This morning I received a
note wishing me “Happy World Photo Day.”
It then proceeded to proclaim that photography is 177 years old
today. I am quite familiar with the
history of photography and 177 years is not accurate. The actual age of photography is 190
years. Is there an explanation for this discrepancy?
The answer is “sort of”. Even though this is not directly related to
Leica, I think it is still worth looking into because without the invention of
photography there obviously would be no Leica cameras.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
The history of photography
would be incomplete without mentioning Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. He must be credited with having produced the
oldest surviving photograph in 1826. He
had experimented with heliography, as he called it, for quite some time and
finally succeeded to produce a photograph that would not fade after just a very
short time.
From a letter to his
sister in 1816, he talked about having succeeded in producing recognizable
photographs on paper coated with silver chloride. However, he had no means to fix the images,
keeping them from turning black after only a short while. So he looked for other means to achieve his
goal. That led him to use Bitumen of
Judea, a naturally occurring asphalt that had been used for various purposes
since ancient times.
He had some early
successes with this process making contact prints, usually of drawings. But soon he would begin to use a camera
obscura, a device used extensively to make very accurate drawings of scenes
which were displayed by a lens in the camera on a ground glass. Niépce correctly assumed that it should be
possible to capture these images on sensitized pieces of paper.
He had noticed that a thin
layer of bitumen of Judea would harden when exposed to light for a period of
time. Then, after the exposure, he would
use lavender oil, a solvent, to wash away the less hardened areas.
In 1822, he used it to
create what is believed to have been the world’s first permanent photographic
image, a contact print of an engraving of Pope Pius VII, but it was later
destroyed when Niépce attempted to make additional prints from it. The earliest surviving photographic artifact
by Niépce, made in 1825, is a copy of a 17th-century engraving of a man with a
horse. It is an ink-on-paper print, but
the printing plate used to make it was photographically created by Niépce's
heliography process.
From a letter to his
brother Claude we know that his earliest success using a camera obscura
apparently was in 1824. Most of the time
he tried to photograph the scene outside his window. It is not known what happened to these
photographs, the earliest surviving photograph from these experiments dates to
1816. It is now the oldest known camera
photograph still in existence. The historic image had seemingly been lost early
in the 20th century, but photography historian Helmut Gernsheim succeeded in
tracking it down in 1952. The exposure time required to make it is said to have
been eight or nine hours. That
photograph is now in a museum at the University of Texas.
Niépce photograph from 1826, the oldest surviving photograph
Obviously an exposure time
of eight hours is not very practical, to say the least. That problem was partially solved by Louis
Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. He operated
several theaters in Paris with rather elaborate stage scenes which he used to
introduce the impression of movement by moving various theatrical stage paintings
which were produced with the help of a camera obscura. Daguerre had begun to think of directly
producing these via a photographic process.
Louis Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
The largest lens maker at
that time was the house of Chevalier in Paris.
Niépce had contacted them in the past, looking for faster lenses for his
camera obscura to gain shorter exposure times.
Daguerre obtained his lenses from them as well, and they introduced him
to Niépce.
The two decided to
collaborate with the purpose of developing a more practical photographic
process.
Further experiments showed
that Niépce’s process was most likely a dead end, and they decided to look for
different means to produce photographs by going back to plates sensitized with
silver halides, a process Niépce had experimented with in the past . Unfortunately Niépce died in 1833, but
Daguerre continued the research which resulted in the so-called Daguerreotype
process which was officially introduced in 1839.
The process required a
sheet of silver plated copper to be polished to a mirror like finish which
would then be treated in darkness with halogen fumes to make it light
sensitive. After exposure in a camera
obscura, the plates were developed by exposure to mercury fumes. After development, the plates were fixed by
removing the remaining silver halides with a mild solution of sodium
thiosulfate. Depending on the level of
illumination, this process rendered exposure times as fast as just a few seconds;
definitely an improvement.
Still life with plaster casts, made by Daguerre in 1837, the earliest reliably dated daguerreotype
The earliest reliably dated photograph of people, taken byDaguerre one spring morning in 1838 from the window of the Diorama, where he lived and worked. It bears the caption huit heure du matin (8 a.m.). Though it shows the busy Boulevard du Temple, the long exposure time (about ten or twelve minutes) meant that moving traffic cannot be seen; however, the bootblack and his customer at lower left remained still long enough to be distinctly visible.
However, the Daguerreotype
still had one considerable draw back. It
was a direct process which would only render one photograph at a time which
brings us to Henry Fox Talbot of Dorset in the United Kingdom. He is generally credited with inventing the negative
process, not unlike what film photography still uses today.
Henry Fox Talbot
Talbot's early "salted paper" or
"photogenic drawing" process used writing paper bathed in a weak
solution of ordinary table salt (sodium chloride), dried, then brushed on one
side with a strong solution of silver nitrate, which created a coating of very
light-sensitive silver chloride that darkened where it was exposed to light.
Latticed window at Lacock Abbey, August 1835.
A positive from what may be the oldest existing camera negative
This process was developed
by Talbot virtually parallel to the Daguerreotype process of Daguerre. However, Talbot was very secretive. He did not want anyone else to know about it
for fear of others using his process to their advantage. It is most likely because of this fear that
Daguerre was able to introduce his photographic process prior to Talbot.
The rest is history, as
they say. All three of these individuals,
however, deserve equal credit for the invention of photography. It is quite astonishing that even now, 190
years later, we essentially use a very similar process. We still use a camera to expose a light sensitive
medium, film or electronic sensor, to produce photographic images. Thank you Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, Louis
Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot.
________________________________________________________________________________________
To comment or to read comments please scroll past the ads below.
All ads present items of interest to Leica owners.
To comment or to read comments please scroll past the ads below.
All ads present items of interest to Leica owners.
For rare and collectible cameras go to: http://www.tamarkin.com/leicagallery/upcoming-shows
For rare and collectible cameras go to: http://www.tamarkin.com/leicagallery/upcoming-shows
Click on image to enlarge
Order: info@gmpphoto.com
Click on image to enlarge
Order: info@gmpphoto.com
Click on image to enlarge
Order: info@gmpphoto.com
Click on image to enlarge
Order: info@gmpphoto.com
Please make payment via PayPal to GMP Photography
Click on image to enlarge
Order: info@gmpphoto.com
Please make payment via PayPal to GMP Photography
Click on image to enlarge
Order: info@gmpphoto.com
Please make payment via PayPal to GMP Photography
No comments:
Post a Comment