Brief History of Photography
· Introduction
o History of Photography is mainly concerned with the development of the Art & Technique of producing images known as Photography. It was not discovered by a single person or in a single day. Aristotle was the person who observed that light passing through a small hole in the wall of a room shaped an image of subject on other wall. Journey of photography was started with the advent of camera obscura (dark chamber).
o Projecting images onto surfaces has been done for a long time. The camera obscura was used by artists to trace scenes as early as the 16th century. These early cameras did not fix an image in time; they only projected what was before the lens or hole onto a surface. In 1727, A German Physician Johan H. Schulze discovered a silver salts which turned dark when exposed to light. By 1800 a young English Chemist, Thomas Wedgwood has succeeded in producing images of leaves on leather that he had treated with silver salts. However, he could find no way to halt the darkening action of light and his leaf images eventually faded into blackness.
o At that time for the birth of Photography, two key discoveries were still needed:
o (a) way to combine a light sensitive material like film plane with a device like camera obscura.
o (b) Secondly, a way to fix, or make permanent the resulting image.
o A Swedish chemist, Carl Scheele got success to made salt for developing purpose. In 1814, Charles and Vincent Chevalier got photographic image but it was not permanent and faded soon
· Briefing
1. Early Invention (1800-85)- In 1820 , a French scientist Joseph Nicephore Niepce was experimenting with a technique of creating image by action of light. Niepce was the first person who can be considered as founder of photography technique. The first photograph is considered to be an image produced in 1825 by Niepce. It was produced with an equipment like camera, and required an eight hour exposure in bright light condition. He couldn’t get the technique to fix the image for long time.
o In the process he discovered a way to copy images on a plate when exposed them in the light.
o He put plate soaked in silver chloride and allowed light to come. After exposure, he took out it. He observed the area where light fell on surface was dark. In this way, when he exposed the plate in light, light shining through it burned an image in the dark, creating nearly a perfect copy of the original image.
o In 1829, Louis Jacques Daguerre invented the first practical photographic method. He formed the partnership with Niepce and improved the process which was developed by Niepce. He reduced the time of exposure to less than 30 minutes. In 1839, he developed more convenient and effective method of photography which was known as ‘Daguerreotype’. He coated a copper plate with silver, then treated it with iodine vapour to make it sensitive to light. The image was developed by mercury vapour. But one problem remained: The image darkened over time. Daguerre solved this final obstacle by washing away silver iodide with a solution of warm water and table salt. He produced many photographs by this daguerretype method by 1839. After few months, he sold his techniques to French govt. and published details about techniques.
o The word ‘photography was used by sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. In 1840, Henry Fox Talbot, an English mathematician invented the first negative from which multiple positive prints were made. In 1841, he improved his process which was known as ‘Calotype’. Called, Photogenic drawing, his process produced contact prints of leaves. Talbot’s process used negatives which were produced on silver chloride- coated paper. In 1849, he prepared glassy type paper also. In 1854, Scott Archer of London introduced collodian wet plates (glass negative system). In 1871, Dr. R.L. Maddox invented the dry plate using gelatin which helped to improve speed and quality.
2. Black & White Era: The birth of film (1885-40)- In 1885, George Eastman figured out how to process pictures on a roll film. He also introduced his camera ‘Kodak’. It was a box camera with a fixed focus lens and single shutter speed. After few years, he introduced ‘Brownie’ a popular model that introduced the concept of the snapshot. In 1898, Kodak company started manufacturing of roll film for commercial purpose. In 1920’s, 35 mm roll film was introduced.
o The first practical reflex camera was ‘Rolleiflex’. It was a medium format TLR, introduced in 1928. In 1930-40 various model of TLR were introduced. The first penta-prism SLR was the Contax S, introduced in 1949. The most popular rangefinder camera Leica M3 (one of Leica series model) was introduced in 1954. Retina of Kodak was also popular camera model. Pentax, Yashika and Canon also introduced various model during this period.
3. Colour Era (1940-80)- In the early 1940’s, colour films were introduced in market. After second world war, photojournalism became an important part of journalism. Rolleiflex was the most popular model during 1950’s. Colour film for various format camera were introduced during this era. Canon introduced their first 35 mm SLR ‘Canonflex’ in 1959. This era can be remembered for the various design of camera- SLR, TLR, Rangefinder ,Polaroid.
4. Digital Era (1981- till date)- In 1981, Sony was the first company to introduce a film-less camera ‘Mavika’. It couldn’t get recognition among camera users because of poor image quality. After few months, ‘pro- mavika’ was launched. Kodak launched first digital camera in 1986. Canon introduced their first digital SLR ‘DCS-3’ in 1995. During 1990-2000, various model of point & shoot camera and DSLR of various company like Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Sony were introduced in market. The journey of digital era is continue with new technological invent.
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