Photography History: Q & A

By Mr. Martin

• Q: What do we call a dark room with alens 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 andreversed, is projected onto the wallopposite the lens or hole

• You can trace that image to produce apermanent image

• This was known for centuries

Camera Obscura

• http://www.kellycountry2000.com/ozcam/oz.htm

• Q: When was the first photograph?• Who made it?• How was it made?

• A: Circa 1826, Joseph NicephoreNiepce made an 8 hour exposure of theview from his window

• Used a metal plate coated with a type oflight sensitive asphalt

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/

• Q: Who did Joseph Niepce later workwith and what did that person discover?

• A: Niepce collaborated with LouisJacques Mande Daguerre

• Niepce died in 1833• In 1835 Daguerre made an image using

a metal plate covered with lightsensitive silver iodine which he thenexposed to Mercury vapor

• The result: A very high resolutionpositive image with a nice silverysurface

• This is the Daguerreotype– Discovery announced early 1839

http://www.eastmanhouse.org/inc/collections/daguerreotypes.phpLouis Jacques Mande DaguerreJean Baptiste Sabatier-BlotFrench (1801-1881)1844, daguerreotype, 9.1 x 6.9cm, one quarter plate

An Example of aDaguerreotype

• Q: What was the subject of mostDaguerreotypes?

• Why?

http://www.daguerre.org/resource/texts/fam_xian.html

• The favorite subject for Daguerreotypeswas portraits of people.– Daguerreotypes required long shutter

speeds and hence you could not takemoving subjects

– Daguerreotypes used large tripod mountedcameras and were best suited for indoors

– Daguerreotypes, while not cheap, wereinexpensive compared to having yourportrait painted

Daguerreotype of Edgar AllanPoe

• http://www.poestories.com/images/gallery/poe_1848dtype.jpg

• Q: What process competed with theDaguerreotype?

• Who invented it?• How did it work?

• A: The Calotype was introduced around 1841 byEnglishman 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 andexposed to light

• A positive print would be formed

“Mrs Logan; Mrs Seton; two unidentified men; Fishwives and Fishes. HA0767 calotype negative (waxed) and HA440 salt print.”

Calotype Negative Salt Print

The Calotype Processhttp://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/hillandadamson/calo.htm

• Q: Which was more successful in themid 1800s, the Daguerreotype or theCalotype? Why?

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3a40000/3a49000/3a49000/3a49096v.jpg (Library of Congress)

Daguerreotype Calotype

• A: The Daguerreotype was much moresuccessful

• The Daguerreotype had much higher imagequality

• The French Government also bought thepatent 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 muchbetter, why do we still talk about theCalotype?

• 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 next150 years

• Q: What do eggs have to do with earlyphotography?

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/blogs/collections/2009/04/gravesend_on_albumen_and_glass_1.html

http://www.faqs.org/photo-dict/phrase/452/egg.html

• A: In 1847, Abel Niepce de St. Victor, cousin ofJoseph Niepce, invented a process calledalbumen-on-glass

• Albumen from egg whites was used to binder tosuspend potassium iodine

• Once dried on the glass plate, it was madesensitive to light by placing it in silver nitratesolution

• Printing paper with sodium chloride (table salt)soaked in an albumen solution created a glossytop 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 Archerimprove the photographic process?

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/DSphotoglass3C1.htm

• A: Around 1852, Frederick Scott Archerinvented the Wet Plate Collodion process.

• Collodion was a sticky transparent substancealso known as gun cotton

• It was a replacement for Albumen andallowed for much shorter exposures

• Relatively inexpensive, reliable and producedsharp 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 fromLibrary of Congress

• Q: Who was the most famous Civil Warphotographer?

• 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

• http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brady-photos/images/wounded-spotsylvania.gif

The subjects had to be still since shutter speeds were stillquite slow.

• Q: What does photography have to dowith Westward Expansion?

William Henry Jackson,http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/grte2/images/fig18-4.jpg

• A: After the Civil War, photographersheaded West to photograph the naturalwonders 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

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Timothy_H._O%27Sullivan

Canyon de Chelle in present day New Mexico

• Q: Why are there two photos by WilliamHenry Jackson below?

• A: It’s allows for a stereo or threedimension view when viewed through ahand viewer like the one below. Thesewere popular in the later half of the 19thcentury.

• Q: Who is famous for his motion studyphotographs (circa 1870s)?

http://www.gregeans.com/greenvillesky/2008/04/is-there-a-true.htm l

A: Eadweard Muybride

A: The Dry-Plate Process– 1871 Richard L. Maddox, a British physician, coated

plates with an emulsion of gelatin instead ofcollodion

– The gelatin dried without harming the light sensitivesilver salts

– By the 1800s improvements in the gelatin emulsionallowed faster shutter speeds (e.g. 1/25 second)than with wet plates

– The dry plates also allowed the first use ofphotographic enlargers to make prints larger thanthe negative

– Plates could be prepared in advance and did nothave to be developed immediately

• Q: What process replaced the Wet PlateCollodion process?

Dry Plate Negative Print from Dry Plate

Early Daylight Enlarger

Modern ElectricalEnlarger

• Q: When was photographic film invented andby whom?

• A: In 1885, George Eastman, a manufacturerof dry plates, and Hannibal Goodwin, anEpiscopal priest, invented a sensitizedcelluloid base photo film.

• In 1914, a federal Court of Appealsdetermined that Goodwin filed a patent first in1887 prior to Eastman’s 1888 patent.Eastman Kodak Company paid Ansco, thesuccessor to Goodwin, an estimated fivemillion dollars.

• See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century_in_film

• Q: What was the firstroll film camera?

• A: In 1888 EastmanKodak Companyintroduced the Kodakbox camera which soldfor $25. Originally itused paper film.

• An improved modeldesignated the KodakNo. 1 was introduced in1889 using EastmanKodak’s newtransparent film

• Slogan: “You press thebutton. We do the rest.”

• Q: How did these little men revolutionizephotography in 1900?

• A: The little men are Brownies made popular inchildren’s books by Palmer Cox at the time.George Eastman decided to name his $1camera the “Brownie” to appeal to children andto emphasize how easy the camera was tooperate. It was designed by Frank Brownell.

• With a fixed focus, fixed shutter speed, fixedaperture, and no viewfinder, you simply pointedit at the subject and pressed the shutterrelease. Turn the winding knob and you areready to take the next photo.

• The whole camera was returned to EastmanKodak. They would process the photos and addnew 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 touse 35mm film which was originally developedfor 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 thatit yielded quality enlarged prints

• 35mm remained the most popular film formatuntil digital photography began to predominatein the early 21st century

• The First Leica Prototype 1914

http://us.leica-camera.com/culture/history/leica_products/

• Q: Name the camera that first introducedstandard 35mm film cassettes?

• A: The Kodak Retina produced by Kodak A.G.(Germany) in 1934

• Q: What was the first really practical color filmand when was it introduced?

• A: Kodachrome originally introduced byEastman Kodak in 1935 in motion picture filmand 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/