Photography {Writing with Light}
THE CAMERA OBSCURA
1839, and the first use of the word 'Photography' was said by Sir John Herschel. It was in this same year that the photographic process became public. The word 'Photography' is derived from the Greek words for light and writing - in other words, 'writing with light'. Before I go through the early stages of photography, a prediction, which was quite stunning, was made by a man named De La Roche {1729-1774}. in a piece of work called Giphante. Within this fictional tale, it had been possible to capture images upon a canvas. This canvas would have been coated with a sticky substance. The story goes on to say that the canvas would not just provide a mirror image, but would also remain stuck to it too. The canvas would have to be dried in the dark in order for the image to remain upon it permanently. Now, the author of this piece would not, could not have known how prophetic his story would become, thirty years after his death.
Two processes are needed that have to combine to make photography feasible. Because these processes where known for quite some time before the 1830s, it is very surprising that photography had not been invented earlier. It was not until these two specific processes came together that photography came into existence.
The Camera Obscura: Go into a darkened room on a very bright day, make a tiny hole in a window cover, and turn to look at the opposite wall. What you see is a perfect image of the outside world...only upside down. This law of physics is explained like this: Light, as we know it, travels in a straight line. The rays reflected from a bright subject that pass through a small hole in the cover of the window, do not scatter, but reform as an image, that is upside down.
This law of physics and optics was known in ancient times. In fact, the ancient Chinese Philosopher, Mo-Ti {5th Century BC}, mentioned this type of device. An inverted image was recorded, formally, by him. An inverted image formed by the passing rays of light, as they poured through a pinhole into a dark room. He called this dark room, ''The collecting place', or, the 'Locked treasure room'.
Another ancient philosopher, Aristotle, {384-322 BC} understood the optical principal behind the Camera Obscura. it was, in fact, Aristotle that viewed the crescent-shaped sun, as it passed through a partial eclipse. Its image was projected upon the ground through hole in a sieve.
The Islamic Scholar, Alhazan {Abu Ali al-Hasan lbn al-Haitham c.965-1039} wrote a full account of the science and principle of the Camera Obscura, using five lanterns that he had, outside a room with a small hole.
1490: and Leonardo Da Vinci produces two clear descriptions of the Camera Obscura within his notes. A lot of the very first camera obscuras where large rooms. Indeed, you can actually see an illustration of these rooms, by the Dutch Scientist, Reineirus Gemma Frisius, in the year 1544. This was used for viewing the eclipse of the sun.
16th Century, and the Convex Lens was introduced. This improved the image quality as it was an added addition into the aperture. Even so, a mirror was introduced too to reflect the image down onto a viewing surface. It was in the year 1558 that Geovanni Battisa Della Porta, wrote within his book, 'Magiae Naturalis' recommending that artists use this device for to aid their drawings.
The word 'Camera Obscura' was very first used by Johannes Kepler {within the early part of the 17th Century}. He was a German Astronomer who used this device for his applications in astronomy. He carried around with him a portable tent camera for surveying in Upper Austria.
The Camera Obscura developed in two ways: One, which led to a box {which was portable} which helped artists immensely, as it was a drawing tool. Indeed, during the 17th and 18th Centuries many many artists were aided by the Camera Obscura. Canaletto, Gaurdi, Jan Veermeer and Paul Sandby, represent but a few of this group of artists.
The beginning of the 19th Century saw the Camera Obscura ready to accept {with little in the line of modification}, a sheet of material which was 'light sensitive'. This then became known as:
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC CAMERA
The other way that this device developed was a room called, the 'Camera Obscura Room'. During the 19th Century education and entertainment were combined as one. Indeed, with lenses that were greatly improved, and which could cast larger images {and clearer images}, the Camera Obscura soon became a massive hit - especially on seaside resorts and the countryside.
CHEMICALS
1600s, and Robert Boyle - who had been a Founder of the Royal Society, reported that silver chloride turned dark when exposed. He wrongly thought, though, that the air had something to do with this and not light as such. It was Angelo Sala, during the 1700s, that noticed silver {powdered nitrate} turned black when exposed to the sun. 1727, and John Heinrich Shulze noticed that liquids of a certain nature would change colour when exposed to the light. The beginning of the 19th Century saw Thomas Wedgwood began to experiment. He was capturing images but could not work out how to make the images permanent, as there was no method known to him then.
1827 June, and the first successful photograph had been produced. The man's name was Niepce. He had found a way to use materials that would harden when exposed to the light. The problem with this, was the exposure time took eight hours. Whatever the time it took though, this had become a huge breakthrough in the genre of photography so far.
1829, and Niepce, apparently after much persuasion, agreed to go into partnership with a man named Louise Daguerre. It was four years later that Niepce passed away, but Daguerre carried on with the experiment. After much struggle, and failure, Daguerre had finally found a way of developing photographic plates. This discovery resulted in the exposure time being reduced from eight hours to thirty minutes. Another breakthrough came when Daguerre found that he could get a permanent image by immersing the plates in salt.
The leading scholar of the day, Paul Delaroche, reported upon this invention. Following his report, the French Government actually purchased the rights to the invention in July of 1839. Details of the purchase and process, were made available to the public on the 19th August, 1839. Daguerre dully named it
THE DAGUERREOTYPE
The announcement was greeted with great interest. After all, this process need no formal knowledge, as did, painting or drawing. No, this meant that anyone could succeed, just as much, maybe if not better, than any artist or painter could. A writer named Gaudin, gives an interesting account of the manner in which the new invention was greeted. But, not everyone greeted the new invention with such enthusiasm.
Indeed, artists and painters alike saw the new invention as a major threat to their being able to make a living, their livelihood. Some painters and artists even came to the conclusion that their art form would cease to be anymore, because of this new thing called, photography. It was a report in a newspaper called, 'The Leipzig City Advertiser' which stated the following:
'The wish to capture the evanescent reflections is not only impossible - but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created Man in His own image, and no man-made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God should have abandoned His eternal principals, and allowed a Frenchman, to give to the world an invention of the Devil?'
It was an expensive process using The Daguerreotype. Photographs could be taken only once - even though the process was good. To many people getting their portraits taken at this time, this was not to their disadvantage at all. Indeed, because this was a once only affair they could be sure of getting an original piece of art that could not be copied. If two copies were needed, then two cameras would have to be set up, side by side. This, as you can well imagine, was time consuming, and there was a great need within photography, to try and find a way of somehow copying pictures that the Daguerreotypes could never manage, or satisfy.
FOX TALBOT
William Henry Fox Talbot became a rival to the Daguerreotype. He was different, and invented The Calotype. The Calotype solved the puzzle of duplicate copies once and for all. William Henry Fox Talbot wrote a paper to the Royal Society of London, the date, 1839, 31st of January. His paper actually precedes the paper by Daguerre. The letter was titled as thus: 'Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing, or the process by which natural objects may be made to delineate themselves without the aid of the artist's pencil'. He wrote the following:
'How charming it would be, if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed on the paper'.
1835 was the year of the very earliest paper negative. The image depicts that of the abbey window at Lacock Abbey, which is his home. The negative measures one inches and is very poor in quality, compared to the imagery produced by the Daguerreotype Process. By the time 1840 arrived Talbot had made huge strides, by the year 1844, he was able to bring out a book, photographically illustrated, entitled, 'The Pencil of Nature'. The quality of the earlier Calotypes, compared to the Daguerreotypes, was so much inferior. But, there was an upshot to this, as the Calotype. could be used to make an unlimited number of positive prints. Photography today is based on the same principle as the Calotype. The Daguerreotype, for all of its quality, was rather a blind alley.
Photography grew in popularity - which was proven by the many photographic establishments that were spreading around the country. During the 1840s, there were a mere handful of people working with the new art form and, by 1855, this number had grown to around 66. Again it shot up two years later {during the year 1857} to 147. London, Regent Street, became a favourite venue for photographic establishments {no fewer then forty two establishments sprung up during the mid-1960s}. The growth in the new art form in America, was just as dramatic as it was in England. with no fewer then 77 photographic galleries - and they were to be found in New York alone. Such was the demand for photographs that a well-known poet, Charles Baudelaire {1826-1886} wrote:
'Our squalid society has rushed Narcissus to a man, to gloat at his trivial image upon a scrap of metal.'
Because Talbot's imagery was on paper, obviously the imperfections that were upon that paper, would show up too, alongside the image, when a positive print would be made. The problem was trying to make the silver solution 'stick' to the paper. Glass was used, as a basis for the negatives. This caused another problem though, when it was found that the silver solution would not stick to the shiny surface of the glass.
1848 and a cousin of Nicephore Niepce, Abel Niece de Saint-Victor, began to perfect a process by which he would used the whites of an egg. The idea was, to coat a glass plate with the white of an egg which would be sensitized with potassium iodide. This would be washed with an acid solution of silver nitrate. This was called the
ALBUMEN PROCESS
It was made for fine detail and much higher quality this process, however, was very slow indeed. Because of the slowness of this process, photographs such as architecture and landscape portraits were produced using The Albumen Process. To do portrait photography with this process was simply not feasible or possible.
The new art form in England was very slow compared to the progress within other countries such as France, and the USA. One of the main reasons for this was Daguerre, and Fox Talbot - {Daguerre especially} had placed a patent on his invention. The French Government however, had made this invention available to the world. Fox Talbot began law-suits in use of his patents.
1851
And the WET COLLODIAN PROCESS came to the fore. This was a new era in the movement of Photography. This process was introduced by a man named Frederick Scott Archer. Archer's process alone, was much faster then the other two conventional methods. In fact, the exposure times for this process was reduced to two to three seconds. Obviously, this opened up a whole new horizon, a new era in photography.
The idea of the Collodian Process was that the coating, exposure and development of the plate would all take place whilst the plate was still wet. Indeed, Archer produced another process too, called the Ambrotype - this was a direct positive.
The Wet Collodian Process, during its time {a great leap forward in photography} required that the photographer carry around with him a great number of equipment, when on location. Many attempts were made to preserve the plates that had been exposed in Wet Collodian for their development, at a more convenient time and place. The problem with this though, was the preservatives lessened the sensitivity of the material used. Obviously, it became clear that a dry method of preserving the plates had to be found and used. Because of the difficulties of the Wet Collodian process, I believe that this hastened the need to find a solution to instant photography.
1871 and a major step forward in photography was made. Dr Richard Maddox found a way of using gelatin {this had been discovered only a few years before}. He used this in place of glass, that up till now, had always been used as a basis to hold the photographic plate. From this sprang the development of the
DRY PLATE PROCESS
The fact was that dry plates were developed at a much quicker speed then any process that came before. At first the process was very insensitive, but with little refinements here and there it became possible that factory-made photographic material would now come to the fore. With the introduction of the Dry Plate Process, photography moved on in leaps and bounds. The heavy and cumbersome wet plates did not need to be carried around anymore, and the darkroom tent, was no longer needed. It became obvious that the day would soon arrive when pictures would be taken by the photographer without any prior specialised knowledge whatsoever.
Celluloid was invented during the 1860s, a man named John Carbutt managed to persuade a manufacturer to produce very thin celluloid as backing for very sensitive material. In fact, George Eastman, is remembered as the one who introduced flexible film in 1884. 1888 and Eastman produced the box camera, thereby introducing photography to much greater numbers of people then previously had been reached.
Another person who you should check out was a man named Herman Vogel, he developed a means in which film would become especially sensitive to green light.
To sum up: The history of photography and the processes in which helped it form, is a long but fascinating one. If not for the pioneers of photography, such as the people I have mentioned above, who refined and honed the genre during its early stages, then we would not be where we are today, as far as photography is concerned. For, no matter how advanced a camera may be, mechanical, or whether it be digital, working by electronics and computer driven, they all work on the same principle that they always have done for centuries. All of them are basically a box that allows light to pass through them. It was by studying the way light moved and formed an image upon a flat surface {Camera Obscura}, that the whole process came into being. If not for these pioneers, then writing with light {photography}, as we know it today, simply would not exist.
I hope I have given the reader at least some basic knowledge of the early part of photographic history through the ages. I have not touched upon the more advanced cameras simply because, as I have stated, they all work, basically, by the same process, no matter how advanced a camera may eventually become. Indeed, it is thanks to these early pioneers of this subject, and the breakthroughs and discoveries they made, that enables the likes of you and me to enjoy the thrills of photography that we do in the present day.
With the advent of the new Digital Cameras now, we no longer need to rely on film {film photography has actually become a specialized subject now}. With the new type of cameras available in the 21st Century, we just point and click. Who knows what these early inventors of photography would have thought about that? But it is thanks to them that we are where we are now.