Camera - Room
Obscure - Dark
Photography:
Photo: Light
Graph: Draw
This image was taken by Nicephore Niepce. It is as far as anyone knows the first ever photograph taken in France. It was taken using a camera obscura, captured onto a piece of Pewter plate and had an 8 hour exposure. The photograph is called "The View from the Window at Le Gras" and was taken in 1825. It is now displayed in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and is listed as one of the 100 photographs that changed the world.
This photograph is called "Boulevard Du Temple" and was taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838. It is the first known photograph to have people in it. This photograph was taken on a 10 minute exposure and the people have been captured because the man getting his shoes shined and the boy doing it for him were stationary for this length of time. Other things may have been passing during this time, but weren't captured because of the long exposure.
This was the first ever negative taken by Fox Talbot.
Fox Talbot:
Fox Talbot was the inventor of the Calotype process - the first form of positives and negatives - which enabled photographers to mass produce images. He wanted to invent this because he couldn't draw, so creating an alternative way of capturing images.
Louis Daguerre:
Louis Daguerre was the inventor of the Daguerreotype, the first popular photographic process. This process was one of the only ones where no copies could be made/mass-produced of images (it cannot be transferred onto any other light sensitive medium).
Adolphe Disderi:
Disderi was a french photographer who started his career as a Daguerrotypist. He became famous when he invented the 'carte de visite' which was a small photographic image which was mounted on card. This enabled mass production of photographs as they were printed on card rather than glass or coated metal plates like before. In 1854 he patented the printing process. The 'carte de visite' were 6x9cm and 10 could be printed on a single sheet. 'Carte de visite' meant visiting card and people/visitors could buy them (like the modern post card). Disderi's invention lead to the decline of the Daguerrotype as they were a worldwide craze.
Eadweard Muybridge:
In 1872 the former governor of California Leland Stanford - a businessman and race-horse owner, hired Muybridge for some photographic studies. He was asked to solve using photography the popular debate - whether all four feet of a horse were off the ground at the same time while trotting. The human eye could not break down the action quick enough so the horses movement had to be captured with a camera. He used advanced technologies in shutter speed to take multiple images to show the horse whilst trotting and then further studies into a horse gallop.
George Eastman:
Eastman was an American innovator who founded the Eastman Kodak Company in 1989 and invented roll film. This helped to bring photography into the mainstream and more people could have a go at it. Roll film also helped motion picture film and was the basis for its development. The name Kodak came from Eastman's favourite letter K. He said it was a strong letter and the name Kodak came from his mother creating anagrams.
Kodak Brownie:
In 1900 first ever simple and inexpensive camera was created - the Kodak Brownie. The Brownie introduced the concept of a snapshot as people could carry it around and snap pictures of things that they wanted to without having to set anything up. It was intended to be a camera that anyone and everyone could use as it was simple and only cost $1. The Kodak Brownie slogan was "You push the button, we do the rest" This meant that people could push the button to take the photographs they wanted to take, send the Brownie back to Kodak where they would develop the prints for them, then Kodak would send the Brownie back to the photographer/user with a new film in it and their printed images.
Impact on Art:
Traditionally artists were employed by the rich to paint a single or family portrait to preserve the sitters appearance for generations. It was also used to display the world and capture it's physical appearance and capturing royal and political events in history. Painting was also used for creating art pieces for the church.
When photography was invented and went public in 1839, it was a huge threat to the livelihood of painters as people and things could be captures more quickly and cheaply than painters could. This was a huge disappointment to artists/painters as they felt that their jobs were not wanted. However, photography gave them the freedom to express themselves using different styles of art and experimenting with different techniques. They weren't constricted to just having to truly represent people as accurate as possible, and therefore lots of art movements developed such as impressionism, expressionism, cubism, futurism, dada, surrealism and more.
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