages: the process was not easy -- first the collodion had to be
spread carefully over the entire plate. One might also mention the safety
factor. The collodion mixture was not only flammable but highly explosive.
It is reported that several photographers demolished their darkrooms and
homes, some even losing their lives, as a result of careless handling of
the photographic chemicals.
The Ambrotype Process
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Ambrotypes were made from the
1850s and up to the late 1880s, the
process having been invented by
Frederick Scott Archer.
Ambrotypes were direct positives,
made by under-exposing collodion on
glass negative, bleaching it, and then
placing a black background - usually
black velvet - behind it. Though
Ambrotypes slightly resemble
Daguerreotypes, the method of
production was very different, and
Ambrotypes were much cheaper.
It became popular for a number of
reasons: less exposure time was
needed, production was cheaper and
quicker, as no printing was required,
and unlike Daguerreotypes, they could
be viewed from any angle
The Tintype Process
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1853: The tintype, also known as a ferrotype, was introduced by Adolphe Alexandre
Martin and became instantly popular, particularly in the United States, though it was
also widely used by street photographers in Great Britain
The process was simple enough to enable one to set up business without much
capital.
It was much faster than other processes of the time: first, the base did not need
drying, and secondly, no negative was needed, so it was a one-stage process.
Being more robust than ambrotypes it could be carried about, sent in the mail, or
mounted in an album.
The material could easily be cut up and therefore fitted into lockets, brooches, etc.
Many astute tintypists made a lot of money in America during the Civil War, visiting
the encampments and selling their wares.
Later, some even had their shop on river-boats.
Tintypes were eventually superseded by gelatin emulsion dry plates in the 1880s,
though street photographers in various parts of the world continued with this process
until the 1950s.
Eventually, 35mm and Polaroid photography were to replace these entirely.
Today Digital Photography emerges as the number one choice for businesses.
Tintypes and Ambrotypes
Civil War
• 1850: American
photographer Matthew
Brady (a student of
Samuel Morse) publishes
“The Gallery of Illustrious
Americans”. Later, the
cost of producing his
prolific Civil War series of
photographs drove him to
bankruptcy.
• Timothy O’Sullivan known
for his images of the
western United States
and the Civil War
O’Sullivan’s West
• From 1867 to 1869, he was
official photographer on the
United States Geological
Exploration of the 40th Parallel
under Clarence King, which
began at Virginia City, Nevada,
where he photographed the
mines, and worked eastward.
His job was to photograph the
West to attract settlers.
O'Sullivan's pictures were
among the first to record the
prehistoric ruins, Navajo
weavers, and pueblo villages
of the Southwest
Julia Margaret Cameron
• British photographer who is considered
one of the greatest portrait photographers
of the 19th century.
Eadweard Muybridge
• In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge's serial photographs of trotting and
galloping horses stunned artists, scientists, and critics in the United
States and Europe. Muybridge's camera revealed equine bodies
frozen mid-leap in positions never before detected by the human
eye or captured on film.
• When viewed in quick succession, the serial photographs
reanimated motion. Animal Locomotion: An Electro-photographic
Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements, 1872–
1885, comprised 781 nineteen-by-twenty-four-inch plates, each of
which contained between twelve and thirty-six frames, resulting in a
total of approximately twenty thousand images.
• His idea to study animals stemmed from a bet he made with Leland
Stanford.
The Gelatin Silver Print
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The Gelatin-silver process is the photographic process used with currently available
black and white films and printing papers. A suspension of silver salts in gelatin is
coated onto acetate film or fiber-based or resin coated paper and allowed to dry.
These materials remain stable for months and years unlike the 'wet plate' materials
that preceded them.
The Gelatin-Silver process was introduced by R. L. Maddox in 1871 with subsequent
considerable improvements in sensitivity obtained by Charles Harper Bennet in 1878.
When small crystals (called grains) of silver salts such as silver bromide and silver
chloride are exposed to light, a few atoms of free metallic silver are liberated. These
free silver atoms form the latent image. This latent image is relatively stable and will
persist for some months without degradation provided the film is kept dark and cool.
Films are developed using solutions that reduce the free silver atoms. An
'amplification' of the latent image occurs as the silver salts near the free silver atom
are also reduced to metallic silver. The development is then stopped by neutralizing
the developer in a second bath.
Once development is complete, the undeveloped silver salts must be removed by
fixing in sodium thiosulphate or ammonium thiosulphate, and then the film or paper
must be washed in clean water. The final image consists of metallic silver embedded
in the gelatin coating.
George Eastman (Kodak)
• 1879 - Eastman invented an emulsion-coating machine which
enabled him to mass-produce photographic dry plates.
• 1880 - Eastman began commercial production of dry plates in a
rented loft of a building in Rochester, N.Y.
• 1886 - George Eastman became one of the first American
industrialists to employ a full–time research scientist to aid in the
commercialization of a flexible, transparent film base.
• 1888 - The name "Kodak" was born and the KODAK camera was
placed on the market, with the slogan, "You press the button - we do
the rest." This was the birth of snapshot photography, as millions of
amateur picture–takers know it today.
• 1889 - The first commercial transparent roll film, perfected by
Eastman and his research chemist, was put on the market. The
availability of this flexible film made possible the development of
Thomas Edison's motion picture camera in 1891.
Kodak
• 1891 - The company marketed
its first daylight-loading
camera, which meant that the
photographer could now reload
the camera without using a
darkroom.
• 1898 - Kodak marketed the
Folding Pocket KODAK
Camera, now considered the
ancestor of all modern roll-film
cameras. It produced a 2 1/4inch by 3 1/4-inch negative,
which remained the standard
size for decades.
Kodak
• 1900 - The first of the
famous BROWNIE
Cameras was introduced.
It sold for $1 and used
film that sold for 15 cents
a roll. For the first time,
the hobby of photography
was within the financial
reach of virtually
everyone.
• Kodak’s Roll Film
Box Camera
Patent Diagram
Leica
• 1924: Leica Camera
introduced. The first
mass produced roll
film camera.
Surpassed the Kodak
Box Camera.
Exacta 35mm SLR
• The Exacta surpassed the functionality of the Leica.
Photography as Fine Art
Photography emerged as an art
form in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. Especially
significant in this development
was the work of Alfred Stieglitz.
Many early art photographers
focused their lens on creating a
photographic counterpart of
painting, including impressionist
painting, Stieglitz moved toward a
gritty, hard realism in his work.
From 1903 to 1917, he published
Camera Work, a journal for the
new photographers.
Stieglitz
Steichen
• Edward Steichen is
known as the first
real American fine
art photographer.
He was a
contemporary of
Stieglitz.
Edward Weston
• Weston was an influential
pictorialist and abstract
photographer whose images
stand the test of time. Known
for his elegant nudes and
still-life images. His art
spanned 1906-1948.
Ansel Adams
• Photographer, conservationist; born in San
Francisco. A commercial photographer for 30
years, he made visionary photos of western
landscapes that were inspired by a boyhood trip
to Yosemite. He won three Guggenheim grants
to photograph the national parks (1944--58).
• In 1932, he developed zone exposure to get
maximum tonal range from black-and-white film.
Man Ray
• Known for his abstract,
surreal portraits. Man Ray
championed the
photogram, which he
called rayograms or
rayographies.
Photography and Social Reform
• During the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era (1877-1917),
photography was increasingly used as a method of documentation.
The photographer's audience became the mass readership of
newspapers, magazines, and books.
• The media became a buffer between the wealthy and the working
class, framing events so that middle-class and upper-class
audiences could maintain their distance and choose their level of
involvement in the issues at hand.
• Photographers of the documentary style—a genre not so-named
until the early twentieth century—attempted to capture the realities
of life in nineteenth-century America.
• Social reformers such as Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine used the
medium of photography to bring evidence of their claims to these
viewers. Their style of photography may best be called "social
reform," for each photographer used the medium to effect social
change.
Lewis Hine
• Lewis Hine:
Known for
his images
of child
labor.
Jacob Riis:
Photographed
the slums of
New York city
and the
tenement
dwellers
during the
Early 1900s.
Dorothea Lange
• An influential documentary
photographer. Lange is best known
for her Depression-era work for the
Farm Security Administration (FSA).
Lange's photographs humanized the
tragic consequences of the Great
Depression and profoundly influenced
the development of documentary
photography.
• From 1935 to 1940, Lange's work for
the FSA brought the plight of the poor
and forgotten, particularly displaced
farm families and migrant workers, to
public attention. Distributed free of
charge to newspapers across the
country, her poignant images quickly
became icons of the era.
Margaret Bourke-White
• Photojournalist and influential female
photographer born in the Bronx, New York,
1904.
• Worked for Fortune and Life magazines.
• During the mid-1930s, Bourke-White, like
Dorothea Lange, photographed drought victims
of the Dust Bowl.
• During World War II and after Bourke-White was
the first female war correspondent and the first
woman to be allowed to work in combat zones
during the war.
Modern Photography (1930- present)
• Paul Strand: Straight forward compositions are the best.
• Lisette Model: Her candid and avant garde portraits of
people on the fringes of society was inspirational to
many others.
• Brassai: Photographed people and the streets of Paris,
France.
• Tina Modotti: Communist, actress, film maker,
model…aggressive and sympathetic photographer.
• Irving Penn: Premiere fashion and editorial photographer
Modern Photographers
• Diane Arbus: a student of Lisette model,
photographed the fringes of society
• Richard Avedon: Celebrated art and
fashion photographer with a prolific career.
• Herb Ritts: Photojournalist and portrait
photographer.
• Larry Clark: Controversial photographerfilm maker curious about adolescence.
Current Trendsetters
• Annie Leibovitz: Documentarian and
celebrity/musician photographer. Worked for
Rolling Stone magazine.
• Mario Testino: Fashion, dignitaries, world
leaders are high subjects.
• David La Chapelle: Known for his avant garde,
high color hop-hop style. Very popular with
musicians and celebrities.
• Martin Parr: Similar to Paul Strand, prefers
straight forward compositions.
Other Important Facts
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1880s: Magnesium powder flash
1890: Twin Lens Reflex camera
1907: Color film, Kodak’s Kodachrome
1927: Electric flashbulb for artificial lighting
1929-1932: Polaroid cameras
1943: First SLR with prism viewfinder