Fixing the shadows

Photography transforms what we describe and turns it into a still image with a story behind it. Photographs leave so many questions (who, what, why) this causes the onlookers of an image questioning themselves about the image they can see. Photography is so unique that it can reveal secrets yet hide so much at the same time, there is always a story to be told of what’s beyond the frame and the Strangers beyond the picture. Control of transformation. The exciting thing about photography is that there is always a different story behind every image, and there is always more to be told then what the eye can see.

Camera Obscura

A camera obscura is almost natural photography, and is twice as natural as normal modern day photography which was first invented in 1839. It is where a room is made completely dark by a black plastic and taped up to cover any means of natural lighting and then holes are cut into it to create that light source, over time that hole will continue letting in light and eventually create an upside down image of what’s going on outside and create that in the dark room. its an optical phenomenon.

Camera Obscuras are very easy to do but also very technical at the same time as they capture deep, primitive meanings. Camera Obscuras were discovered as far back as 400bc, It is known that they were not man made but in fact were natural and only discovered by humans. Since discovering camera obscuras they are known to have been used for over a thousand years. The oldest camera Obscura is located in the Dumfries museum.

Here is an image to show the evolution of the camera:

Examples of camera obscuras:

Nicephore Niepce

Joseph Nicéphore Niepce was a French inventor and one of the earliest pioneers of photography. Niepce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world’s oldest surviving products of a photographic process.

In 1807 Niépce and his brother Claude invented an internal-combustion engine, which they called the Pyréolophore, explaining that the word was derived from a combination of the Greek words for “fire,” “wind,” and “I produce.” Working on a piston-and-cylinder system similar to 20th-century gasoline-powered engines, the Pyréolophore initially used lycopodium powder for fuel, and Niepce claimed to have used it to power a boat.Niepce lacked in artistic ability so used Camera Obscura as a drawing aid, in which he later used to create the process ‘heliography’. He created this process in 1822 and used it to capture the World’s very first permanent photograph. This photograph was of Pope Pius VII, however, it was later destroyed after Niepce attempted to make prints from it. In 1816, Niepce would send letters to his sister-in-law containing small images on paper coated with silver chloride, however, they were negatives and when they were exposed to light for viewing they would go dark all over. Niepce then explored other substances that were affected by light and became intrigued by how bitumen coating would become less soluble after being left exposed to light. This went on to his creation of the heliograph where he would dissolve bitumen in lavender oil and use it to coat either a lithographic stone, a sheet of metal or a sheet of glass and leave it to dry. 

Nicephore Niepce First official camera obscura

Here is his first ever camera Obscura which he had created back in 1820

Louis Daguerre

Daguerreotype

Henry Fox Talbot

Richard Maddox

George Eastman

Kodak (brownie)

Film/Print photography

Digital Print