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 Calotype http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3a40000/3a49000/3a49000/3a49096v.jpg (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/ .