UNIT 5- HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Flashcards
How long has the basic camera design that we use today been in use?
Since the 1500s
Define camera obscura and give a brief description.
A small dark room/building with no windows, a tiny hole, fitted with a lens, projected images from outside the room onto the far wall inside it
Nicephore Niepce’s contributions
-Produced the first photograph in June/July 1827
-Used chemicals on a metal plate, placed inside camera obscura, he was able to record an obscure image of the view outside of his window.
-called his process “Heliography” after Greek “of the sun”
-exposure lasted 8 hours
Daguerre’s contributions
-regularly used a camera obscura as an aid to painting in perspective, this led him to seek to freeze the image
-in 1826 he learned of Niepce’s work and in 1829 signed a partnership with him
-After Niepce died in 1833 he continued their experiments and got exposure time to 30 minutes
-in 1837 he discovered a chemical process that would permanently fix an image, process he called Daguerreotype
Early Photography uses
-made it possible for anyone of moderate means to have a portrait created, and photographers profited from travelling to towns across the US
-Historical documentation, anyone who was famous after 1839 got a portrait captured for future generations. Like Abraham Lincoln, won election mostly because of his speech and his photograph, taken by Matthew Brady
-Pictures of battle grounds, showed what war was like to everyone not there
Eadweard Muybridge contributions
-One of greatest pioneers for motion photography
-main claim to fame was his exhaustive study of movement of both animals and humans
-Horse picture, people wanted to know if all horses legs went up when they galloped, used 24 cameras and trip wire
-1878 an article published some of his sequences and suggested cut the pictures out and put in zoetrope for illusion of movement
Leica Cameras contribution
-Some of the first compact cameras on the market, more accessible, portable, and easier to use than many other cameras
-capture candid and spontaneous moments, helped to establish street photography as a genre
-Introduced the “miniature” camera, the first to use 35mm film. Amateur photography became an international passion
Dorothea Lange significance
-commissioned during Great Depression to create a portfolio of photographs documenting the migrant farm workers in California
-captured the despair of the times
-Migrant Mother, 1931
Lewis Hine significance
-captured photos of builders building Empire State Building, tallest building in the world at the time. an incredible testimony of the courage of these underpaid workers. you can see the lack of safety devices. 1931
-hired to research child labour in the early 20th century
-photos caputred children working
in factories, on railroads, and other dangerous
working environments brought greater
awareness to this problem
-shortly after his photos were published, child labor laws went into effect, 1908
Matthew Brady Significance
-lots of portraits, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain.
- also known for his portraits of Civil War generals and for his images of vast fields littered with the corpses in the aftermath of battle.
- sometimes thought of as the century’s most
important photographer and the man who invented photojournalism
-also took credit for hundreds of photos done by employees
What did Pictoralists believe
That photographs had to look as much like paintings as possible. They believed that an artist should improve upon nature by using it to express noble ideas. Both favoured elaborate illustrations of scenes from ancient mythology.
What did Naturalists believe
They believed that a photograph should capture nature’s own truth. They were also increasingly fond of using soft focus (blurred edges) in their photographs.
Pictoralists and Naturalists common belief
that a work of art ought to express a “correct sentiment” and that it ought to be decorative/pretty
