ACM101 – Week 2

• Week 2 – Brief history of Photography• Technical development of the medium

optical chemical

major movements and styles shoot assignment 1

Camera ObscuraCamera obscura (||Cam"e*ra ob*scu"ra) [LL. camera chamber +

L. obscurus, obscura, dark.] (Opt.)

1. An apparatus in which the images of external objects, formed by a convex lens or a concave mirror, are thrown on a paper or other white surface placed in the focus of the lens or mirror within a darkened chamber, or box, so that the outlines may be traced.

2. (Photog.) An apparatus in which the image of an external object or objects is, by means of lenses, thrown upon a sensitized plate or surface placed at the back of an extensible darkened box or chamber variously modified; - commonly called simply the camera.

Websters Dictionary, 1913http://www.bibliomania.com

Camera Obscura

•light passed through a small hole in thin material does not scatter but crosses and reforms as an upside down image on a flat surface held parallel to the hole.

Camera Obscura•The Camera Obscura (Latin for Dark room) was a dark box or room with a hole in one end.

•If the hole was small enough, an inverted image would be seen on the opposite wall/surface.

•Such a principle was known by thinkers as early as Aristotle (c. 300 BC).

Camera Obscura

Mo-Ti (5th century BC). He formally recorded the creation of an inverted image formed by light rays passing through a pinhole into a darkened room. He called this darkened room a "collecting place" or the "locked treasure room."

Arabian scholar Hassan ibn Hassan described what can be called a camera obscura in his writings in the 10th century.

Camera Obscura

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)wrote:

"Close all shutters and doors until no light enters the camera except through the lens, and opposite hold a piece of paper, which you move forward and backward until the scene appears in the sharpest detail. There on the paper you will see the whole view as it really is, with its distances, its colours and shadows and motion, the clouds, the water twinkling, the birds flying. By holding the paper steady you can trace the whole perspective with a pen, shade it and delicately colour it from nature."

Camera Obscura•Many of the first camera obscuras were large rooms•Over time they became smaller and portable and were considered an aid to drawing•16th century - image quality was improved with the addition of a convex lens into the aperture•the later addition of a mirror to reflect the image down onto a viewing surface.

Camera Obscura•Camera obscura became a portable box device that was a drawing tool.•17th and 18th century many artists were aided by the use of the camera obscura. •Next modification - to accept a sheet of light sensitive material to become the photographic camera.19th Century.

Camera Obscura

•Camera obscura room, a combination of education and entertainment.

•Today the camera obscura is enjoying a revival of interest. Older camera obscuras are celebrated as cultural and historic treasures and new camera obscuras are being built around the world.

Heliography

•The term "heliography" was first coined by its inventor, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, to identify the process by which he obtained the first permanent photographic images.

•Greek - helios meaning sun, and graphein denoting writing or drawing

•successfully permanent means of letting light record itself.

Heliography

•Niépce was the first individual to secure permanent images by photochemical means. •His heliographic process would actually grow out of his early experiments with lithography.•Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made the first permanent photography from nature.•After coating a pewter plate with the same solution of bitumen of Judea, he placed the plate into a camera focused upon the sunlit scene looking out from the third-floor window of his house at Le Gras.

Heliography• The exposure is recorded as having been around eight hours in duration.•The brightest parts of the scene bleached and hardened the bitumen.•The resulting image is therefore a direct positive: the light sections being the hardened bitumen, the darks ones being the actual pewter plate surface.

Camera Lucida•Designed in 1807 by Dr. William Wollaston, was an aid to drawing It was a reflecting prism which enabled artists to draw outlines in correct perspective. •No darkroom was needed. •The paper was laid flat on the drawing board, and the artist would look through a lens containing the prism, so that he could see both the paper and a faint image of the subject to be drawn.

Camera Lucida•The photographer would then fill in the image. This process required artistic skills.•The basic problem with the instrument comes from the fact that you have to position your eye so that it focuses at the same time on the reflected image in the prism and your pencil point on the paper. •If you move your head slightly during drawing or lift the pencil you have to begin the job of repositioning or realigning the eye,image and pencil all over again.

Daguerreotype

•Daguerreotype process was announced by the Frenchman Louis Daguerre in 1839.•Image had particularly clear and made the daguerreotype suitable for portraiture until the middle of the 1850’s. •Process > a silver plated sheet was given a light sensitive surface coating of iodine vapour. •After a long exposure in the camera, the image was developed over heated mercury and fixed in a solution of common salt. •As the image lies on the surface of a highly polished plate, it is best viewed from an angle to reduce reflections.

DaguerreotypeExpoures could be between 10 and 20 minutes, depending upon the light available.

Craigdarent, 1848 - Horatio Ross

British, 1801 - 86Daguerreotype

Daguerreotype•developing the plate over mercury heated to 75 degrees Centigrade. This caused the mercury to amalgamate with the silver.

• fixing the image in a warm solution of common salt (later sodium sulphite was used.)

• rinsing the plate in hot distilled water. The Hiller Family, Cincinnati, 1851 - 52 -

AnonymousAmerican, C.1850

Daguerreotype

Daguerreotype

Hoddy and John Munro Fishing at Flaipool, 1847 - Horatio RossBritish, 1801 - 86Daguerreotype

Calotype• William Henry Fox Talbot patented the Calotype process in 1841.

•Direct ancestor of modern photography

•Used a negative - allowing multiple positive prints to be made from the negative and development of the latent image.

Calotype

•Negative was a sheet of high quality writing paper which had been made light-sensitive with chemicals. •A piece of paper was brushed with weak salt solution, dried, then brushed with a weak silver nitrate solution, dried, making silver chloride in the paper. •This made it sensitive to light, and the paper was now ready for exposure.

CalotypeExposure might take 30 minutes.Fixed in strong salt solution - potassium iodide of hypo.> As the image was contained in the fabric of the paper rather than on a surface coating, the paper fibres tended to show through in the prints - reducing the clarity.

Daguerreotype vs. calotype

The quality of the Daguerreotypes was stunning. However, the process had its weaknesses:

•the pictures could not be reproduced and were therefore unique;•the surfaces were extremely delicate, •the image was reversed laterally•the chemicals used (bromine and chlorine fumes and hot mercury) were highly toxic;•the images were difficult to view from certain angles.

Daguerreotype vs. calotype

The Calotype process was not as popular the Daguerreotype:

> popularity was hindered by patent restrictions;> materials were less sensitive to light = longer exposures;> imperfections of the paper = reduced quality of final print; > Calotypes did not have the sharp definition of daguerreotypes.> the process itself took longer, as it required two stages (making the negative and then the positive);> prints tended to fade.

Daguerreotype vs. Calotype

•Calotype advantages compared with the daguerreotype:

• means of making an unlimited number of prints from negative;

• retouching could be done on either negative or print;• prints on paper were easier to examine, and far less

delicate;• warmer tones.

•When the Collodion process was introduced in 1851, the calotype became obsolete. However, the negative-positive process was one day to become the standard photographic one, which is still used today.

Wet Collodion Process

•Introduced in 1851

•Calotypes were reproducible, but suffered from the fact that any print would also show the imperfections of the paper.

•What was missing?? A process which would enable the ability to reproduce fine detail and the capacity to make multiple prints.

•At first, albumen (egg white) was used. In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer came across collodion.

Wet Collodion Process

> Collodion was a viscous liquid - guncotton dissolved in ether and alcohol - which had only been invented in 1846

> when dried it formed a very thin clear film.

> Collodion provided the binding which was required for image permanency.

Photographic van, Crimea, 1854 - Roger FentonBritish, 1819 - 1869

Salted paper print from wet collodion negative

Wet Collodion Process

> Collodion advantages:

> more sensitive to light = reduced the exposure times(2 to 3 sec.)

> Due to glass base was used, the images were sharper than with a Calotype.

Saint Cecilia after the manner of Raphael, c.1865Julia Margaret Cameron, 1815 - 1879

Albumen print from a collodion-on-glass negative

Wet Collodion Process

• Process was never patented and photography became far more popular.

•The price of a paper print was about a tenth of that of a Daguerreotype.

• The use of collodion caught on very quickly indeed, and within a few years few people used either the Daguerreotype or Calotype process. Paul and Virginia, 1864

Julia Margaret CameronBritish, 1815 - 1879

Albumen print from a collodion-on-glass negative

Albumen Process

• Invented in 1850 - most common type of print for the next 40 years. • Produced a clearer image than its predecessor, the salted paper print. • Albumen print was made by coating paper with a layer of egg white and salt to create a smooth surface. •Paper was then coated with a layer of silver nitrate. The salt and silver nitrate combined to form light sensitive silver salts. •Double coated paper could then be placed in contact with a negative and exposed to the sun to produce a print.

At Compton, Surrey, 1852-54Benjamin Brecknell TurnerBritish, 1815 - 1894

Waterlow family album British, 1848 - 1864Albumen print from a collodion-on-glass negative

Beatrice, 1866Julia Margaret CameronBritish, 1815 - 1879

Detail of vase by Jean Cornu (1650-1715) at Versailles, c.1903Eugène AtgetFrench, 1857 - 1927Albumen print from gelatin dry plate

Dog balancing on two chairs, c.1861Lady Clementina HawardenBritish, 1822 - 1855Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative

Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem, 1860-2Francis BedfordBritish, 1816 - 1894Albumen print from a collodion-on-glass negative

Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Launching Chains of the 'Great Eastern', 1857 - Robert HowlettBritish, 1831 - 1858Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass negative

Photogram

• A photogram is a photograph made without a camera or a lens by placing an object or objects on top of a piece of paper or film coated with light-sensitive materials and then exposing the paper or film to light.

•Where the object covers the paper, the paper remains unexposed and light in tone: where it does not cover, the paper darkens.

•If the object is translucent, midtones appear. After exposure the paper is developed and fixed.

Photogram

William Henry Fox Talbot's earliest experiments led to "photogenic drawings" made by placing objects on paper sensitised with silver chloride and exposing them to the light.

Photogram

Chladni figure, 1985 - Susan DergesBritish, born 1955

Photogram

Photogram

Full Circle, 1992 - Susan DergesBritish, born 1955

Photogram, dye destruction print

Photogram

Spawn, 1992 - Susan DergesBritish, born 1955

Photogram, dye destruction print

History of Photography

•major movements

Pictorialism

Second half of the 19th Century - was the photographic image too detailed?

Painting considered more skilled and given a higher status than photography.

We see the emergence of high - art photography

New techniques

Pictorialism

> Pictorialism - photographs in which the actual scene depicted is of less importance than the artistic quality of the image.

> Pictorialists - more concerned with the aesthetics and, sometimes, the emotional impact of the image.

> Seen as artistic photography - current art styles reflected in their work; eg. impressionism - many photographs have more than a passing resemblance to paintings in this style.

Pictorialism

Techniques included: - combination printing, - use of focus, - manipulation of the negative - use of techniques such as gum bichromate - lessened the detail and produced a more ethereal image.

> Key names: Oscar Rejlander, Henry Peach Robinson, Robert Demachy, and George Davidson.

Landscape Photography

> The landscape has always been a popular subject for photographers

> Among the leading landscape photographers of this period were Roger Fenton, P.H. Delamotte, and Francis Bedford.

Naturalistic Photography

> P.H. Emerson (1889) argued that contrived photography, with such manipulation as combination printing, should have no place in photography.

> Emerson's main claim was that one should treat photography as a legitimate art in its own right, rather than seek to imitate other art forms; imitation was not needed.

> Emerson's feeling was that pictorialism was becoming somewhat bogged down due to sentimentalism and artificiality.

Naturalistic Photography

> Emerson urged that photographic students should look at nature rather than paintings. He felt every student should

"..try to produce one picture of his own...which shall show the author has something to say and knows how to say it; that is something to have accomplished..."

Photo-Secession Movement

•Towards the end of the century there was a growing dissatisfaction with the photographic establishment in England and in America. In England this led to a mass of resignations from the Photographic Society, and the formation of a group known as the Linked Ring, whilst in America, in 1902, an avant-garde group of photographers, led by Stieglitz, also sought to break away from the orthodox approach to photography, and from what they considered was the stale work of fellow- photographers.

Photo-Secession Movement

•The American group came to be known as the Photo-Secession, the name Secession coming from groups of artists in Austria and Germany who had broken away from the academic establishment.

Their rejection of establishment photography was aptly summarised in "Photograms of the year" for 1900: "That wealth of trivial detail which was admired in photography's early days and which is still loved by the great general public.... has gone out of fashion with advanced workers on both sides of the Atlantic."