Still Photography

Still Photography Soumik Mitra, Published by - Jharkhand Rai University Subject: STILL PHOTOGRAPHY Credits: 4 SYLLABUS Introduction to Photography Beginning of Photography; People who shaped up Photography. Camera; Lenses & Accessories - I What a Camera; Types of Camera; TLR; APS & Digital Cameras; Single-Lens Reflex Cameras. Camera; Lenses & Accessories - II Photographic Lenses; Using Different Lenses; Filters. Exposure & Light Understanding Exposure; Exposure in Practical Use. Photogram Introduction; Making Photogram. Darkroom Practice Introduction to Basic Printing; Photographic Papers; Chemicals for Printing. Suggested Readings: 1. Still Photography: the Problematic Model, Lew Thomas, Peter D'Agostino, NFS Press. 2. Images of Information: Still Photography in the Social Sciences, Jon Wagner, 3. Photographic Tools for Teachers: Still Photography, Roy A. Frye. Introduction to Photography STILL PHOTOGRAPHY Course Descriptions The department of Photography at the IFT offers a provocative and experimental curriculum in the setting of a large, diversified university. As one of the pioneers programs of graduate and undergraduate study in photography in the India , we aim at providing the best to our students to help them relate practical studies in art & craft in professional context. The Photography program combines the teaching of craft, history, and contemporary ideas with the critical examination of conventional forms of art making. The curriculum at IFT is designed to give students the technical training and aesthetic awareness to develop a strong individual expression as an artist. The faculty represents a broad range of interests and aesthetics, with course offerings often reflecting their individual passions and concerns. In this fundamental course, students will identify basic photographic tools and their intended purposes, including the proper use of various camera systems, light meters and film selection. Students will analyze photographs to determine their positive and negative attributes and apply these principles to produce their own visually compelling images by employing the correct photographic techniques Black & White Processing and Printing (Ranging from Photo- grams to photographs) would be explored. Besides equipment handling students will also learn the usage of classical rules of composition to make a visual statement. i STILL PHOTOGRAPHY STILL PHOTOGRAPHY CONTENT Lesson No. Topic Page No. Introduction to Photography Lesson 1 Beginning of Photography 1 Lesson 2 People who shaped up Photography 3 Camera, Lenses & Accessories I Lesson 3 What a Camera 10 Lesson 4 Types of Camera 13 Lesson 5 TLR, APS & Digital Cameras 16 Lesson 6 Single-Lens Reflex Cameras 20 Camera, Lenses & Accessories II Lesson 7 Photographic Lenses 24 Lesson 8 Using different lenses 32 Lesson 9 Filters 40 Exposure & Light Lesson 10 Understanding Exposure 43 Lesson 11 Exposure in Practical use 45 Photograms Lesson 12 Introduction 47 Lesson 13 Making Photograms 49 Darkroom Practice Lesson 14 Introduction to Basic Printing 51 Lesson 15 Photographic Papers 59 Lesson 16 Chemicals for Printing 61 Glossary for Photographic Terms 65 iii UNIT 1 LESSON 1 INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOGRAPHY BEGINNING OF PHOTOGRAPHY First, the name, we owe the name “Photography” to Sir John exposure time from eight hours down to half an hour. He also STILL PHOTOGRAPHY Herschel, who first used the term in 1839, the year the photo- discovered that an image could be made permanent by immers- graphic process became public. The word is derived from the ing it in salt. Greek words for light and writing. Following a report on this invention by Paul Delaroche , a Before mentioning the stages that led to the development of leading scholar of the day, the French government bought the photography, there is one amazing, quite uncanny prediction rights to it in July 1839. Details of the process were made public made by a man called de la Roche (1729- 1774) in a work called on 19 August 1839, and Daguerre named it the Daguerreotype. Giphantie. In this imaginary tale, it was possible to capture The announcement that the Daguerreotype “requires no images from nature, on a canvas that had been coated with a knowledge of drawing....” and that “anyone may succeed.... and sticky substance. This surface, so the tale goes, would not only perform as well as the author of the invention” was greeted provide a mirror image on the sticky canvas, but would remain with enormous interest, and “Daguerreomania” became a craze on it. After it had been dried in the dark the image would overnight. An interesting account of these days is given by a remain permanent. The author would not have known how writer called Gaudin, who was present, the day that the prophetic this tale would be, only a few decades after his death. announcement was made. However, not all people welcomed There are two distinct scientific processes that combine to make this exciting invention; some pundits viewed in quite sinister photography possible. It is somewhat surprising that photog- terms. A newspaper report in the Leipzig City Advertiser stated: raphy was not invented earlier than the 1830s, because these “The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impos- processes had been known for quite some time. It was not until sible... but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is the two distinct scientific processes had been put together that blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no man- photography came into being. made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that The first of these processes was optical. The Camera Obscura God should have abandoned His eternal principles, and (dark room) had been in existence for at least four hundred allowed a Frenchman... to give to the world an invention of the years. There is a drawing, dated 1519, of a Camera Obscura by Devil?” Leonardo da Vinci; about this same period its use as an aid to At that time some artists saw in photography a threat to their drawing was being advocated. livelihood, and some even prophesied that painting would The second process was chemical. For hundreds of years before cease to exist. photography was invented, people had been aware, for The Daguerreotype process, though good, was expensive, and example, that some colours are bleached in the sun, but they each picture was a once-only affair. That, to many, would not had made little distinction between heat, air and light. have been regarded as a disadvantage; it meant that the owner · In the sixteen hundreds Robert Boyle, a founder of the of the portrait could be certain that he had a piece of art that Royal Society, had reported that silver chloride turned dark could not be duplicated. If however two copies were required, under exposure, but he appeared to believe that it was the only way of coping with this was to use two cameras side by caused by exposure to the air, rather than to light. side. There was, therefore, a growing need for a means of copying pictures, which daguerreotypes could never satisfy. · Angelo Sala, in the early seventeenth century, noticed that Different, and in a sense a rival to the Daguerreotype, was the powdered nitrate of silver is blackened by the sun. Calotype invented by William Henry Fox Talbot , which was to · In 1727 Johann Heinrich Schulze discovered that certain provide the answer to that problem. His paper to the Royal liquids change colour when exposed to light. Society of London, dated 31 January 1839, actually precedes the · At the beginning of the nineteenth century Thomas paper by Daguerre; it was entitled “Some account of the Art of Wedgwood was conducting experiments; he had Photogenic drawing, or the process by which natural objects successfully captured images, but his silhouettes could not may be made to delineate themselves without the aid of the survive, as there was no known method of making the artist’s pencil.” He wrote: image permanent. “How charming it would be if it were possible to cause these The first successful picture was produced in June/July 1827 by natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed Niépce, using material that hardened on exposure to light. This on the paper!” picture required an exposure of eight hours. On 4 January 1829 The earliest paper negative we know of was produced in Niépce agreed to go into partnership with Louis Daguerre . August 1835; it depicts the now famous window at Lacock Niépce died only four years later, but Daguerre continued to Abbey, his home. The negative is small (1" square), and poor in experiment. Soon he had discovered a way of developing quality, compared with the striking images produced by the photographic plates, a process which greatly reduced the Daguerreotype process. By 1840, however, Talbot had made 1 STILL PHOTOGRAPHY some significant improvements, and by 1844 he was able to still wet. Another process developed by Archer was named the bring out a photographically illustrated book entitled “The Ambrotype which was a direct positive. Pencil of nature.” The wet collodion process, though in its time a great step Compared with Daguerreotypes the quality of the early forward, required a considerable amount of equipment on Calotypes was somewhat inferior. (See comments on Claudet). location. There were various attempts to preserve exposed However, the great advantage of Talbot’s method was that an plates in wet collodion, for development at a more convenient unlimited number of positive prints could be made (see also time and place, but these preservatives lessened the sensitivity Brewster ). In fact, today’s photography is based on the same of the material. It was clear, then, that a dry method was principle, whereas by comparison the Daguerreotype, for all its required. It is likely that the difficulties of the process hastened quality, was a blind alley. the search for instantaneous photography. Skaife, in a pamphlet, The mushrooming of photographic establishments reflects aptly commented (1860): photography’s growing popularity; from a mere handful in the “Speaking in general, instantaneous photography is as elastic a mid 1840s the number had grown to 66 in 1855, and to 147 term as the expression ‘long and short.’” two years later.

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