Invention of Photography/Image

Camera Obscura

5th century

Mo Ti first to record creation of inverted image with pinhole in screen

Saw that rays from top of object will produce the lower part of image

No further mention until 9th century

Room Camera Obscura

Box Camera Obscura

Camera Lucida

19th century Not easy to use Trace of outline only possible when 1/2 of eye and

pencil point on paper

Camera Obscura

Number of advances made to it

Instrument makers kept producing it

Renderings look like “an out of focus photo”

Vermeer

Nicephore Niepce

Accredited with invention

Born 1765 in France 1797 travels to Sardinia

said to be the 1st idea he has of photography

1816 starts on goal to make permanent imgs seen at back of cam O.

First Non-Fixed Image

Sheets of silver salts coated paper (blackens in daylight) at the back of cam O.

Image was a negative then vanished because in broad daylight, paper blackens

He called these images retinas

First Fixed Image

1824 put lithographic stones, coated w/ bitumen (or asphalt) at the back of cam O.

Obtains fixed img of landscape

Extremely long exposure time of a few days

Hangs in Harry Ransom Center at UT in Austin

Heliography Process

Then he spread this solution in a very thin layer on a base glass, stone, copper, tin, silver

With a hot drying process he got a shiny varnish with a cherry red color

Niepce dissolved powdered Judea Bitumen in lavender oil

Heliography Process

After exp no visible img so he dipped plate in diluted lavender oil which dissolved bitumen parts that had not been exp or little to light

Resulting img was a negative

Then he would expose the varnished plate in a camera obscura

Heliography Process

Submitting silver plate to iodine vapors to get a positive img. Niepce would place in box with iodine crystals that evaporated spontaneosly.

From 1827 on

From 1828-1831

To get positive: without any further processing under the condition to make this img with a thin layer of varnish with an underexp. In this case the varnish was mat and by reflection, with a low angled light and in a dark place, img would appear positive.

Heliography Process

A positive image.

Within few min the iodine fumes oxydized the silver insufficiently protected by varnish. This created a layer of silver iodide on metal surface, which once varnish was eliminated, would blacken under the action of light.

Niepce and Daguerre

1827 Niepce and Daguerre meet in Paris

Daguerre (1787-1851) was a painter and stage decorator and also had the idea of photography

1829-2 men exchanged ideas through mail

1832 came up with the Physautotype process

Physautotype

Used tree resins and residue of lavender oil distillation.

Exp time went down to 8 hours

Daguerre

1833 Niepce dies, Daguerre worked alone and invented Daguerreotype

1835 Daguerre got positive imgs using far shorter exp times than heliography and physautotype

1837 fixed those imgs using techniques learnt from Niepce and possessed process that produced imgs in only a few min w/ cam O.

Daguerre and Daguerreotype

Went to Science Academy in France with his creation

4000 francs allotted to D. and Isidore (Niepce’s son)

Daguerreotype made it possible to do portraits

Flaw: expensive and could not be duplicated

Daguerreotype

Talbot

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877)

English chemist

Creator of the Calotype process

Calotype

Talbot sensitized paper to light with a silver salt solution.

He then exposed the paper to light. Fixed in strong salt solutionAdded gallic acid, paper became more

sensitive to light and no longer necessary to expose until img became visible

Calotype

Lower quality prints

But reproducible (what today’s photography is based on)

Archer and Collodion Process

Frederick Scott Archer introduced the Collodion process in 1851

Reduced exp time to 2-3 sec

Cheap

Film

1888 John corbutt coated sheets of celluloid w/photgraphic emulsion

1889 George Eastman produced roll film for a new cam called the Kodak

After exp, film would be returned still in cam for processing

Early films highly inflammable so they were replaced in 1930’s to non-iflammable

Relating to Seminal Text