About
Photography is the technique of recording, by chemical, mechanical or digital means, a permanent image on a layer of material sensitive to light exposure. The word comes from the Greek words photos ("light"), and graphis ("stylus", "paintbrush") or graphê, together meaning "drawing with light" or "representation by means of lines", "drawing".The first photograph is considered to be an image produced in 1825 by Nicéphore Niepce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. It was produced with a camera, and required an eight hour exposure in bright sunshine. In 1839 Jacques Daguerre developed a process using silver on a copper plate called the Daguerreotype. Almost at the same time, William Fox Talbot developed a different process called the calotype, using paper sheets covered with silver chloride. This process is much closer to the photographic process in use nowadays, as it produces a negative image that can be reused to produce several positive prints. Hippolyte Bayard also developed a method of photography, but delayed announcing it and so was not recognized as its inventor.
The Daguerreotype proved more popular as it responded to the demand for portraiture emerging from the middle classes during the Industrial Revolution. This demand, that could not be met in volume and in cost by oil painting, may well have been the push for the development of photography. Neither of the techniques involved, the camera obscura, and the photo sensitivity of silver salts, were 19th century discoveries. Camera obscura were used by artists in the 16th century, as an aid to sketches for paintings, and the photo-sensitivity of a silver nitrate solution was observed by Johann Schultze in 1724.
Ultimately, the modern photographic process came about from a series of refinements and improvements on the foundations laid by William Fox Talbot. Photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie camera, and, more importantly, with the industrialisation of film processing and printing. Very little has changed in principle since then, though color film has become the standard, and automatic focus and automatic exposure. Digital recording of images is becoming increasingly prevalent, as electronic sensors become more sensitive and able to provide definition approaching chemical methods. For the enthusiast photographer processing black and white film, little has changed since the introduction of the 35mm film Leica camera in 1925.
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Library
Each link opens in a new window and leads you back to amazon.com.» A World History of Photography
» Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present
» Camera Lucida : Reflections on Photography
» Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews
» Photography And The Art Of Seeing: A Visual Perception Workshop For Film And Digital Photography
