The Birth of Photography

Blog Entry No 4
Tutor: Ms: Scicluna
Date Uploaded/Updated: 9/2/2016

~In this page, the brief subject of the birth of Photography would be discussed and researched throughout~

Introduction 

Photography was established in 1839 - with Camera Obscura, which is one of the recording mediums.Earlier in its infancy, photography was viewed as an art subject, to record the exact happening, in a form of a photograph. In the 19th Century, photography was a curious subject matter at that time. It was practised by amateurs and professionals alike, a new procedure of creating pictures and mixed art and science, the optics and chemistry as well as handcraft and industry in the matter of sudden and extraordinary methods. As similar to the railroad and the telegraph, the subject matter of photography had been a modern technological innovation and discovery. It was one of many subjects of the Industrial Revolution. But there had also been an aura of wonder and mystery. The chemical aspect that was invented had been made an amazingly detailed image appear on a metal plate or a piece of paper that seemed almost magical. 

The various practitioners that had invented different chemicals and compounds to produce different photographs that include:

Thomas Wedgwood 
- pioneer of photography 
- photograms
- camera images on material coated with a light - sensitive chemical 
- capturing silhouette images








Louis Daguerre
- daguerreotype (Portraits) 
- exposing a thin silver - plated copper sheet to the puff that is given off by iodine crystals 
- coating of light - sensitive silver iodide









Joseph Nicephore Niepce
- heliographs. 
- Lithography - process with thin plates.
- silver salts. 
- Photo - lithography. 
- fixing images with acid baths. 
- 1822 - permanent image using a camera obscura.
- Exposing coated pewter plates to a camera image.
- using vapours from heated iodine crystals.




William Henry Fox Talbot 
-  photograms 
- silhouettes of leaves and other objects 
- pictures on bitumen 
- process based on prints on paper - been made light-sensitive rather using bitumen or copper - paper.
- Developing three primary elements of photography - developing, fixing, and printing. 
- using long exposure when exposing photographic paper to light to produce an image.
- Accidentally, discovering that there is a possible to produce an image with a very short exposure.
- Fixing images with a chemical solution, by removing the light - sensitive silver and enable the photo to be viewed in bright light. 
- As for a negative photograph, the repetition of the process of printing is used, which are called 'Calotype'.
- 1840's Talbot invented panoramas by glueing together several photographs that were taken with his camera by rotating it carefully on its tripod mount.

John Herschel
- Hyposulphite of soda dissolved silver salts.
- Glass negatives
- Cyanotypes
- Silver - bromide  - more light sensitive than any other silver salts
- Findings on the use of iron with light sensitive materials.
- Experimented with plant juices (Anthotype) 








Frederick Scott Archer
-  Trained in the calotype process
- Unsatisfied with the texture & unevenness of the paper negative.
- Experimented with a variety of solutions and surfaces
- Coating glass plates with a collodion solution, exposing the plate while it was still wet.
- Collodion Photographic Process - sharp results on photographs 
-   Cartes de visite, ambrotype and tintype were a direct result to Archer's efforts 
- significant contributions in optics and camera design, patented various of his inventions.



Richard Leach Maddox 
- Photo Micrography 
- Used wet collodion plates - Process of coating, exposure, and development with the solution still wet then the need for pre - prepare plates to become evident.
- looking for a substitute to collodion, in which the vapour of the collodion process affected Maddox's health.
- suggested a process with sensitising chemicals that could be coated on a glass plate in a Gelatin emulsion, instead of wet collodion. 
- Dry plates instead of wet ones
- the emulsion is coated on celluloid roll film.


George Eastman
- Created several rotating - lens cameras. 
- Manufactured different of models of camera with mving lenses in large quantties.
- 1880 - opened the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.
- First camera - The Kodak - consisted of a box that has 100 exposures.
- at the age of 24 - Eastman had thought that the photography equipment was too big, heavy and costly. So the inventor had researched a way how to make photography less cumbersome and was easier to handle and enjoy at the same time. 
- After discovering the formula for a dry plate, had established a gelatin - based paper film including a device for coating dry plates. 
- Eastman had partnered with William Hall Walker, a camera inventor to develop cameras into smaller and much cheaper ones.
- Hiring a chemist (Henry Reichenbach) to come up with a type of flexible film that would insert easily into cameras. 
- With Thomas Edison, Eastman had developed a type of film to use as a motion - picture camera.
- Brownie camera - 1900 - for new hobbyist photographers.
- Eastman had helped the military in some other methods as well, such as processing and making unbreakable glass lenses for gas masks and a specific camera for taking photographs from planes during WW1.
- Eastman's successful inventions of cameras and negative film had continued the amateur photography craze, which is still going along until today.

Thomas Sutton 
- Invented an exact design of a spherical photographic lens - 1860's.
- The lens was a solution in taking panoramic photographs.
- Other various lenses that Sutton had invented includes the first reflex camera (1861) 
- Studied and developed more on dry photographic plates (Partnered with Richard Leach Maddox)
- The panoramic lens was made out of curved photographic plates.






Lumiere Brothers 
- Produced an early motion - picture camera and projector called the Cinemagraphe.
- Worked on the solving the problem of commercially satisfactory development of film.
- Produced photographic plates.
- Worked on the problem of the combination of animation with projection.
- Improved colour photography whilst finding a solution for conbining animation and projection together.
- Presented the first newsreel of the French Photographic Society Conference. 
- The Lumiere apparatus was a single camera that was contained to be used for both photographing and projecting.

References 

Boyd.E.J, Chemical Heritage Magazine, Silver and Sunlight: The Science of Early Photography (Summer (2010) http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/media/magazine/articles/28-2-silver-and-sunlight.aspx?page=1 (Accessed on January 2016)

Joseph Nicephore Niepce (1765 -1833) http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/115a/history/niepce.html (Accessed on 9th February 2016)

Willette,(2014).
Willette. J, (2014) Art History Unstuffed -The Invention of Photography: The Wedgwoods, Part Two - http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/the-invention-of-photography-the-wedgwoods-part-two/ (Accessed on 9th February 2016) 

BBC, (2014). BBC.History.William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 -1877). - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fox_talbot_william_henry.shtml (Accessed on 9th February 2016) 

Photographic Art & Science Foundation. (2015), Sir John Frederick William Herschel, International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. - http://www.iphf.org/hall-of-fame/sir-john-frederick-william-herschel/ (Accessed on 9th February)

Photographic Art & Science Foundation. (2015), Frederick Scoot Archer, International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. - http://www.iphf.org/hall-of-fame/frederick-scott-archer/ (Accessed on 9th February 2016)

Darkesroom. Richard Leach Maddox. Maddox. R.L. http://www.darkestroom.com/history/biographies/richard-leach-maddox/ (Accessed on 9th February 2016)

Biography.com Editors. Bio. George Eastman Biography.
http://www.biography.com/people/george-eastman-9283428#death-and-legacy (Accessed on 9th February 2016)

Sphaera. Sphere No.8: Thomas Sutton Panoramic Camera Lens. W.D.H.
https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/sphaera/index.htm?issue8/articl7 (Accessed on the 10th February 2016) 

Encyclopaedia Britannia. Lumiere Brothers.The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannia (2014)
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Lumiere-brothers (Accessed on 10th February 2016)