History

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A History of Photography Part 2

A History of Photography Part 2

This was ‘solved’ with the announcement of the Daguerrotype in 1839, who had managed to capture the generally accepted ‘first photograph to include people’. The scene is of a busy street, but due to the long exposure time, the only person to be included is a shoe-shiner. However the images Daguerre captured were easily damaged and exposure time was long.
Whilst the issues with the Daguerrotype were being worked out, Henry Fox Talbot was developing a different type of print, which helped to reduce the exposure time.
Further advancements lead to popularization of photography, progressing to black and white slides of large format cameras, the medium format cameras with rolls of film, to 35MM and colour film.
Today, photography is more accessible than ever, with an average phone having a camera built in. This makes photographical arts more important than ever, in order to distinguish it from amateur photography.

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A History of Photography Part 1

A History of Photography Part 1

The first photographer depends on your definition of camera. The first cameras were technically ‘camera obscuras’, which were used to allow people to draw the images of things that they see around them. It allowed a greater accuracy in the art world, despite having to be drawn upside-down. Once a basis was there the image could be worked into more.
From the 1400’s it was known that a lens in the pinhole of the camera obscura would allow for a clearer image, and artists used this heavily to their advantage.
Light sensitive chemicals were experimented with for centuries and it took a long time to realize that the two elements could be combined, the camera obscura and the light recording chemicals.
Early in the 1800’s people started experimenting with putting light sensitive paper in light areas. Whilst it worked well enough to capture the image, the images faded fast.
The earliest surviving photograph is Niepce’s image, which took days to expose and was very vague and of an alley behind his house.