Exam 2 Processes Flashcards
Dry-plate negatives or Glass Plate
In 1878, to the introduction of factory-produced dry plates coated with gelatin containing silver salts. This event marked the beginning of the modern era of photography. Gelatin plates were about 60 times more sensitive than collodion plates. The increased speed freed the camera from the tripod, and a great variety of small hand-held cameras became available at relatively low cost, allowing photographers to take instantaneous snapshots.
Kodak roll film camera
The most popular handheld was the Kodak camera, introduced by George Eastman in 1888. Its simplicity greatly accelerated the growth of amateur photography, especially among women, to whom much of the Kodak advertising was addressed. In 1888, patrician gentlemen with artistic ambitions no longer dominated the medium of photography. Weekend “snapshooters” invaded the photographic realm.
Half-tone reproduction
The most common mechanical printing processes can only print ink or leave blank areas on the page, they cannot print different shades of a colour. A newspaper press, for example, can only print black or nothing. However photographs are continuous tone, that is they contain various shades of grey between the extremes of black and white.
In order to overcome this printing limitation the halftone process was invented. The traditional halftone process converts different tones into dots of varying size. The eye has limited resolving power and, at a distance, is tricked into seeing these dots as continuous tone.
35mm roll film cameras (Leica, etc.)
While Leitz wasn’t the first to use 35mm movie film in still-film cameras, the Leica made it popular and standardized the 24mm x 36mm frame size. The Leica used 35mm motion picture film, doubling the 35mm movie frame size (24mm x 18mm), which is still used in some “half-frame” cameras such as the Olympus Pen F. Some early Nikon, Minolta, and other Japanese rangefinders adopted the 24mm x 32mm frame size (aka “Japanese size”) which fits into a 8x10 sheet of photo paper more readily, but didn’t catch on.
The 35mm film cartridge that we know actually took a while to become standard.
Platinum printing
Platinum prints, also called platinotypes, are photographic prints made by a monochrome printing process that provides the greatest tonal range [clarification needed] of any printing method using chemical development.
As with most historical photographic processes, a platinum print is made by placing the negative and emulsion-coated paper in direct contact. Therefore, the size of the photographic print is equal to the size of the negative.
Photogravure
PHOTOGRAVURE HAS PLAYED AN ESSENTIAL ROLE in the origin and evolution of photography. Its history is inextricably intertwined with the earliest discoveries and pursuits of the medium. While initial interest in photogravure was motivated by an effort to solve technical problems, over time photogravure was practiced for its own distinct merits.
The history of photogravure also parallels the history of photography’s struggle to be recognized as a fine art. Photographers like Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Paul Strand made it their mission to open the eyes of the western world to the artistic potential of the medium of photography, and they relied on the supple and rich photogravure process to accomplish this end. Using photogravure they painstakingly produced books, journals and portfolios that enabled larger audiences, for the first time, to see and appreciate the aesthetic and artful capacity of photography. So enamored by the process, these photographers often chose photogravure for their own final prints.
Camera-less Camera
The essence of photography lies in its seemingly magical ability to fix shadows on light-sensitive surfaces. Normally, this requires a camera, but not always. Several artists work without a camera, creating images on photographic paper by casting shadows and manipulating light, or by chemically treating the surface of the paper.
Images made with a camera imply a documentary role. In contrast, camera-less photographs show what has never really existed. They are also always ‘an original’ because they are not made from a negative. Encountered as fragments, traces, signs, memories or dreams, they leave room for the imagination, transforming the world of objects into a world of visions.
Processes & techniques
Camera-less photographs can be made using a variety of techniques, the most common of which are the photogram, the luminogram and the chemigram. These techniques are sometimes used in combination. Many involve an element of chance.
Photograms
A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image that shows variations in tone that depends upon the transparency of the objects used. Areas of the paper that have received no light appear white; those exposed through transparent or semi-transparent objects appear grey.[1]
The technique is sometimes called cameraless photography. It was used by Man Ray in his exploration of rayographs. Other artists who have experimented with the technique include László Moholy-Nagy, Christian Schad (who called them “Schadographs”), Imogen Cunningham and Pablo Picasso.[2] Variations of the technique have also been used for scientific purposes.
Manhatta 1920
Paul Strand + Charles Sheeler
Manhatta documents the look of early-20th-century Manhattan. With the city as subject, the film consists of 65 shots sequenced in a loose non-narrative structure, beginning with a ferry approaching Manhattan and ending with a sunset view from a skyscraper. The primary objective of the film is to explore the relationship between photography and film; camera movement is kept to a minimum, as is incidental motion within each shot. Each frame provides a view of the city that has been carefully arranged into abstract compositions
