Epoch of picture evidence
L7
Ing. Jiří Šnajdar
2014
Photography is a process of getting and keeping a
picture with help of record of light reflection. It is done
by mechanical, chemical or digital devices – photo
cameras. Photography belongs among picture
technologies and from its beginning is in the interests
of scientists and artists and mainly media.
What went before photography ?
Camera obscura (dark chamber), used by painters
and sculptors - Aristoteles, da Vinci etc.
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The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 to 322 BCE)
understood the optical principle of the pinhole camera.
Arab physicist and mathematician Ibn Ibn al-Haytham
(965–1039 A.D.), also known as Alhazen,
experimented with images seen through the pinhole.
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Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), familiar with the work
of Alhazen and after an extensive study of optics and
human vision, published the first clear description of
the camera obscura in Codex Atlanticus (1502):
If the facade of a building, or a place, or a landscape
is illuminated by the sun and a small hole is drilled in
the wall of a room in a building facing this, which is not
directly lighted by the sun, then all objects illuminated
by the sun will send their images through this aperture
and will appear, upside down, on the wall facing the
hole.
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Together were used chemical discoveries. In the year
1725 was discovered sensitivity on light by silver
nitrate. Almost 100 years later first chemical picture
appeare on the paper. In the same time develops first
heliography – glass board, bitumen and picture of
pope Pius VII., few years later succeeded the French
inventor J.N. Niepce in getting, stabilising and etching
a picture.
Up to this day exists the oldest preserved
photography from the year 1826 called The view
through the window into the yard. Its exposition took 8
hours.
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Successor of Niepce was the painter Louis Jacques
Daguerre. In the year 1835 coincidentally discovered
that it is possible to develop with mercurial vapours a
picture, which is invisibly intercepted on metal plate,
affected by iodine vapours.
So was discovered so called daguerrotype, base of
photography technique (on cupreous plate, silver
halogens sensitive on light, mercury and iodine). For
exposure sufficed few minutes.
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Problem of daguerreotype was, that each picture was
an original and was not possible to make copies.
Followed talbotype / calotype– picture on glass plate,
collodion process – photographed in wetness and so
called dry process – exposed on bromine-silver plate
with gelatine film greased on.
daguerreotype - a photograph made by an early
photographic process; the image was produced on a
silver plate sensitized to iodine and developed in
mercury vapor
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The American H. Goodwin invents in 1889 the film.
His invention used in the year G. Eastman in
production of roll film into his portable apparatus
Kodak, which he started to produce.
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It was nothing in the way to mass development of
monochrome photography.
The promotional slogan of the Kodak firm at the turn
of 19th and 20th century was :
“You press the button, we do the rest.”
The next step was invention of microfilm, which was
used recently in archive (microfiches).
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Also in Czech in the 2nd half of 19th century comes to
massive development of photography – in Prague
exist 70 ateliers, new branch develops – photography
processing in laboratories, in the year 1882 was
established Czech Photographic Society.
Photo is always more used by journalists in media.
Legendary low-format apparatus for reportage
photography were German apparatuses Leica.
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1927 – for the first time used flash;
1935 - first colour film (firm Kodak);
1947 – Polaroid made so called immediate
photography, after few minutes without any other
processing was developed quality and true
photography, today is this system replaced by
digitalisation;
1969 – invention of electronic imaging of picture so
called CCD;
1981 – first digital camera;
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End of the 20th century – Digital photography is
another important milestone in photography
development. Contrary classical photography uses
the electronic device recording of pictures in binary
form. This enables their displaying, saving, printing,
transferring and filing in personal computers without
chemical process.
To the mass expansion of digital photography helped
especially speediness of its display on LCD panel of a
digital camera, its low costs and sharing with help of
electronic post or web albums.
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With start of „digital“ moved the modifications in the
computer, where exist more sophisticated tolls for
editing, more accurate and especially more
comfortable, than before.
CCD is an electronic component, placed behind
objective of a camera, sensor replacing film. In
laboratory was the CCD evolved already in 1969 and
first digital by the firm SONY in the year 1970.
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With digitalisation on the other side was opened the
possibility for different services, and this mainly for
amateur photographers, which have no available
computational technique : Saving/copying of digital
photographs from any known memory card on CDs´
or DVD medium, their printing or using of internet for
saving or export.
Genre variety of photography – reportage and its
modification, sport photography, documentary, art or
creative, commercial or promotional photography,
photo collages and photomontages, experimental
photography etc.
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Development of cinematography was influenced by
invention of photography, that intercepted existing
things, landscapes, but mainly persons in real. By
connecting of Laterna magika and photography
originated cinematograph.
On its formation participated tens of inventors,
including
T. A. Edison in America and his Kinetoskop
In 1895 the Lumiér brothers in Paris – first movie
projection for more spectators.
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First movie projection in Czech took place in Karlovy
Vary in the year 1896, seven months later after the
historical performance of Lumiérs´.
In Prague Jan Krizenecky carried on the Czech
cinema on the Exhibition of art and architecture in the
year 1898 and on Jubilee exhibition of Commerce and
Trade Chamber in Prague in the year 1908 operated
for remuneration his so called reklamograf.
Beginnings of cinematography in our region were
similar as in other industrial developed countries.
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To the most important wandering cinematographics,
who showed films in different towns and villages in
our country, belong Viktor Ponrepo, own name
Dismas Slambor. Ponrepo was also the owner of first
stable cinema, that he found on September 15th, 1907
in Prague in Karlova street in the house At the Blue
Pike.
In the year 1909 started the cinema Lucerna which is
working till today.
Mute movie until 30th years of the 20th century – Ch.
Chaplin, D. Grifith, D. Fairbanks, M. Pickford and S.
Ejznstein (Cruiser Potemkin),
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Czech movie from the year 1908 was realised in the
companies Kinofa, AB film, Lucernafilm and others.
Expansion of film enterprise came in Czech after
formation of the Czechoslovak republic in the year
1918.
The important person of this time period was Karel
Lamac, who concentrated around himself creative
personalities and in the year 1926 made adaptation of
Hasek's The Good Soldier Schweik with his first
theatre performer Karel Noll.
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Karel Anton used the elements of modern film speech
in adaptation of Macha's Gypsies (1922) and May
Fairy Tale (1926) of Vilem Mrstik. The eminent
producer of modernist orientation became Gustav
Machaty films Kreutzer sonata and Erotikon.
In the Slovakia arose some reportorial and played
films. The important act was creation of film version of
the story about Janosik (1921).
1927 is made the first sound film film, American
romantic Jazz Singer
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In Czech between the wars make films K. Lamac, K.
Anton, G. Machaty, J. Honzl and V+W+J, V. Burian, H.
Haas, M. Fric, O. Vavra, V. Vancura.
In sixtieth comes new Czech wave : M. Forman, V.
Chytilová, V. Jasny, I. Passer, J. Menzel, E. Schorm
also the first Oscar´s holders J. Kadar and E. Klos.
Among the authors of Kino automatu, first made
interactive film for EXPO ´67 , belong J. Rohac,
R. Cincera, V. Svitacek and M. Hornicek.
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Animated film and cartoon – in the Czechoslovakia
Brothers in trick – J. Trnka, H. Tyrlova, but also Jan
Svankmajer.
In the world is considered as the most significant
maker of animated slapsticks Walt Disney, American
producer, designer and director. He made many
movies and short slapsticks, he did - Mickey Mouse,
melancholy dog Pluto, drake Donald and Popee the
Sailor.
After the 2nd world war comes in useful in the movie
creation colour and progress continues in future to
wide-angle projection, stereo, polyekran projection –
(on few screens A. Radok), panoramic projection and
Dolby system.
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When, on October 6, 1927, Warner Bros.' The Jazz
Singer premiered. It was a smash box office success
for the mid-level studio, earning a total of $2.625
million in the United States and abroad, almost a
million dollars more than the previous record for a
Warners' film.
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The "natural" sounds of the settings were also audible.
Though the success of The Jazz Singer was due
largely to Jolson, already established as one of
America's biggest music stars, and its limited use of
synchronized sound hardly qualified it as an innovative
sound film, the movie's profits were proof enough to
the industry that the technology was worth investing
in.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. had released three more
talkies, all profitable, if not at the level of The Jazz
Singer
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In March, Tenderloin appeared; it was billed by
Warners as the first feature in which characters spoke
their parts. On July 6, 1928, the first all-talking feature,
Lights of New York, premiered.
The film cost Warner Bros. only $23,000 to produce,
but grossed $1.252 million, a record rate of return
surpassing 5,000%.
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In September, the studio released another Al Jolson
part-talking picture, The Singing Fool, which more
than doubled The Jazz Singer's earnings record for a
Warners movie.
This second Jolson screen smash demonstrated the
movie musical's ability to turn a song into a national
hit: inside of nine months, the Jolson number "Sonny
Boy" had racked up 2 million record and 1.25 million
sheet music sales.
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September 1928 also saw the release of Paul Terry's
Dinner Time, among the first animated cartoons
produced with synchronized sound. Soon after he saw
it, Walt Disney released his first sound picture, the
Mickey Mouse short Steamboat Willie.
The first successful European dramatic talkie was the
all-British Blackmail. Directed by twenty-nine-year-old
Alfred Hitchcock, the movie had its London debut June
21, 1929. Originally shot as a silent, Blackmail was
restaged to include dialogue sequences, along with a
score and sound effects, before its premiere.
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Before the Paris studios were fully sound-equipped—a
process that stretched well into 1930—a number of
other early French talkies were shot in Germany. The
first all-talking German feature, Atlantik, had
premiered in Berlin on October 28. Yet another
Elstree-made movie, it was rather less German at
heart than Les Trois masques and La Route est belle
were French; a BIP production with a British scenarist
and German director, it was also shot in English as
Atlantic.
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The entirely German Agfa-Film production It's You I
Have Loved (Dich hab ich geliebt) opened three-anda-half weeks later. It was not "Germany's First Talking
Film", as the marketing had it, but it was the first to be
released in the United States.
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In September 1926, Jack Warner, head of Warner
Bros., was quoted to the effect that talking pictures
would never be viable:
"They fail to take into account the international
language of the silent pictures, and the unconscious
share of each onlooker in creating the play, the action,
the plot, and the imagined dialogue for himself."
Much to his company's benefit, he would be proven
very wrong.
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The American movie industry—already the world's
most powerful—set an export record in 1929 that, by
the applied measure of total feet of exposed film, was
27 percent higher than the year before. Concerns that
language differences would hamper U.S. film exports
turned out to be largely unfounded.
In fact, the expense of sound conversion was a major
obstacle to many overseas producers, relatively
undercapitalized by Hollywood standards.
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The production of multiple versions of export-bound
talkies in different languages (known as "Foreign
Language Version"), as well as the production of the
cheaper "International Sound Version", a common
approach at first, largely ceased by mid-1931,
replaced by post-dubbing and subtitling.
Despite trade restrictions imposed in most foreign
markets, by 1937, American films commanded about
70 percent of screen time around the globe.
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