Photography History: Q & A
By Mr. Martin
• Q: What do we call a dark room with a
lens or small hole on one wall?
• What is so special about such a room?
Ans: Camera Obscura
• In Italian “camera” means room;
“obscura” means dark
• An image, which is upside down and
reversed, is projected onto the wall
opposite the lens or hole
• You can trace that image to produce a
permanent image
• This was known for centuries
Camera Obscura
• http://www.kellycountry2000.com/ozc
am/oz.htm
• Q: When was the first photograph?
• Who made it?
• How was it made?
• A: Circa 1826, Joseph Nicephore
Niepce made an 8 hour exposure of the
view from his window
• Used a metal plate coated with a type of
light sensitive asphalt
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/
• Q: Who did Joseph Niepce later work
with and what did that person discover?
• A: Niepce collaborated with Louis
Jacques Mande Daguerre
• Niepce died in 1833
• In 1835 Daguerre made an image using
a metal plate covered with light
sensitive silver iodine which he then
exposed to Mercury vapor
• The result: A very high resolution
positive image with a nice silvery
surface
• This is the Daguerreotype
– Discovery announced early 1839
An Example of a
Daguerreotype
http://www.eastmanho
use.org/inc/collections/
daguerreotypes.php
Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre
Jean Baptiste Sabatier-Blot
French (1801-1881)
1844, daguerreotype, 9.1 x 6.9
cm, one quarter plate
• Q: What was the subject of most
Daguerreotypes?
• Why?
http://www.daguerre.org/resource/texts/fam_xian.html
• The favorite subject for Daguerreotypes
was portraits of people.
– Daguerreotypes required long shutter
speeds and hence you could not take
moving subjects
– Daguerreotypes used large tripod mounted
cameras and were best suited for indoors
– Daguerreotypes, while not cheap, were
inexpensive compared to having your
portrait painted
Daguerreotype of Edgar Allan
Poe
•
http://www.poestories.com/images/gallery/poe_1848dtype.jpg
• Q: What process competed with the
Daguerreotype?
• Who invented it?
• How did it work?
• A: The Calotype was introduced around 1841 by
Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot
• A silver solution was put on paper in the dark
• The paper was inserted into a camera and
exposed to light
• A latent image was formed which was developed
to form a negative image
– Where light hit the paper it is dark, where light did not
hit it is light
• The negative would be sandwiched together with
another sheet of coated light sensitive paper and
exposed to light
• A positive print would be formed
The Calotype Process
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/hillandadamson/calo.htm
Calotype Negative
Salt Print
“Mrs Logan; Mrs Seton; two unidentified men; Fishwives and Fishes.
HA0767 calotype negative (waxed) and HA440 salt print.”
• Q: Which was more successful in the
mid 1800s, the Daguerreotype or the
Calotype? Why?
Daguerreotype
http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3a40000/3a49000/3a49000/3a49096v.jpg
Calotype
(Library of Congress)
• A: The Daguerreotype was much more
successful
• The Daguerreotype had much higher image
quality
• The French Government also bought the
patent from Daguerre
– The process was hence available to others free of
any royalty
• The Calotype had lower image quality and
was subject to Talbot’s patent
• Q: If the Daguerreotype was so much
better, why do we still talk about the
Calotype?
• A: The Calotype had some advantages
– It was cheaper
– You could make copies from the negative
Calotype
• Most important, it served as the basis
for all photography to follow for the next
150 years
• Q: What do eggs have to do with early
photography?
http://www.faqs.org/photo-dict/phrase/452/egg.html
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/blogs/collections/2009/04/gravesend_on_albumen_and_glass_1.html
• A: In 1847, Abel Niepce de St. Victor, cousin of
Joseph Niepce, invented a process called
albumen-on-glass
• Albumen from egg whites was used to binder to
suspend potassium iodine
• Once dried on the glass plate, it was made
sensitive to light by placing it in silver nitrate
solution
• Printing paper with sodium chloride (table salt)
soaked in an albumen solution created a glossy
top layer making for nice prints
• Problems:
– Any ripples in glass would show
– Very long exposures of 5 to 15 minutes - therefore
portraits not practicable
– Had to be processed in hot gallic acid for up to an hour
• Q: How did Frederick Scott Archer
improve the photographic process?
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/DSphotoglass3C1.htm
• A: Around 1852, Frederick Scott Archer
invented the Wet Plate Collodion process.
• Collodion was a sticky transparent substance
also known as gun cotton
• It was a replacement for Albumen and
allowed for much shorter exposures
• Relatively inexpensive, reliable and produced
sharp images
• Went on for decades
• Problems:
– Toxic and complicated processing
– It smelled really bad
Wet Plate Collodion Example
•
http://photojargon.com/images/historical/civilwar-wetplate01.jpg, originally from
Library of Congress
• Q: Who was the most famous Civil War
photographer?
• Why are the photos of dead people?
• A: Matthew Brady (1823-1896)
– First studio in New York City 1844
– Second studio in Washington, D.C. 1856
– Photographed Abraham Lincoln - first
president to be photographed
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/brady/art/artlinc.htm
The subjects had to be still since shutter speeds were still
quite slow.
•
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brady-photos/images/wounded-spotsylvania.gif
• Q: What does photography have to do
with Westward Expansion?
William Henry Jackson,
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/grte2/images/fig18-4.jpg
• A: After the Civil War, photographers
headed West to photograph the natural
wonders in the Western United States.
Carleton E. Watkins, Yosemite Falls (1865-1866),
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/the_yosemite_book/images/plate_10.jpg
• Timothy O’Sullivan, also a noted Civil War photographer
Canyon de Chelle in present day
New Mexico
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Timothy_H._O%27Sullivan
• Q: Why are there two photos by William
Henry Jackson below?
• A: It’s allows for a stereo or three
dimension view when viewed through a
hand viewer like the one below. These
were popular in the later half of the 19th
century.
• Q: Who is famous for his motion study
photographs (circa 1870s)?
http://www.gregeans.com/greenvillesky/2008/04/is-there-a-true.htm l
A: Eadweard Muybride
• Q: What process replaced the Wet Plate
Collodion process?
A: The Dry-Plate Process
– 1871 Richard L. Maddox, a British physician, coated
plates with an emulsion of gelatin instead of
collodion
– The gelatin dried without harming the light sensitive
silver salts
– By the 1800s improvements in the gelatin emulsion
allowed faster shutter speeds (e.g. 1/25 second)
than with wet plates
– The dry plates also allowed the first use of
photographic enlargers to make prints larger than
the negative
– Plates could be prepared in advance and did not
have to be developed immediately
Dry Plate Negative
Print from Dry Plate
Modern Electrical
Enlarger
Early Daylight Enlarger
• Q: When was photographic film invented and
by whom?
• A: In 1885, George Eastman, a manufacturer
of dry plates, and Hannibal Goodwin, an
Episcopal priest, invented a sensitized
celluloid base photo film.
• In 1914, a federal Court of Appeals
determined that Goodwin filed a patent first in
1887 prior to Eastman’s 1888 patent.
Eastman Kodak Company paid Ansco, the
successor to Goodwin, an estimated five
million dollars.
•
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century_in_film
• Q: What was the first
roll film camera?
• A: In 1888 Eastman
Kodak Company
introduced the Kodak
box camera which sold
for $25. Originally it
used paper film.
• An improved model
designated the Kodak
No. 1 was introduced in
1889 using Eastman
Kodak’s new
transparent film
• Slogan: “You press the
button. We do the rest.”
• Q: How did these little men revolutionize
photography in 1900?
• A: The little men are Brownies made popular in
children’s books by Palmer Cox at the time.
George Eastman decided to name his $1
camera the “Brownie” to appeal to children and
to emphasize how easy the camera was to
operate. It was designed by Frank Brownell.
• With a fixed focus, fixed shutter speed, fixed
aperture, and no viewfinder, you simply pointed
it at the subject and pressed the shutter
release. Turn the winding knob and you are
ready to take the next photo.
• The whole camera was returned to Eastman
Kodak. They would process the photos and add
new film.
• Q: Who is Oskar Barnack and why is he so important?
http://us.leica-camera.com/culture/history/
• A: Barnack developed the first still camera to
use 35mm film which was originally developed
for the motion picture industry.
• The German Leica was first sold in 1925
• 35mm was considered a miniature format. Film
quality had advanced enough, however, so that
it yielded quality enlarged prints
• 35mm remained the most popular film format
until digital photography began to predominate
in the early 21st century
• The First Leica Prototype 1914
http://us.leica-camera.com/culture/history/leica_products/
• Q: Name the camera that first introduced
standard 35mm film cassettes?
• A: The Kodak Retina produced by Kodak A.G.
(Germany) in 1934
• Q: What was the first really practical color film
and when was it introduced?
• A: Kodachrome originally introduced by
Eastman Kodak in 1935 in motion picture film
and then in 1936 for 35mm still cameras
• Kodachrome was discontinued in 2009
http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/brand-new-branding-and-naming-news-roundup/