History of Photography
COM 241
Photography 1
Camera Obscura
• Latin for dark room
• Dark room or box with small hole in one
end
• Inverted image could be seen on opposite
wall
• Technique used in 1400s
– Painters, artists
• Lens invented in 1500s
Joseph Niepce (1765-1833)
• (pronounced Nee-ps)
• Created the first
photograph in 1827
• Exposure time was 8
hours
• Used a varnish which
was put on metal and
then hardened when
exposed to light
• Areas not exposed were dissolved using chemicals
Louis Daguerre (1787-1851)
• (pronounced Dagair)
• Invented his photo process in 1839
– Reduced exposure time to 30 minutes
• Called
Daguerreotype
• Drawback:
Images could
not be
reproduced
Calotype
• Process invented by Fox Talbot in 1841
– Used a paper negative
• Prints could be made by placing negative on
top of photo paper and exposing to sunlight
• Drawbacks: exposure time still pretty long –
1-2 minutes
Fishwives and Fishes. calotype negative and salt print
Collodion
• Process invented by Frederick Scott Archer
in 1851
• Used glass instead of paper for negatives
– Images were much clearer, sharper
• Shorter exposure times (2-3 secs.)
– Photographers could shoot more than still lifes,
portraits
• Wet process, required portable darkroom
Matthew Brady
• Used collodion
process to
document the Civil
War (1861-65)
• Team of 20
photographers who
took most of
pictures
Harvest of Death by Timothy
O’Sullivan, July 1863
Photo by Mathew Brady, Union soldier by gun at US Arsenal, Washington DC, 1862.
The most famous
of the beardless
poses of Lincoln,
taken by Mathew
B. Brady on
Monday
morning,
February 27,
1860.
Marcus Sparling seated on Roger Fenton's photographic van, Crimea, 1855.
• Eadwaerd Muybridge
(pron. mibridge)
– Paved way for motion picture photography
– Known for photo sequences
– “Galloping Horse” - 1878
• Multiple cameras, tripped shutters
Kodak Brownie (1888)
• George Eastman
– Introduced photography to masses
– Flexible film invented 1884
– Four years later Kodak came
out with box camera
• Included roll of film
• Sent box in for development
Social Change
Child Labor Laws
In 1908 the National Child Labor Committee was already campaigning to put the nation’s two
million young workers back in school when the group hired Lewis Hine. Hine traveled to half the
states, capturing images of children working in mines, mills and on the streets. Here he
photographed “breaker boys,” whose job was to separate coal from slate, in South Pittston, Pa.
Hine’s pictures swayed the public, and Congress enacted laws banning child labor.
The Great
Depression
This California farmworker,
age 32, had just sold her tent
and the tires off her car to buy
food for her seven kids. The
family was living on
scavenged vegetables and
wild birds. Working for the
federal government, Dorothea
Lange took pictures like this
one to document how the
Depression colluded with the
Dust Bowl to ravage lives.
Vietnam War
A wounded marine reaches out to a comrade stricken during fighting for Hills 400 and 484. Near
Dong Ha, South Vietnam, 1966. Larry Burrows / LIFE
U.S. marines recover a body under fire during the battle for Hill 484. Near Dong Ha, South
Vietnam, 1966. Larry Burrows / LIFE
A woman mourns her husband, killed by the Vietcong during the 1968 Tet offensive. His
remains were uncovered in a mass grave one year later. Huè, South Vietnam, 1969. Larry
Burrows / LIFE
South Vietnamese pilots, following orders from U.S. command, veered off-course on a bombing
mission and accidentally hit Trang Bang, a village about 30 miles from Saigon. Moments after the
explosions, AP photographer "Nick" Ut witnessed a small group of screaming children fleeing the
scenes of death. A young girl, having torn off her napalmed clothing, ran naked towards Ut. He
photographed the grisly moment before putting down his camera and taking the girl to the hospital.
This photo taken by United States Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle on March 16, 1968
in the aftermath of the My Lai massacre shows mostly women and children dead on a road.
With North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive beginning, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s
national police chief, was doing all he could to keep Viet Cong guerrillas from Saigon. Here,
Loan executed a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain. AP / Eddie Adams (1968)