To embed your understanding of the origins of photography and its beginnings you’ll need to produce a blog post which outlines the major developments and practices. Some will have been covered in the documentary above but you also need to research and discover further information.

Your blog post must contain information about the following and keep it in its chronological order:

• Camera Obscura & Pinhole photography
• Nicephore Niepce & Heliography
• Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype
• Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype
• Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture
• Julia Margeret Cameron & Pictorialism
• Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit

Each must contain dates, text and images relevant to each bullet point above. In total aim for about 1,000-2000 words.

Try and reference some of the sources that you have used either by incorporating direct quotes, paraphrasing or summarising of an idea, theory or concept, or historical fact.

Camera Obscura & Pinhole photography

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture (the so-called pinhole)—effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box, which is known as the camera obscura effect. The size of the images depends on the distance between the object and the pinhole.

The first mention of a camera obscura, from the Latin for ‘darkened room,’ was made in 1604 by German astronomer Johannes Kepler, not long after lenses had been invented for use in microscopes and telescopes in the Netherlands.

Nicephore Niepce & Heliography

Heliography is a photographic process that was invented by Nicéphore Niepce. In some cases – it is still used today (mainly for photo engraving). It was the process of Heliography that created the first and earliest known permanent photograph, taken from a nature scene.

Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype

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

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.

Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype

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. Because of Talbot’s patent rights, relatively few calotypes were made in the United States.

Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture

‘The first selfie‘ – Cornelius was 30 years old when he used the daguerreotype process, just after it was introduced, to capture the world’s first self portrait image in 1839. He stood solitary in his family’s yard in Philadelphia, late October, with his own makeshift camera. Its lens was fashioned from an opera glass. Making sure the daylight was perfect to expose his pre-prepared metal plate in the camera, he took the image. The exposure time was around 10-15 minutes, causing him to stand still for the whole exposure. Rachel Wetzel of the Library’s Conservation Division stated “Taking a portrait is astounding in 1839,”. This was the start of something new at the time, influencing the future generations and its photography.

Julia Margeret Cameron & Pictorialism

Julia Margaret Cameron (née Pattle; 11 June 1815 – 26 January 1879) was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and women, for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature, and for sensitive portraits of men, women and children.

Pictorialism, an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.

The Pictorialist perspective was born in the late 1860s and held sway through the first decade of the 20th century. It approached the camera as a tool that, like the paintbrush and chisel, could be used to make an artistic statement. Thus photographs could have aesthetic value and be linked to the world of art expression.

Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit

Moving to Jersey in 1848, Henry Mullins set up a studio known as the Royal Saloon at 7 Royal Square after previously working in London. Mullins became most famous for his cartes de visite and the photographic archive of La Société, that contains a large collection of 9600 images, the online archive holds photos mainly in sets of 16 photographs taken at a single sitting. As photographs were expensive at the time, Henry mainly photographed Jersey’s affluent and influential people. These include Dean Le Breton (he was ordained Deacon in 1839 and priest in 1840).

Mullins was in demand with officers of the Royal Militia Island of Jersey. It was very popular for them to have their portraits taken, including their families of the more important officers. Long hair, whiskers and beards were shown to be in fashion in the mid-1800s from Mullins’ photos. Due to this and the styling of the portraits, it is difficult to tell the difference between some of the officers in the portraits.

Henry Mullins / Michelle Sank on the social matrix, a juxtaposition is created by the editors between the historical photographs of Henry Mullins that date to the 1860’s, with the recent portraits by Michelle Sank. At first look of this book it appears to highlight the differences of the passing of 160 years in photography; warm toned black and white photographs created by wet collodion on glass with that of contemporary colour. The stilted poses required for the longer colloidal exposures versus the fluidity of the current instant moment.

bibliography= linked with words at start of paragraphs

Camera Obscura

A camera obscura 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.

Photography did not spring forth from nowhere: in the expanding capitalist culture of the late 18th and 19th centuries, some people were on the look-out for cheap mechanical means for producing images […] photography emerged experimentally from the conjuncture of three factors: i) concerns with amateur drawing and/or techniques for reproducing printed matter, ii) light-sensitive materials; iii) the use of the camera obscura
Steve Edwards, Photography – A Short Introduction

Ibn al-Haytham(965–1039), an Arab physicist also known as Alhazen, described the camera obscura effect. Over the centuries others started to experiment with it, mainly in dark rooms with a small opening in shutters, mostly to study the nature of light and to safely watch solar eclipses. 

Pinhole Photography

Pinhole photography uses the most basic concepts of a camera. A lightproof box, an aperture, and light-sensitive material. Light is passed through the pinhole to project an inverted image onto the paper or film on the opposite end of the camera. The earliest recorded mention of a pinhole camera was as early as the fifth century BC, by the Mohist philosopher Mozi. 2 In 1021, the Arabian scientist Ibn al-Haytham wrote about pinhole effects in the Book of Optics. He discovered that by using a smaller pinhole the image appears much sharper, but is also dimmer.

Nicephore Niepce & Heliography

Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world’s oldest surviving product of a photographic process: a print made from a photoengraved printing plate in 1825. In 1826 or 1827, he used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. View from the Window at Le Gras is a heliographic image and the oldest surviving camera photograph. It was created by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France, and shows parts of the buildings and surrounding countryside of his estate, Le Gras, as seen from a high window.

Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype

Louis Daguerre called his invention “daguerreotype.” His method, which he disclosed to the public late in the summer of 1839, consisted of treating silver-plated copper sheets with iodine to make them sensitive to light, then exposing them in a camera and “developing” the images with warm mercury vapor.

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.

Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype

The daguerreotype was the first mode of photography ever invented, while the calotype was the first negative to positive photographic technology, providing the basis for photographic technologies still in use today. Fox Talbot went on to develop the three primary elements of photography: developing, fixing, and printing. Although simply exposing photographic paper to the light produced an image, it required extremely long exposure times. By accident, he discovered that there was an image after a very short exposure. Although he could not see it, he found he could chemically develop it into a useful negative. The image on this negative was then fixed with a chemical solution. This removed the light-sensitive silver and enabled the picture to be viewed in bright light. With the negative image, Fox Talbot realised he could repeat the process of printing from the negative. Consequently, his process could make any number of positive prints, unlike the Daguerreotypes. He called this the ‘calotype’ and patented the process in 1841.

Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture

Robert Cornelius was an American photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He designed the photographic plate for the first photograph taken in the United States, an image of Central High School taken by Joseph Saxton in 1839. Robert Cornelius March 1, 1809 – August 10, 1893 was an American photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He designed the photographic plate for the first photograph taken in the United States, an image of central High School taken by Joseph Saxton in 1839. His self image taken in 1839 is the first known photographic portrait of a person taken in the United States. He operated two of the earliest photography studios in the United States between 1841 and 1843 and implemented innovative techniques to significantly reduce the exposure time exposure time required for portraits.

Unlike a selfie, a self portrait has both of the arms of the person down. Many would use a timer or a clicker to capture the photo. In a self portrait, the person is capturing a photo of themselves by themselves. It is more of a photo that would be seen on a passport or driver licence.

Julia Margeret Cameron & Pictorialism

She is known for her soft focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature. Cameron and her pictoriality contemporaries pursued painterly compositions, subjects, and qualities, hoping to elevate photography to a high art. A representation of a person or thing in a work of art. From her ‘first success’ she moved on quickly to photographing family and friends. These early portraits reveal how she experimented with soft focus, dramatic lighting and close-up compositions, features that would become her signature style.

Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit

Henry Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. Initially he was in partnership with a Mr Millward, about whom very little is known. By the following year he was working alone and he continued to work out of the same studio for another 26 years.

For a brief period in the 1860s he also worked in London, but judging by the collection of his photographs which is now held by La Société Jersians’, he found plenty of willing sitters in the island prepared to pay half a guinea (promoted as “one half of that in London”) to have their portrait taken by him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/julia-margaret-camerons-working-methods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fox_Talbot

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/heliography-a-double-invention-that-revolutionized-the-world-of-images-mus%C3%A9e-nic%C3%A9phore-ni%C3%A9pce/RgUhqRl7dnB3KQ?hl=en

Camera Obscura & Pinhole photography

Camera Obscura was a very smart and useful technique used especially for artists, and was a method used since early 500BC to create complex real life structures mainly at the time but anything else they could do with the technique. This was a way in which they would place themselves in a completely pitch black room, and cut a small or even large (possibly) hole in a wall in which the building or what ever they wanted to capture would be facing, and after a while depending on the light intensity, it would reflect the image onto the wall from the light rays upside down, as if it was a natural projector.

although the method was not commonly used during this era, not until the 19th century where it would start to fully start to transform into photography. This leads onto the pinhole photography used near 1856, talked about in a book, this affectively used the same method of camera obscura, but almost built into a camera.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura AND https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera)

Nicephore Niepce & Heliography

Nicephore was a key person in the invention of photography, where he would later use similar methods of camera obscura to create a working machine which could create images. His idea was to use camera obscura and light to create a printed image onto a sheet of paper. This look him a long time and even for him to quite but to come back a year later. The first accomplishment he had made was in 1822, where he had successfully printed an image of Pope Pius VII on glass. However the first proper image ever taken of a landscape was in 1824 which required a very long exposure time. Using polished silver as a base and letting iodine vapours react with the bitumen image, he obtained genuine photographs in black and white on a metal plate. The preciseness of these images was amazing for the time although it was taken over days.

Heliography was the similar process which he had used by dissolving light sensitivity on glass or metal which would create a rough image, and was tested by Nicephore a lot.

(https://artsandculture.google.com/)

Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype

Louis was a French photographer recognized for his invention of the “eponymous daguerreotype process” of photography. His method was linked closely and carried of through different methods from Nicephors methods where he would exposed a thin silver-plated copper sheet to the vapour given off by iodine crystals producing a coating of light-sensitive silver iodine on the surface. which would initially after a long exposure time create a distinct image, but Louis discovered that with more chemical reactions on-top of that distinct image it could be formed into a full clear one. This daguerreotype process was mainly used for portraits during the 1840’s, and very rarely landscapes, almost no landscapes. This was because they had to have very long exposure times reaching up to 10mins with lightly lit areas in order to create a full image. Millions of these daguerreotypes where produced over the years.

With the invention of the daguerreotype became the first image made.

Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype

Henry fox was an English scientist, inventor, and photographic pioneer who had created the salt paper and Calotype. Talbot was very famously known for his creation of light-fast permanent photographs, which was available to the public, although not being the first person to do this his Calotype was different to the daguerreotype because it was the first invention of negative-to-positive process, introduced in 1841. Not only that but it wasn’t on glass or any type of metal in this case it was used on paper which was soaked in chemicals.

his images where much nicer to look and and gave almost a reverse image of something, giving it a different feel and a softer look.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fox_Talbot AND https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calotype)

Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture

It was during the 18th century where the invention and ideas of photography spiked, and the advanced ability to capture a moment or even use methods to create photography. For example the first person to ever create a self-portrait was Robert Cornelius in 1839:

He worked in photography studios, creating lamps, and even worked to reduce the exposure time of an image, but also created the plates for the images to be placed on. Robert Cornelius was invested in the daguerreotype and aimed for it to advance and become greater.

Cornelius was only noted to be some what famous until 1876 when he was interviewed for the history of photography to be noted down correctly, and Cornelius had claimed to be taking portraits during 1839 but had no evidence to back up the claim until the famous first portrait was discovered and was dated to be 1839. Cornelius was a very important figure for the advancements of portraits because of his ideas of using reflectors and different coloured stained glass to allow stronger light to his the daguerreotype, which meant people only had to stay still for a maximum of 1 minute to create a full image.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cornelius AND https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/07/robert-cornelius-and-the-first-selfie/)

Julia Margaret Cameron & Pictorialism

Julia was a British photographer, who was considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. she had been introduced to photography late into her life, with her being 48 years old, and was given a camera by her own daughter. With this she captured portraits of the Victorians, showing the innocents, beauty and genius of men and women. She was important to photography because of her ability to create a scene in her images. for example she would find people walking around and talk to them into consenting into a photo shoot. She would present these people into historical or literal, or even biblical scenes in her images. These images created a sensitive, and moving feel.

This is Sir John Herschel, who was a renowned scientist, and mathematician, but to Julia was a teacher and a high priest. She asked him to wash his hair and to making it messier, and covered him in black clothing to create an affect of him appearing out of the darkness. He stared straight into the camera and it created an image of innocents and personality.

Julia’s ability to perform different tones and angles of lighting created perfect settings for images and to capture a scene that Julia wanted to portray.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Margaret_Cameron)

Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit

Henry Mullins was a professional photographer who was patronised by Queen Victoria, and he had set up a business in 1848 for photography at 7 royal square. He was a well known and as you would guess a wealthy photographer, who would take pictures for many influential people in jersey, where they would have up to 16 photographs taken in one sitting, which during this period was a lot of money and time. He was so famous and well known he had grown close to the royal family taking images of Queen Victoria, taking many images of/for her and the royal family.

Mullins made a good name for himself and for his business especially for his cheap and public photographs which he had advertised to the public, growing his business, and him creating up to 9600 images, and possibly even more.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mullins#:~:text=Gustav%20William%20Henry%20Mullins%20(1854,photographer%2C%20patronised%20by%20Queen%20Victoria AND https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Henry_Mullins)

What is Butterfly Lighting?

It is a type of lighting pattern for studio portraiture. It is used for taking portrait photos.

What does it do?

It forms a butterfly-shaped shadow under A persons nose, It is used for portraits as it highlights their main features such as the nose and cheekbones. It also creates a shadow under their nose and chin.

You can also identify when butterfly lighting is used in a portrait since you’ll be able to see the main light’s reflection on the top part of the iris in the Persons eyes.

Butterfly lighting flatters the face. Therefore, it is commonly used in glamour, fashion, and high-end portrait photography.

Lighting set up

A rim light is placed behind a subject that exposes the outline or rim of the subject with light. This lighting highlights the contours of a subject and creates a dramatic and mysterious effect. Rim lights can be used in a variety of ways. It can be created by pointing a bright light source towards the camera and placing someone/ a subject in front of the light, creating a silhouette like image.

My Photos:

I edited these photos in both a modern and more vintage way, exploring different editing techniques that emphasised the butterfly and Rembrandt lighting.

Camera Obscura & Pinhole photography

Camera obscura Has been used for many years. Suggested by anthropologists, the idea occurred in the Palaeolithic era and was used by hominins. It is thought that they used “keyholes” carved into caves to project images and create cave paintings. The technique of tracing from a camera obscura is shown through these paintings from the time. It was also used to study eclipses without the risk of damaging the eyes by looking directly into the sun. The camera obscura is known as the earliest form of art technology, professionally known as archaeo-optics. Around 300 BCE, the Greek mathematician Euclid proposed a theory called “geometry of vision” which is thought to clarify the technology and mechanics behind light perception. His writings were not directly linked to the camera obscura, but his writings did explain how and why vision works.

The diagram below shows how light projects at different angles, similarly to al-Haytham’s. 

The basic idea of a camera obscura is to project a reversed image onto the wall by blacking out a room from light and creating a small hole lens in the wall. The name ‘Camera Obscura’ translates from Latin as ‘dark chamber/room’. The camera obscura uses two ways of manipulating light: refraction and projection. A glass lens can also be used to refract and manipulate the light to project the image onto a surface, as well as projecting the outside world using a pinole and letting the light in. In both cases the image will be projected upside down because light travels in a straight line. 

Nicéphore Niépce & Heliography

Nicéphore Niépce is supposedly the first person to create a permanent photographic image. He was a French inventor, born 1765 and died in 1833. Later inventing an international combustion engine in 1807 with his brother, and beginning to experiment with lithography. After being unsuccessful in obtaining proper lithographic stone locally, he found a way to provide images automatically. Niépce coated pewter with a variety of light-sensitive substances in an attempt to duplicate superimposed engravings in sunlight. In April 1916, he progressed this idea into photography, which at the time he named heliography (sun drawing) with a camera. He created his first successful photograph on paper sensitised by silver chloride, capturing a partially fixed image of a view from his workroom. In his next attempt he used multiple supports for the light-sensitive material. He used a type of asphalt, Bitumen of Judea, which hardens in exposure to light. Finally, in 1826/ 1827 he used a camera to create the first permanently fixed image. Not only did Niépce resolve the issue of reproducing nature by light, but he invented the very first photomechanical reproduction process. In 1829, he finally conceded to Daguerre’s repeated overtures to perfect heliography because the exposure time was drastically shorter.

Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre invented the daguerreotype process in France. The daguerreotype is a direct-positive process (no negative is made) that creates detailed images on a sheet of copper plated with a thin coat of silver without the use of a negative. The process needed a lot of care due to the detailed and thorough preparation. The silver-plated copper plate needed cleaning and polishing to make the surface look like a mirror. The next step was to sensitize the plate in a closed box of iodine till it resembled a yellow-rose appearance. Then, whilst held in a light proof holder, the plate was transferred to the camera. It was then exposed to light, and the plate would be developed over hot mercury to create an image. Fixing the image meant immersing it in a solution of sodium thiosulfate or salt and toning it with gold chloride. Unlike Niépce’s exposure times of around 8 hours, the Daguerre’s exposure varied from three to fifteen minutes. Daguerreotypes could be copied and produced by lithography or engraving but don’t produce a negative. 

The cameras used for daguerreotypes were made by either the photographer themselves, opticians or instrument makers. A sliding-box design was the most popular, where the lens was placed in the front box and a second smaller box would slide into the back of the bigger box. You could control the focus by sliding the rear box front and back as a reversed image was projected. This reversed image could be corrected by inserting a mirror or prism into the camera. After the sensitized plate had been put in the camera, you would remove the lens cap to begin the exposure.

Daguerreotype Plate Sizes:

Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype

William Henry Fox Talbot, an English chemist, linguist, archaeologist, and pioneer photographer, was born in 1800 and died in 1877. He is well known for his development of the calotype, This was an early photographic process – an advancement of the daguerreotype. The calotype can also be called a talbotype. This process involved coating a sheet of paper with silver chloride and exposing it to light in a camera obscura. The parts that were hit by light turned dark in tone, producing what Talbot called a “negative” image. This was new and different to the daguerreotype, which could only produce positives. Talbot’s revolutionary part of the process was due to his discovery of the chemical gallic acid that was perfect for developing the image on paper. This acid speeds up the reaction of silver chloride and the exposed light. The exposure times overtook Daguerre’s technique, and shortened it to around one minute. He would then fix the photo on the paper with sodium hyposulfite. Being able to create an unlimited number of negatives (by simple contact printing upon another piece of sensitized paper) meant this technique was the quickest and best technique for taking photos. 

Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture

‘The first selfie‘ – Cornelius was 30 years old when he used the daguerreotype process, just after it was introduced, to capture the world’s first self portrait image in 1839. He stood solitary in his family’s yard in Philadelphia, late October, with his own makeshift camera. Its lens was fashioned from an opera glass. Making sure the daylight was perfect to expose his pre-prepared metal plate in the camera, he took the image. The exposure time was around 10-15 minutes, causing him to stand still for the whole exposure. Rachel Wetzel of the Library’s Conservation Division stated “Taking a portrait is astounding in 1839,”. This was the start of something new at the time, influencing the future generations and its photography. This Library obtained his self portrait in 1996. Over time they collected a variety of Cornelius’ work, including his great-great-grand-daughter’s donation of an important collection of his photographic materials and ephemera. 

“The collection gives a much broader picture of Robert Cornelius at the Library, beyond the photographs we currently hold,” – Micah Messenheimer of the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division.

Julia Margaret Cameron & Pictorialism

Margaret’s work began at the age of 48, as a mother of six children, when she received a camera as a gift from her daughter. This caused her to pursue her dream of photography and make it a lifestyle. Before receiving her first camera, Cameron had compiled albums and had experimented with printing images from negatives. At the start of the photography journey the process involved a lot of physical work using possible hazardous materials. She used a wooden camera that was large and inconvenient and placed it on a tripod. Using the common process of producing albumen prints from wet collodion glass negatives, she needed a glass plate (around 12 x 10 inch) to be coated with photosensitive chemicals in a darkroom and exposed in the camera when still damp. She would then return the glass plate to the darkroom to be developed, washed and varnished. Through this process she could duplicate prints by placing the negative directly into sensitised photographic paper and exposing it to sunlight. 

After experimenting with her new camera, she created her “first success” which was a portrait of a little girl, Annie Philpot. Her early portraits show how she experimented with a soft focus and dramatic lighting. These features later became her signature style. A soft focus lens deliberately introduces spherical aberration in order to give the appearance of blurring the image while retaining sharp edges. It is created from lens flaws, where the lens forms images that are blurred due to spherical aberration. 

“I was in a transport of delight. I ran all over the house to search for gifts for the child. I felt as if she entirely had made the picture.”

Cameron took a unique approach to her photographs as she included her imperfect images, such as ones with fingerprints, streaks and swirls in. This differed from other photographers that would reject images with technical flaws. She even manipulated her negatives by scratching into them. This photo of Julia Jackson shows her manipulation in the background where she scratched a picture into the background.

Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit

Moving to Jersey in 1848, Henry Mullins set up a studio known as the Royal Saloon at 7 Royal Square after previously working in London. He is well known for his cartes de visite and the photographic archive of La Société contains a large collection of these. Containing 9600 images, the online archive holds photos mainly in sets of 16 photographs taken at a single sitting. As photographs were expensive at the time, Henry mainly photographed Jersey’s affluent and influential people. These include Dean Le Breton (he was ordained Deacon in 1839 and priest in 1840).

Mullins was in demand with officers of the Royal Militia Island of Jersey. It was very popular for them to have their portraits taken, including their families of the more important officers. Long hair, whiskers and beards were shown to be in fashion in the mid-1800s from Mullins’ photos. Due to this and the styling for the portraits, it is difficult to tell the difference between some of the officers in the portraits.

BIBLIOGRAPHY REFERENCING WESITES:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicephore-Niepce

https://www.britannica.com/technology/camera-obscura-photography

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm

https://www.britannica.com/technology/calotype

https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/07/robert-cornelius-and-the-first-selfie/

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/julia-margaret-camerons-working-methods

https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Henry_Mullins

Where it all started…

Camera obscura & pinhole photography

“Maybe the only thing each of us can see is our own shadow. Carl Jung called this his shadow work. He said we never see others.

A camera Obsucra 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. Camera obscuras with a lens in the opening have been used since the second half of the 16th century and became popular as aids for drawing and painting. The concept was developed further into the photographic camera in the first half of the 19th century, when camera obscura boxes were used to expose light-sensitive materials to the projected image.

Rays of light travel in straight lines and change when they are reflected and partly absorbed by an object, retaining information about the color and brightness of the surface of that object.

Lighted objects reflect rays of light in all directions. A small enough opening in a barrier admits only the rays that travel directly from different points in the scene on the other side, and these rays form an image of that scene where they reach a surface opposite from the opening. The human eye (and those of animals such as birds, fish, reptiles etc.) works much like a camera obscura with an opening (pupil), a convex lens, and a surface where the image is formed (retina). Some cameras obscura use a concave mirror for a focusing effect similar to a convex lens.

Pinhole photography

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture —effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box, which is known as the camera obscura effect. It is similar to camera Obsucra in the way that the camera is re-enacting the concept that an image is produced by light coming through a small hole projecting the image onto a dark area. same concept different perspectives.

Nicephore Niepce and Heliography

Joseph Nicephore Niepce was a French photographer (1765- 1833). He was one of the most important figures in the invention of photography, in 1807, together with his brother, Claude, he invented the world’s first internal combustion engine, which they called the pyreolophore.

Letters to his sister-in-law around 1816 indicate that Niépce had managed to capture small camera images on paper coated with silver chloride, making him apparently the first to have any success at all in such an attempt, but the results were negatives, dark where they should be light and vice versa, and he could find no way to stop them from darkening all over when brought into the light for viewing.

Niépce’s correspondence with his brother Claude has preserved the fact that his first real success in using bitumen to create a permanent photograph of the image in a camera obscura came in 1824. That photograph, made on the surface of a lithographic stone, was later effaced. In 1826 or 1827 he again photographed the same scene, the view from a window in his house, on a sheet of bitumen-coated pewter. The result has survived and is now the oldest known camera photograph still in existence. The historic image had seemingly been lost early in the 20th century, but photography historians Helmut and Alison Gernsheim succeeded in tracking it down in 1952. The exposure time required to make it is usually said to have been eight or nine hours, but that is a mid-20th century assumption based largely on the fact that the sun lights the buildings on opposite sides, as if from an arc across the sky, indicating an essentially day-long exposure. A later researcher who used Niépce’s notes and historically correct materials to recreate his processes found that in fact several days of exposure in the camera were needed to adequately capture such an image on a bitumen-coated plate.

Heliography is this process Joseph had made, it is still used today mainlt for photo engraving.

Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype

Key facts:

• French artist and photographer
• invention of the daguerreotype process of photography
• worked closely with Joseph Niepce
• an accomplished painter
• developer of the diorama theatre.

What is the process daguerreotype?

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.

The earliest cameras used in the daguerreotype process were made by opticians and instrument makers, or sometimes even by the photographers themselves. The most popular cameras utilized a sliding-box design. The lens was placed in the front box. A second, slightly smaller box, slid into the back of the larger box. The focus was controlled by sliding the rear box forward or backwards. A laterally reversed image would be obtained unless the camera was fitted with a mirror or prism to correct this effect. When the sensitized plate was placed in the camera, the lens cap would be removed to start the exposure.

Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype

Henry fox developed three primary elements of photography:

• developing
• fixing
• printing

He learnt that creating an image would require extremely long exposure times. he continued to accidently discover that there was an image after a shirt exposure time, although, it wasn’t visible he learned that chemically develop it into a useful negative.

With the negative image, Fox Talbot realised he could repeat the process of printing from the negative. Consequently, his process could make any number of positive prints, unlike the Daguerreotypes. He called this the ‘calotype’ and patented the process in 1841.

This mysterious view through the diamond-paned oriel window of Talbot’s home is one of the earliest photographs in existence—a remarkable relic of the inventor’s earliest attempts to make pictures solely through the action of light and chemicals. He brushed a piece of writing paper with salt and silver nitrate and placed it in a small wooden camera stationed on a mantel opposite the window for an exposure that may have lasted hours. The image is tonally reversed—a negative, though the term did not yet exist—as the paper darkened most where it recorded the bright light of the windows.

Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture

“Taking a self-portrait is a whole next level up from that. That portrait is incredibly significant.” 

In February 2014 a daguerreotype self-portrait taken by the American photography pioneer Robert Cornelius of Philadelphia was considered the first American photographic portrait of a human ever produced, and since this was a self-portrait, it was also possibly the first “selfie .” This was a major change in photography, later on enabling how advanced our photography is now.

Julia Margeret Cameron & Pictorialism

Julia had a different take on portraits and is known for her soft focus close ups of famous Victorian men. Working around mythology, Christianity, and literature.

Cameron included imperfections in her photographs – streaks, swirls and even fingerprints – that other photographers would have rejected as technical flaws. Although criticised at the time, these imperfections can now be appreciated as ahead of their time. In her work Iolande and Floss, for example, swirls of collodion used during the photographic process merge with the swirls of drapery, enhancing the dreamy, ethereal quality of the image.

We don’t know if Cameron herself embraced these ‘flaws’ or if she simply tolerated them. We do know, however, that she sometimes scratched into her negatives to make corrections; printed from broken or damaged negatives and occasionally used multiple negatives to form a single picture, which tells us that she didn’t mind a certain level of visible imperfection, at the very least.

One of her most extreme examples of manipulating a negative can be seen in a portrait of Julia Jackson. Cameron scratched a picture into the background of this pious portrait of her niece, to create a hybrid photograph-drawing. The drawing of a draped figure in an architectural setting evokes religious art.

Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit

Henry Mullins made over 9000 carte de visite portraits of Jersey’s ruling elite and wealthy upper classes.

Henry Mullins – Michelle Sank – on the social matrix

Henry Mullins / Michelle Sank on the social matrix, a juxtaposition is created by the editors between the historical photographs of Henry Mullins that date to the 1860’s, with the recent portraits by Michelle Sank. At first blush this book appears to highlight the differences of the passing of 160 years in photography; warm toned black and white photographs created by wet collodion on glass with that of contemporary color. The stilted poses required for the longer colloidal exposures versus the fluidity of the current instant moment.