photography class notes

PHOTOGRAPHY CLASS – 9/14/06

TIMELINE:
350BC – Aristotle
1600’s - Camera Obscura
1802 – Thomas Wedgewood
1826 – Niepce
1829 & 1839– Daugere
1833 – Niepce dies
1850 – Archer
1870 – dry plate
1888 – celluloid
1889 – Kodak

350BC – Aristotle looked at an eclipse through a strainer and the image of the sun was projected on the ground
-got ppl curious, and interested in capturing an image the way it ‘was’ rather than just painting

1600’s - Camera Obscura – developed Aristotle’s strainer into a box with glass (called a camera obscura), that would project the scene outside onto the glass, so you could trace it exactly. The painter stood behind the box with cloth over his head (so no light came in).
-they discovered that if you adjusted the glass it would make the scene in focus
-the next thing they came up with was to put mirrors in the box to see the image in different places (guy doesn’t have to stand behind box anymore)
-next they put a lens on the front instead of the mere hole, then they added an adjuster knob for the lens

1700’s – the term photography is used with this camera contraption.
The term comes from 2 Greek words: Photo – light & Graphois - drawing
- Scientists saw that silver nitrate got dark from the sun (they thought it was heat rather then the truth – light)

1802 – Thomas Wedgewood – wanted to capture an image without tracing
-he soaked leather into silver nitrate and put leaves on it and let it sit in the sun and used oils, and tada – an image (of the leaves) appeared on the leather!
-his prob: wasn’t able to ‘fix’ the image, it wasn’t permanent, so he had to show e/t in candlelight b/c the sun would turn his images black

1826 – Niepce – he left metal in sun and treated it with aromatic oils and his image stays! His image was the first photograph ever (of some building in france)

1829 – Daugere and Niepce get together to standardize the process of photography for the general public, but in 1833 Niepce dies.

1839 – Daguarre invents the Daugarreotype - which takes 1 hr to make an exposure. Cons – its one time use and can’t make prints from it or mass produce it.
(ppl. were held in chairs so they wouldn’t move for that hr)

-At the same time – Fox Talbot comes up with a process called Calotype (or Talbotype) which gives a negative to make positives from. He puts paper wet with silver nitrate into the camera obscura which accelerates the time to a 10 min exposure. He uses chemicals to fix the image and can take this image into a darkroom and shine a light through it to create a duplicate.

- Daguarre gets credit for photography; even though Talbot was a little b4 him; some say Talbot’s mom talked him out of going public with his idea and to get a real job instead!!

1850 – Archer – a sculptor who takes Talbot’s process of negatives on paper, and instead puts negative on wet glass.

1870 – Dry plate was invented – dry glass was put into the camera, now they can just take the plates with them instead of the whole lab with all the processing equipment – begg. of true modern photography.

1888 – Celluloid (plastic) – plastic plates are invented (basically what we use today)
-Thomas Edison invents the movie camera at this time (strip of plastic run through a projector) con- always caught on fire…

1889/90 – Kodak – George Eastman modernized the film process, he stopped making plates and just put film on plastic – he made up the name Kodak for his company (no meaning!)
-he came up with the first box cameras for home use and the first film in rolls
-he made a red circle on the camera box (film doesn’t pick up red) and as the film rolled past the red circle a pre-written number popped up so he knew when to stop rolling.
-Kodak corners the market!
-Eastman and Edison worked together on the first motion pictures & cameras.
-Edison was working on a big 70mm film, and asked Eastman to cut it in half for him, creating the 35mm film and camera which became the standard.
-Kodak focuses on the public rather than the professionals.