- Why study the history of photography?
- We will never know where we're going if we never know where we've been
- Find YOUR place in photographic history
- What does the word photography mean? Light writing
- Photography is about controlling light
- 5th century Chinese philosopher Mo Ti discovered that light passing through a pinhole into a darkened area forms an exact but inverted image
- 330 BCE Aristotle recorded the first Western description of this same occurrence
- 10th century Arabian mathematician Alhazan discovered that the smaller the hole, the more precise and in-focus the image. Lenses!
- 1490 Leonardo Divinci coined the term "camera obscura" which means dark chamber
- This works similarly to the human eye, inverting the image
- Scientists spent years struggling to create permanent images, fixed onto a surface
- Joseph Niepce (French) developed the first successful system in 1824
- First permanent photograph: Joseph Niepce View from His Window at Le Gras 1824
- In 1825 Niepce joined in collaboration with Daquerre, a shrewd businessman
- After Niepce's death, Daquerre presented the invention of permanent development to the French government, who in turn presented it to the world, especially to England. Daguerre became accredited with the invention and Daguerreotypes
- English scientist and scholar William Henry Fox Talbot independently devised a process known as collotypes, a two-step process involving the first negatives, in 1839
- This means multiples
- Samuel F. B. Morse, who was in Paris to demonstrate his electric telegraph, was highly impressed with Daguerre's announcement and relayed the information to America
- 1823 - 1896
- Pioneered celebrity portrait
- Opened gallery in NY utilizing daguerreotypes in public relations
- Lincoln's last photograph prior to assassination
- Henry Peach Robinson, a painter who took up photography in 1852, challenged the belief that only artists could fabricate scenes
- In 1858, he used 5 negatives, combining images into one single image (this can be done in a darkroom -- stacking negatives)
- Stacked image: Fading Away, Henry Peach Robinson
- Although the Crimean War (1853-56) was the first to be photographed, the American Civil War expanded the definition of photographic documentation
- During the American Civil War, photojournalists actually moved dead bodies in order to capture a more pleasing composition
- Ethical?
- 1884 George Eastman invented flexible, paper based film
- Started a company which would become Kodak in 1892
- First mass-marketed camera is released in 1900 and called the Brownie
- very basic cardboard box camera with simple lens
- It was simple to use and affordable so it could be used by anyone
- Alfred Stieglitz crusaded for photography's acceptance as a form of art. He stressed that photography was a tool like a paintbrush, for achieving aesthetic effect
- Photography = art
- Henri Cartier-Bresson recorded captured moments in time. He did not arrange images but let the scene capture itself
- Street photography
- Lewis Hine
- Documented child labor prior to child labor laws
35 mm camera
- Oscar Barnack, developed a compact camera using 35 mm film that would produce high-quality enlargements in 1913 and was put into production as the Leica I (for Leitz camera) in 1925. This was the first mass produced 35 mm
Seeing Form
- Edward Weston aimed to reduce the subject of his photographs to fundamental structure. (Could be compared to a minimalists). He did so with the use of light value, and crisp, clean, lines.
Function and Form
- Margaret Bourke-White, traditionally trained in the first American film school., discovered a romanticism in functional architecture
Farm Security Administration
- In 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, President FDR appointed photographers to document the current conditions of rural America in order to enlist popular support for new programs of grants, loans, and resettlement
Mastering Light
- One of the most famous American landscape photographers was Ansel Adams. He mastered the visual understanding of light -- the quality, at a precise location and at an exact moment
Color Film
- 1935 Eastman Kodak markets Kodachrome film
- This was the first mass marketed color film. The company stopped producing and selling Kodachrome in 2009
Gordon Parks
- A FSA photographer, Parks became the first black photographer for Life magazine, bringing images of the Civil Rights movement into the homes of white middle-class America
Fashion Photography
- A pioneer of fashion photography, Richard Avedon's control of pose and facial expression depicted women as astute, resourceful, and entertaining.
Digital Revolution
- 1975 First Digital Camera
- Steven j. Sasson developed the original digital camera, which used a cassette tape to store pictures
- Took 23 seconds the record the photo