History of Photography

1. History of Photography

2. Basics of Photography • When was photography invented? • 1839 • What does the word “photography” mean? • Derived from the Greek words “photo” which means “light”, and “graph”, which means “writing”. Photography is writing with light. • In photography, what is the most important element of a photograph? • Light. Light traces the image onto the film. The light tells the film or digital sensor what is being reflected. • What changes on the film when it is exposed to light? How is it different when you work digitally? • Silver salts cause a chemical reaction on film. Pixels work similarly to the salts when you take a picture digitally.

3. Mid-Sixteenth Century- Camera Obscura • 5. What is a camera obscura? • It’s a box with a small hole and a lens. Artist used it to trace images, like an over head projector in a box.

5. 1826- Early Experimentation: Heliographs • 6. What is a heliograph? • “Helio” = sun, “graph”= drawing. • A sun print. • An oiled engraving was placed onto a metal plate coated in bitumen (which is like tar) and then exposed to light. The paper of the engraving became transparent after many hours of soaking in the oil. The only thing left was the engraving. The engraving blocked the dark areas and the exposed areas reacted to the light. When the chemicals were washed away, a print remained. It worked like a stencil or a photocopy.

6. 1839- The Invention of Photography • 7. What is a Daguerrotype? (Dee-gair-oh-type) • The first kind of photography. A sheet of silver plated copper that was polished and coated in iodine (which made it light sensitive). The plate was put into a camera and exposed to light. Then it was bathed in a solution of silver chloride. • Since this process creates mercury vapors, it was a poisonous process. The process most likely shortened the lives of the photography processers because mercury is so poisonous.

8. 8. What is a Calotype? • “Kalos” (beautiful) and “typos” (impression). • Instead of a copper plate, a calotype was paper with a silver salt solution. When placed objects on a calotype, the images were a silhouette of the objects that were laid on the paper. • Talbot later used the idea of a camera obscura to create what we would consider to be photographs.

9. Calotype began to use the camera obscura technology. The edges of the picture look painted on- because that is how the chemicals were applied to the paper.

10. 1851- The Glass Negative • 9. What are the characteristics of a wet plate? • A wet plate is a glass negative coated with light-sensitive silver salts. The wet plate held more detail than paper, but it needed to be processed immediately. Photographers had to carry a portable dark room when photographing.

11. 1850’s- Tintypes, Cartes de visities, and Stereo Views • The Collodion Wet Plate could be used as a negative. These negatives were printed onto cheap pieces of thin metal, or tintypes. • 10. Why was the tintype important? • It made photographs less expensive and assessable to to more people.

12. 1860’s- Realism and Fantasy • 11. What were some main subjects of photographs in the 1860’s? • Newsworthy events and art. Lincoln & Civil War

13. Lewis Carrol’s Inspiration for Alice and Wonderland & Julia Margaret Cameron’s “The Angel at the Tomb”

14. 1870’s- Capturing Motion • 12. What was a significant invention of the 1870’s? • Edward Muybridge invented a shutter. This meant that photographs were not blurry because the negative was exposed to something moving, but they could take multiple pictures quickly. This eventually helped create motion pictures (movies).

15. 12 Cameras were set up in a row, opposite the first 12 numbers on the main screen. The shutter mechanism was housed in separate boxes that stood in front of the cameras. Two sets of sliders (in pink), were pulled by rubber bands that were released when an electric device anchoring the slides was triggered by the wires on the track.

16. 1880’s – Technological Advancements: • The Dry Plate and the Hand-Held Camera • 13. Why was dried gelatin emulsion a significant invention? • The photographs did not need to be immediately processed on the spot. • 14. Why was the Kodak camera important? • The camera had enough film for 100 pictures- not just one per negative as it had been before! It became less expensive to buy and process film. The cameras were at first like “disposable cameras” and the entire camera had to be sent in for processing. Later, the film had a plastic base and photographers could process their own film again. • The Turn of the Century- Pictorialism & Straight Photography • Photography continued to grow as more people experimented with it.

17. 1920’s and 1930’s- Experimentation • 15. What type of photography emerged during the 1920’s and 1930’s? • The Leica (like-ah) camera was a smaller and quicker camera, people could take more pictures and experiment artistically as well as document social change during the Depression. Photographs began to be used in magazines and advertising.

19. 1940’s and 1950’s – Photography & Publishing • 16. In the 1940’s and 1950’s photography was established as a… • Communication tool. The first colored photographs also emerged in the 1940’s. • 1960’s and 1970’s- Photography Comes of Age • 17. What did photography become in the 1960’s & 1970’s? • An art form.