A form of photography has existed since almost the beginning of human existence. It has been theorised that as far back as 500BCE small holes in tents or animal skins created a photographic effect that inspired Palaeolithic cave paintings. Written records of a ‘pinhole camera’ first appeared in 4BCE in the Chinese text ‘Mozi’ edsciribing a ‘Treasure House’ inverted by a pinhole to collect light and produce an image. In 1502, in his book ‘Codex Anticulous’ Leonardo da Vinci gave the clearest and most concise description of a camera since it’s initial conception as an idea, writing “If the façade of a building, or a place, or a landscape is illuminated by the sun and a small hole is drilled in the wall of a room in a building facing this, which is not directly lighted by the sun, then all objects illuminated by the sun will send their images through this aperture and will appear, upside down, on the wall facing the hole. You will catch these pictures on a piece of white paper, which placed vertically in the room not far from that opening, and you will see all the above-mentioned objects on this paper in their natural shapes or colours, but they will appear smaller and upside down, on account of crossing of the rays at that aperture. If these pictures originate from a place which is illuminated by the sun, they will appear coloured on the paper exactly as they are. The paper should be very thin and must be viewed from the back.” It wasn’t until 1604 that the name Camera Obscura was used in conjunction with this invention, appearing in Johannes Kepler’s book Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena. The camera was initially used to study eclipses without exposing the eyes to the suns harsh and damaging rays but progressed to use as a drawing aid, producing incredibly accurate depiction which could easily achieve graphical perspective. Obviously all of these images were fleeting and were not fixed to material. It would take thousands of years from the conception of the cameras theory for the ability for photographers to fix the shadows.

Thomas Wedgwood is credited as being the ‘First Photographer’ being the first person known to have thought of creating permanent pictures by capturing camera images on material coated with a light-sensitive chemical. He was not successful in making permanent pictures but was able to produce shadowed photograms that was a scientific breakthrough and paved the way for his successors Daguerre and Talbert.

Photography as we know it was invented in 1939 by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre who created the daguerreotype, a method of fixing an image to a mirror like sliver plated copper. It was the first publicly available photographic process and was widely used in the 1840s/50s. As an academically trained painter Daguerre was particularly interested in creating a spectacle of entertainment which led to the dramatic creation of Daguerreotypes to create an experience rather than just a picture. dram The daguerreotype produced rich and lifelike photographs that were very beautiful however incredibly expensive to create and also were unable to be replicated due to the nature of the materials used. This caused a decline in popularity in the method and led photographers to explore other methods such as Talbert’s.

At the same time as Daguerre, Henry Fox Talbert, an MP, writer and botanist was developing his own method to ‘fix the shadows’. As an artist he was a terrible drawer so was very interested in the theory of photography to allow him to replicate surroundings accurately. His method was a salted paper technique in which paper was made wet with a solution of salt and then, after drying, was brushed on one side with silver nitrate. When exposed to light the paper would darken to produce an image and would then be stabilised by more strong salt. This method was the most effective way of producing photographs and quickly overshadowed Daguerre as the most popular photography process.

Introduced in 1900, the Eastman-Kodak brownie revolutionised photography. The camera sold for a dollar each and quickly brought photography into the home, making photography readily available for amateur photographers and families to document their lives. Initially manufactured for children, the brownie was a major success with all sorts of people, particularly soldiers who took the camera’s into the heart of battle in the first world war, composing historically significant images that are still emotive today. Kodaks marketing campaign “You Press the Button, We Do the Rest” was a great success which encouraged people to take more casual, relaxed photos which brought about happier expressions and smiles, more akin to photography today.

Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper. It is a hardback book. It smells like a book

Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both. There is a slip of loose paper with an image on it. The front is textured and feels like a linen cover

Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages. Portrait orientation a4 paper. 144 pages with 57 colour photographs

Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. perfect binding/saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello Hard cover with a perfect binding

Cover: linen/ card. graphic/ printed image. embossed/ debossed. letterpress/ silkscreen/hot-stamping. Linen cover with a printed graphic of stitches/ barbed wire and an image of hair and an ear with an earing on the other side

Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing. The title “out of the blue” may reference the idea of something unexpected happening, causing an imbalance to the normality of daily life.

Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told? When looking at the essay in the photo book it is told that it is about a missing person called Suzanne. The story is told by old fashioned photos, images of paper with writing on it, images of old fashioned photos of both her and her parents, images of family items and images of images cut out or covered up referencing that she is not here anymore.

Structure and architecture: how design/ repeating motifs/ or specific features develops a concept or construct a narrative. There is a repeating form of collages of photos partially or completely covered up to reference the disappearance.

Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts. The size of images different from page to page as some take up the whole page, half he page or the whole page except a thin white border

Editing and sequencing: selection of images/ juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process. The images all have a retro look to them and the images are chosen to portray a certain message. They start off with an image of a note from the missing person

Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others.  Use of captions (if any.) At first you don’t know what is going on and see images of aerial views of a motorway and an image of a note the contents of which I have written below. Then, images of what appears to be a child’s bedroom and images that have the person cut out of. After reading a slip of paper with the essay on you realise it is about a missing girl. There are also a range of family photos of her covered up by other things to represent her disappearance.

Suzzanne Gloria Lyall

The photobook is about the disappearance of a 20 year old women and how the disappearance has effected the family. The photographer has taken images in different ways which are important in conveying messages. She cuts the missing girl out of old family photos and shows the parents of the girl unsure what they should do without her. The photographer has taken loads of old family photos of her and cut her out or covered her up, and placed all of the images on a big wall with strings attached like a detective case. She then photographed the board bit by bit telling the story of her disappearance.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/milestones-photography

The camera obscura was not invented in 1826, the earliest written account is from the 4th century (400BC) by a Chinese philosopher Mo-tzu. He wrote about how light from a illuminated object would pass through a pinhole into a dark room and create an upside down image of the object. The first use was in the 13th century when they used a camera obscura for safe observation of sun eclipse. An astrologer, alchemist and physician Arnaldus de Villa Nova used camera obscura as a projector for entertainment. Artists started using them in the 15th century. Artist and engineer Leonardo da Vinci talks about camera obscura in his book Codex Atlanticus, a twelve-volume bound set of his drawings and writings.

Pictorialism;

Pictorialism first was invented in 1902, however the concept also started to develop in the 1880s and onwards. It was considered an art movement that was the strongest from 1885 to 1915.The key characteristics of pictorialism was putting Vaseline on lens, scratching negatives, mixing chemicals in the dark room, and it was meant to look hand made to make it look like a natural painting. The key idea was to separate photography as an art form from photography used towards various scientific and documentary purposes.

The artists associated were Alfred Stieglitz, Peter Henry Emerson, Julia Margaret Cameron and ” the brotherhood of the linked ring”.

Romanticism was a big influence and “allegorical paintings”, this helped to develop the concept of pictorialism.

The methods/ processes involved were hand-made processes, this was all done to make the images look very similar to paintings and make them look natural with natural manipulation. r Consequently artists would stay focused on the choice of photo papers and chemical procedures capable of enhancing or reducing certain effects. For the same reason, some pictorialists were using special lenses to produce softer images, but the softening of focus during post-processing was certainly the most common practice.  For instance, pictorialists were very fond of using gum bichromate – it was an unusual strategy which involved multiple layers of chemicals and resulted in a painterly image resembling watercolour paintings. Another favourite procedure of pictorialists was an oil print, which was quite useful since it allowed photographers to be selective and manipulate the lighter areas of print while keeping the darker parts intact. Besides these marginalized approaches, pictorialists used to rely on more common yet artistic enough practices, such as cyanotype or platinum print.

REALISM/ STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period; 1915

Key characteristics / conventions; it was meant to show photography as a new modern art, the images were meant to be taken in sharp focus, with no manipulation with a clearly focused camera.  Straight photography is also synonymous with pure photography, since both terms describe the camera’s ability to faithfully reproduce an image of reality.

Straight photography emphasizes and engages with the camera’s own technical capability to produce images sharp in focus and rich in detail. The term generally refers to photographs that are not manipulated, either in the taking of the image or by darkroom or digital processes, but sharply depict the scene or subject as the camera sees it.

Artists associated; Paul Strand , Edward Western was his inspiration from the previous art movement. “The Steerage”- Alfred Stieglitz then switched to straight photography from pictorialism.

Key works; many artists took inspiration from Picasso, as his paintings were very abstract.

Methods/processes; framing the images.The term generally refers to photographs that are not manipulated, either in the taking of the image or by darkroom or digital processes, but sharply depict the scene or subject as the camera sees it.

Contrast between pictorialist’s and realist’s;

Pictorialists were photographs who typically made on orthomatic dry plates, with emulsion speed at what would be by today’s standards somewhere between ISO 5 and 10. Mood was far more important than sharpness. The lenses used were capable of reasonably sharp results when well stopped down, but often the photographers of the day did not enjoy the advantages of bright light and stable objects so that they were forced to use wider apertures, where lens performance was considerably degraded.

The Realists, in contrast, were dedicated to creating photographs that were as sharp as possible, typically using large format sheet film cameras and very small apertures to maximize depth of field and sharpness. Most, though not all, were landscapes, usually of the American West. The Realists believed photography to be a totally new art form, NOT a tool or technique for prior forms of art.

‘Fixing the shadows’, we started by watching a documentary ’ from BBC Genius of Photography, Episode 1. Which was about the history of photography. This allowed us to gain a richer insight into how cameras and photography developed over time , and all the different unique techniques that were used before professional cameras were developed. It showed us how when one artist developed a new idea about how to take photos, a few moths or years later a new artist worked from their work and developed even more techniques and processes from that. Every time a new process was developed it had a completely different meaning around photography and tried to present images in many different ways. I will talk about some of these early processes in this essay.

Camera Obscura-

Photography first started to develop and get attention in late 1820s , in France. However the earliest known written account of a camera obscura was provided in 400BC. It was light from an illuminated object that passed through a pinhole into a dark room created an inverted image of the original object. In the 18th centry, a concept/ process was disovered- the camera obscura. This is an optical device which is the ancestor of modern cameras. From the 17th century onwards some artists used it as an aid to plotting compositions. Essentially the camera obscura consisted of a lens attached to an aperture on the side of a darkened tent or box. It is a darkened room with a small hole or lens at one side through which an image is projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole. “Camera obscura” can also refer to analogous constructions such as a box or tent in which an exterior image is projected inside.

A visual representation of how it worked;

John Nicéphore Niepce

Nicéphore Niépce, in full Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce, (born March 7, 1765.France—died July 5, 1833, Chalon-sur-Saône), French inventor who was the first to make a permanent photographic image.

When lithography became a fashionable hobby in France in 1813, Niépce began to experiment with the then-novel printing technique. He sought a way to provide images automatically. He coated pewter with various light-sensitive substances in an effort to copy superimposed engravings in sunlight. From this he progressed in April 1816 to attempts at photography which he called heliography(sundrawing), with a camera. He recorded a view from his workroom window on paper sensitized with silver chloride but was only partially able to fix the image.

Louis Daguerre + Daguerreotype 

The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. 

Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate.

In contrast to photographic paper, a daguerreotype is not flexible and is rather heavy.The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile. Since the metal plate is extremely vulnerable, most daguerreotypes are presented in a special housing. Different types of housings existed: an open model, a folding case, jewelry…

Numerous portrait studio’s opened their doors from 1840 onward. Daguerreotypes were very expensive, so only the wealthy could afford to have their portrait taken. Even though the portrait was the most popular subject, the daguerreotype was used to record many other images such as topographic and documentary subjects, antiquities, still lives, natural phenomena and remarkable events.
European daguerreotypes are scarce. They are scattered in institutional and private collections all over the world. Many aspects of the daguerreotype still need to be discovered. They can help us to understand the impact of photography on Europe’s social and cultural history.

The process;

The daguerreotype is a direct-positive process, creating a highly detailed image on a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The process required great care. The silver-plated copper plate had first to be cleaned and polished until the surface looked like a mirror. Next, the plate was sensitized in a closed box over iodine until it took on a yellow-rose appearance. The plate, held in a lightproof holder, was then transferred to the camera. After exposure to light, the plate was developed over hot mercury until an image appeared. To fix the image, the plate was immersed in a solution of sodium thiosulfate or salt and then toned with gold chloride.

Exposure times for the earliest daguerreotypes ranged from three to fifteen minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture. Modifications to the sensitization process coupled with the improvement of photographic lenses soon reduced the exposure time to less than a minute.

HENRY FOX TALBOT and Calotype;

William Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries.

What did Henry Fox Talbot do?

In 1851 Talbot discovered a way of taking instantaneous photographs, and his “photolyphic engraving” (patented in 1852 and 1858), a method of using printable steel plates and muslin screens to achieve quality middle tones of photographs on printing plates.

He called his process “calotype”. The original negative and positive process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot, the calotype is sometimes called a “Talbotype.” This process uses a paper negative to make a print with a softer, less sharp image than the daguerreotype, but because a negative is produced, it is possible to make multiple copies. The image is contained in the fabric of the paper rather than on the surface, so the paper fibers tend to show through on the prints. The process was superceded in the 1850s by the collodion glass negative.

Richard Maddox and The Gelatin or Dry Plate photographic process;

Richard Leach Maddox was an English photographer and physician who invented lightweight gelatin negative plates for photography in 1871. This involved the coating of glass photographic plates with a light sensitive gelatin emulsion and allowing them to dry prior to use.

. He combined silver bromide with “vegetable gummy matters” (lichen, linseed, quince), and “starchy substances” (rice, tapioca, sago). “Often I fancied I was just within the doorway when the door closed, and other plans had to be tried. Finally he tried gelatin from a packet of Nelson’s Gelatine Granuals.

Maddox prepared a number of plates, exposing by contact-printing them from other negatives, and putting each through a different exposure trial. “The resulting prints were very delicate in detail, of a colour varying between a bistre and olive tint, and after washing dried to a brilliant surface”. He later described trials on “out-of-door subjects”, but it was “impossible to get some laurels depicted in anything more than black and white” (i.e. without gray-scale tones).

The advantages of the dry plate were obvious: photographers could use commercial dry plates off the shelf instead of having to prepare their own emulsions in a mobile darkroom. Negatives did not have to be developed immediately. Also, for the first time, cameras could be made small enough to be hand-held, or even concealed: further research created ‘fast’ exposure times, which led to ‘snapshot’ photography (and the ‘Kodak’ camera with roll film), ultimately paving the way for cinematography.

George Eastman + Kodak

In 1888, inventor George Eastman invented a game-changing kind of dry, transparent, flexible photographic film that came in a roll. The film was designed for use in Eastman’s newly designed, user-friendly Kodak cameras.

 His first camera, the Kodak, was sold in 1888 and consisted of a box camera with 100 exposures. Later he offered the first Brownie camera, which was intended for children. By 1927, Eastman Kodak was the largest U.S. company in the industry.

Who Was George Eastman?

In 1880, George Eastman opened the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company. His first camera, the Kodak, was sold in 1888 and consisted of a box camera with 100 exposures. Later he offered the first Brownie camera, which was intended for children. By 1927, Eastman Kodak was the largest U.S. company in the industry. Eastman committed suicide in 1932.

Early Life and Education 

Named after his father George Washington Eastman, George Eastman was born on July 12, 1854, in Waterville, New York. George Sr. had started a small business school, Eastman Commercial College, in Rochester, where he moved the family in 1860. But he died suddenly when Eastman was eight. One of young Eastman’s two older sisters was wheelchair-bound from polio and died when Eastman was 16.

Eastman’s mother, Mary, took in boarders to support the family, and Eastman dropped out of high school at age 14 to add to the family income. He began as a messenger and office boy for insurance companies and studied accounting at home to qualify for a higher salary. He eventually landed a job as bookkeeper at the Rochester Savings Bank.

Inventions

When Eastman was 24, he planned to visit Santo Domingo and, on the advice of a colleague, decided to document the trip. But the photography equipment alone was enormous, heavy and costly. He bought all the equipment, but he never took the trip.

Instead he began researching how to make photography less cumbersome and easier for the average person to enjoy. After seeing a formula for a “dry plate” emulsion in a British publication, and getting tutelage from two local amateur photographers, Eastman formulated a gelatin-based paper film and a device for coating dry plates.

Kodak Photography

He resigned from his bank job after launching his fledgling photography company in April 1880. In 1885, he headed to the patent office with a roll-holder device that he and camera inventor William Hall Walker had developed. This allowed cameras to be smaller and cheaper.

Eastman also came up with the name Kodak, because he believed products should have their own identity, free from association with anything else. So in 1888, he launched the first Kodak camera (a few years later, he amended the company name to Eastman Kodak).

The company slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest,” which meant the camera was sent in to the company after the 100 exposures on the roll of film had been used; they developed it and sent it back to the customer. 

The Brownie Camera

The Brownie camera was launched in 1900 to target new hobbyist photographers — children — and with its $1 price tag, it also became a favourite of servicemen. Eastman supported the military in other ways as well, developing unbreakable glass lenses for gas masks and a special camera for taking pictures from planes during World War I.

The Original Kodak was fitted with a rotating barrel shutter unique to this model. The shutter was set by pulling up a string on top of the camera and operated by pushing a button on the side of the camera. After taking a photograph, a key on top of the camera was used to wind the film onto the next frame.

An example of autochrome from the archive;

What you want to explore?

In my personal study I am going to be exploring the theme of Identity. Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and expressions that make a person. In my study I will be looking into my childhood and objects and drawings from my childhood which I will incorporate into creating a book. I have chose to explore this as it is personal to me and so therefore I feel I can fully capture all the emotions and meaningful imagery that I need to represent my childhood and how that has shaped me into the person I am today. I feel that I will be able to create a more meaningful project as it will be relative and personal to my life and my experiences.

How you wish to develop your project?

To develop my project I will go through all my baby images and diaries to find images that have meaning to me and best represent my identity, I also will be taking and using drawings and writings I did as a kid to help guide the meanings of the images.

When and where you intend to begin your study?

To begin my study I will create a mind map and then develop the into a more detailed and specific mood-board including ideas based on childhood and collect a number of artists that I can look into. When researching artists I found myself most interested in Jim Goldbergs project “Raising wolves” which combines images, texts, drawings and diary notations from runaway teens in Los Angeles. Although in my personal study I will be focusing on my own life I still felt like I could take inspiration from his project as I want to use other parts of my childhood other than just images to capture a more telling story, and then use a disposable to create images similar to Goldbergs style of me now. I will present my final outcomes in a photobook.

For my first shoot I plan on just experimenting with my ideas and different ways I can capture me now and my old memories. This shoot may not be used in my final outcomes however I feel it will be useful to put my ideas into practice to ensure I will be able to capture my idea the way I want to. This shoot can help me plan my final outcome better and give me more of an idea what I hope it to look like.