Photography
Photography is the process, activity and art of creating still pictures by recording light patterns reflected or emitted from objects on a sensitive medium such as a chemical or electronic sensor during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically. But from a journalist or historian point of view, photography is the process of documenting reality by recording visual fragments of historical events. Photography has many uses for business, science, art and pleasure.
Etymologically, the word “photography” derives from two Greek roots; photo, light; graph, drawn. At the beginning, in ancient times, was the Camera Oscura; a darkened room used to form inverted images on one wall through a small hole in the oposite. Such a principle was known by ancient Greek thinkers. In the 16th century, the clarity of the image was improved and enhanced in Italy by fixing a convex lens in the hole.The first permanent photographic image was produced by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826, on a polished plate smeared with a petroleum derivative (bitumen of Judea). The object had to be exposed eight hours in bright sunshine for the image to be recorded. Bitumen hardened with the exposure. Then the remainder soft material was washed away as the metal plate was polished to produce a negative image, which was coated with ink and printed on paper.
Later Nicéphore Niépce began to experiment with silver compounds (Heinrich Schultz had discovered in 1724 that silver when mixed with chalk darkened when it was exposed to light). Working in partnership with Louis Daguerre, he refined the existing silver process. But Niépce died of stroke in 1833 and left his notes to Daguerre, who made two important contributions to the process.Louis Daguerre discovered that exposing the silver to iodine vapor before it was brought to light, then to fumes of mercury after the photograph had been taken, he could form a latent image. Finally, he fixed the image bathing the plate in a salt bath. Louis Daguerre himself further developed the photographic process as he announced in 1839 that he had just devised a new method of processing the image, using silver on a copper plate. This early type of photograph was later called daguerreotype, which was a negative image. The mirrored surface of the metal plate reflected the image, making it appear positive in the proper light. Thus, daguerreotype was a direct photographic process which could not be duplicated.
Although the daguerreotype was not the first photographic process, it was the first commercially viable photographic method and the first to permanently record and fix an image with exposure time compatible with portrait photography. In 1840 the French government bought the patent and immediately made it public domain.
For the next fifty years, the modern photographic process came about from a series of refinements and improvements in the first 20 years. In 1884 George Eastman, of Rochester, New York, developed dry gel on paper, or film, to replace the photographic plate so that a photographer no longer needed to carry boxes of plates and toxic chemicals around. In July of 1888 Eastman's Kodak camera went on the market with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest". Now anyone could take a photograph and leave the complex parts of the process to others, and photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie.
Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge's study of human and animal locomotion in 1887. Artists are equally interested by these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement. Military, police, and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used by amateurs to preserve memories of favorite times, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to send messages, and as a source of entertainment. Many mobile phones now contain cameras to facilitate such use.
Etymologically, the word “photography” derives from two Greek roots; photo, light; graph, drawn. At the beginning, in ancient times, was the Camera Oscura; a darkened room used to form inverted images on one wall through a small hole in the oposite. Such a principle was known by ancient Greek thinkers. In the 16th century, the clarity of the image was improved and enhanced in Italy by fixing a convex lens in the hole.The first permanent photographic image was produced by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826, on a polished plate smeared with a petroleum derivative (bitumen of Judea). The object had to be exposed eight hours in bright sunshine for the image to be recorded. Bitumen hardened with the exposure. Then the remainder soft material was washed away as the metal plate was polished to produce a negative image, which was coated with ink and printed on paper.
Later Nicéphore Niépce began to experiment with silver compounds (Heinrich Schultz had discovered in 1724 that silver when mixed with chalk darkened when it was exposed to light). Working in partnership with Louis Daguerre, he refined the existing silver process. But Niépce died of stroke in 1833 and left his notes to Daguerre, who made two important contributions to the process.Louis Daguerre discovered that exposing the silver to iodine vapor before it was brought to light, then to fumes of mercury after the photograph had been taken, he could form a latent image. Finally, he fixed the image bathing the plate in a salt bath. Louis Daguerre himself further developed the photographic process as he announced in 1839 that he had just devised a new method of processing the image, using silver on a copper plate. This early type of photograph was later called daguerreotype, which was a negative image. The mirrored surface of the metal plate reflected the image, making it appear positive in the proper light. Thus, daguerreotype was a direct photographic process which could not be duplicated.
Although the daguerreotype was not the first photographic process, it was the first commercially viable photographic method and the first to permanently record and fix an image with exposure time compatible with portrait photography. In 1840 the French government bought the patent and immediately made it public domain.
For the next fifty years, the modern photographic process came about from a series of refinements and improvements in the first 20 years. In 1884 George Eastman, of Rochester, New York, developed dry gel on paper, or film, to replace the photographic plate so that a photographer no longer needed to carry boxes of plates and toxic chemicals around. In July of 1888 Eastman's Kodak camera went on the market with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest". Now anyone could take a photograph and leave the complex parts of the process to others, and photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie.
Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge's study of human and animal locomotion in 1887. Artists are equally interested by these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement. Military, police, and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used by amateurs to preserve memories of favorite times, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to send messages, and as a source of entertainment. Many mobile phones now contain cameras to facilitate such use.
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