Camera Obscura

The camera obscura is a device that is sort of an early version of a camera. It works on the principle of letting light through a small hole, therefore projecting everything upside-down outside on a surface inside a dark room. People figured out this trick as far back as ancient times, first mentions coming from the Chinese and Greek. It wasn’t until the Renaissance, however, that it really hit its stride with the help of artists and scientists who used the device to study the way light and perspective function. For many centuries, it was an essential tool for artists and scientists alike, and eventually some of its concepts would be used to create photography as it stands today.

Nicephore Niepce

Nicéphore Niépce is generally considered an early pioneer in photography who invented the first photography procedure that worked. He captured what has come to be considered the world’s first permanent photo, View from the Window at Le Gras, using a photography method called heliography. Until recent times, however, Niépce was not widely credited as the first photographer. His work was then overtaken by Louis Daguerre, who perfected the process and made it famous with the daguerreotype. For this reason, Daguerre was considered the major developer of photography, while the role of Niépce was brought out fully only much later.

Henry Fox Talbot

Henry Fox Talbot perfected the early photographic process known as Photogenic Drawing, where he placed an object directly onto light-sensitive paper and exposing to sunlight created a silhouette or “drawing” of that subject. This was an important step in photography’s development since now multiple prints could be realized. Talbot also used small wooden cameras small enough to hold in one’s hand-whom he referred to as “mousetraps.”. These cameras incorporated a lens that focused the light onto the light sensitive paper inside to create a negative image. He could put the negative on another sheet of paper and make positive copies, a technique which would set the stage for modern photography.

Daguerreotype

Daguerreotype was a process invented in 1839 by Louis Daguerre. In this process, pre treated polished silver coated copper plate was exposed to iodine vapours to make it photosensitive and then to light followed by development in mercury fumes. This would give highly detailed but unique images on a reflective surface. This yielded an extremely sharp image but with a great limitation. Each photograph was unique and unrepeatable, the process being cumbersome and hazardous since it incorporated mercury. Henry Fox Talbot’s system incorporated negatives in combination with Photogenic Drawing to allow for multiple copies of an image, Talbot’s method was thereby more practical and adaptable for wide use.

Richard Maddox

Richard Maddox was an English photographer who invented the dry plate process in 1871. Before his invention, photographers used wet plates that had to be prepared and exposed while still wet, which was cumbersome and time-consuming. Maddox’s dry plates were coated with a gelatin emulsion that could be stored for longer periods and didn’t require immediate development. This innovation made photography much more practical, as it allowed photographers to prepare their plates in advance and develop them later, greatly increasing flexibility and convenience. Maddox’s dry plate process was a major leap forward for photography, paving the way for the development of modern photographic films and making photography more accessible and efficient for both professionals and amateurs.

George Eastman

George Eastman changed photography by making the photo camera accessible to all. Before his improvements, photography was rather complicated and required very expensive equipment. Eastman managed to change that with his invention of the Kodak camera in the year 1888. Such a camera was easy to use; it was preloaded with films and allowed people to take their photos and then send the entire camera to Kodak for developing and printing. This slogan coined the “You press the button, we do the rest” approach, making photography easy and within the economic reach of the general masses. In this process, he established a company known as Eastman Kodak Company, which soon emerged as a multinational photographer company and played a very important role in popularizing photography as one of the characteristics of everyday life.

Kodak (Brownie)

The Kodak Brownie was a popular series of cameras introduced by the Eastman Kodak Company, founded by George Eastman. The Brownie cameras were affordable, simple to use, and played a significant role in popularizing photography among the general public. They were designed for amateur photographers and allowed people to capture moments easily. The Brownie cameras used roll film, making photography more accessible and enjoyable for a wide audience. The simplicity and affordability of the Brownie cameras contributed to the democratization of photography as a hobby and art form. 

Digitial Photography

Digital Photography is a modern method of capturing images using electronic sensors to record light. It became popular in the late 20th century as technology advanced. Instead of film, digital cameras store images as electronic data. When a photo is taken, the sensor converts light into digital information, which is then stored on a memory card. This digital data can be easily transferred to a computer for viewing, editing, and sharing. Digital photography revolutionized the way we take and interact with images, offering instant feedback and the ability to manipulate photos easily.

Shutter speed: 1/180

ISO setting: 400

Aperture: 2.8

Shutter speed: 1/20

Aperture: 8

ISO setting: 400

Shutter speed: 1/3

Aperture: 22

ISO setting: 400

On a camera there are two focus modes, auto focus is for general use as it automatically sets the camera settings for you and manual focus is used for close up and fine detailed photos.

The focal length (F stop) determines what you see in the camera.

The depth of field means how much of an image is in focus, so if there is a wide aperture it has a small focal length with a small depth of field. Furthermore a narrow aperture contains the opposite meaning it has a large focal length (F stop) with a large depth of field.

Soft focus typically refers to a narrow depth of field and slightly blurred focus, resulting in ‘soft’ edges surrounding the subject. Sharp focus typically results in a wider depth of field and precise focus on the subject. Increasing the focus on more parts of the image results in a sharper appearance of the edges. 

The foreground of the photo is defined by the element nearest to the viewer. The background is the farthest element from you, with the middle ground being the space in between. Some photos may just have a foreground and background, and not necessarily all three elements present or required. 

What is Shutter Speed?

Shutter Speed– The length of time your cameras shutter stays open, and therefore how long the sensor is exposed to the light. The longer its on the more light can enter the image. If its open less, the darker the image due to there not being enough light. Shutter speed is part of the exposure triangle.

Example of Slow Shutter Speed.

This photo was taken by Francesca Woodman. She puts the shutter speed at 1\6, so she can make the photo blurred and she can make it in a spot of no light, so you are able to achieve this image.

Example of Medium Shutter Speed.

An example of Medium shutter is to blur a running child to give impressions of a fast movement. The shutter speed used is 1/250 to 1/30 sec. So you can achieve this type of image.

Example of Fast Shutter speed.

An example of Fast shutter speed is to freeze an image in action. The fast shutter speed will create a short exposure .The shutter speed used is 1/2000th second or faster. The image below is an image of a bubble being popped in action.

Shutter Speed Chart

Eadweard Muybridge– Use of Fast Shutter Speeds

Eadweard Muybridge is known for   his pioneering photographic studies of motion, which ultimately led to the development of cinema. He was hired to photograph a horse’s movement to prove that a horse’s hooves are all lifted off the floor. Muybridge is known for his pioneering chronphotography of animals between 1878 and 1886, which used multiple cameras to capture the different positions in a stride.

Harold Edgerton– Fast Shutter Speed

Harold Edgerton is famous for  revolutionized photography, science, military surveillance, Hollywood filmmaking, and the media through his invention of the strobe light in the early 1930s, which influenced his work.

These photos where taken with a fast shutter speed. Fast shutter speeds of 1/500th are used for capturing fast moving objects, such as freezing a bicycle when moving at top speed. Fast shutter speed will allow you to capture crucial moments.  The fast shutter speed allowed me to expose for the bright light.

Francesca Woodman- Slow Shutter speed

Francesca Woodman’s family spent all of their summers at her parents’ farmhouse in the countryside near Florence in Italy and many of her photographs were taken there. She was heavily influenced by European culture due to being in Italy and had a massive impact on her life. She was influenced by surrealist art, particularly the pictures of Man Ray and Claude Cahun can be seen in the style of her work. She developed her ideas and skills as a student at Rhode Island School of Design.

She was born on 3rd of April in 1958 and died on the 19th of January 1981. She was very important as an innovator , particularly in the context of the 1970s when the status of photography was still regarded as less important than painting and doing a sculpture. She led the way for later American artists who used photography to explore themes relating to identity such as Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin.

Hiroshi Sugimoto– Slow Shutter Speed

Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer and architect. He leads the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory. Hiroshi Sugimoto is well known for black and white photographs of particular subjects that he has observed in depth for many years: Images of natural-history dioramas, wax-figure installations, amazing seascapes, and ornate movie theatre interiors.

My Work of a Slow Shutter Speed

This is one of my photos taken with a slow shutter speed. As you can see the two of the leaves are in a midground focus. The slow shutter has made the camera focus on two of the leaves and made them have texture with having leading lines. This was taken at a shutter speed of 1/30, since it has a slight blur.

My Work of Fast Shutter Speed

This is one of my photos taken with a fast shutter speed. As you can on the table there are water droplets running down the side of the table, by doing this with fast shutter speed it will create a short exposure and will make the water droplets become more focused.

A Class Photoshoot

I have done to represent the difference between fast shutter speed and slow shutter speed.

Photos from the studio Fast Shutter Speed

This photo has been taken on a fast shutter because the photo is in focus ,by using a filter called black and white. Black and white creates a gloomy emotion.

Photos of the Studio of Slow Shutter Speed

This photo was taken at a fast shutter speed because the photo is blurred. Fast shutter speed allows you to capture crucial moments in a photo and allows you to freeze an image.

The Meaning of Shutter Speed

In photography, shutter speed is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light when taking a photograph. The amount of light that reaches the film or image sensor is equal to the exposure time. 1/500 of a second will let half as much light in as 1/250. In addition to its effect on exposure, the shutter speed changes the way movement appears in photographs. Very short shutter speeds can be used to freeze fast moving subjects while very long shutter speeds are used to intentionally blur a moving subject for effect.

Eadweard Muybridge – Fast Shutter Speeds

Muybridge was challenged to settle the old dispute about whether all four of a horse’s legs are off the ground at one time during a gallop. In 1872, he took a single image of a trotting horse with all hooves aloft. But his eventual solution was to capture moving objects with a camera capable of a shutter speed as brief as 1/1000 of a second.

Hiroshi Sugimoto – Slow Shutter Speeds

Sugimoto has spoken of his work as an expression of ‘Time Exposed’ which serves as a time capsule for a series of events in time. Sugimoto often uses large format cameras and long exposure times to capture light behaving in expected but controlled ways.

Harold Edgerton – Fast Shutter Speeds

In 1950, Edgerton worked with Herbert Grier and Kenneth Germeshausen to design a camera shutter device devoid of mechanical components. This allowed the exposure times for his photographs to be taken at four to ten millionths of a second.

Francesca Woodman – Slow Shutter Speeds

Woodman uses slow shutter speeds and double exposure when photographing so that she can actively feature in her own work. This also meant that she could capture different stages of movement in a way that could trace the pattern of time. As a result, her images are blurred which suggests motion and urgency.

My Shutter Speed Photographs

Eadweard Muybridge is remembered today for his pioneering photographic studies of motion, which ultimately led to the development of cinema. He was hired to photograph a horse’s movement to prove that a horse’s hooves are clear of the ground at a trot.

The above images are taken with fast shutter speed. Fast shutter speeds of 1/500th are used for capturing rapidly moving objects, such as freezing a race car hitting its top speed. The slower the shutter speed, the more motion blur your camera will capture when shooting fast-moving subjects.

Slow shutter speeds include 1/15 – which is an excellent shutter speed for panning moving subjects. 1/8 – This shutter speed will blur fast-moving objects. 1/4 – Will blur people when walking. 1/2 – You will be able to get slow-moving water with a blur.

Francesca Woodman’s family spent their summers at her parents’ farmhouse in the countryside near Florence in Italy and many of her photographs were taken there. European culture and art had a significant impact on her artistic development. The influence of surrealist art, particularly the photographs of Man Ray and Claude Cahun can be seen in the themes and style of her work. She developed her ideas and skills as a student at Rhode Island School of Design. Her importance as an innovator is significant, particularly in the context of the 1970s when the status of photography was still regarded as less important than painting and sculpture. She led the way for later American artists who used photography to explore themes relating to identity such as Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin.

Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer and architect. He leads the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory. Hiroshi Sugimoto is best known for black and white photographs of particular subjects that he has explored in depth over many years: images of natural-history dioramas, wax-figure installations, sublime seascapes, and ornate movie theatre interiors.

plan for tomorrow: come in grab a camera go outside use slow shutter speed to get a clear shot of a bike then use fast shutter speed to capture a moving bike these two photos demonstrate the differences in shutter speed.

Here are some of my photos and our class photoshoot

We successfully experimented with slow and fast shutter speed to achieve these brilliant photos

Camera Obscura  

Camera obscura is when the rays of light pass through a small hole into a dark space and shows an image where they hit the surface, which makes in an inverted and reversed projection of the view outside. And because this camera obscura uses a lens, which creates a relatively large aperture, you get a sharp, colourful image on the paper.  

Nicephore Niepce 

Nicephore Niepce was the first person to make camera obscura a permanent image, which is now the oldest photograph ever made. However he was unwilling to give any specific details about how he made the photo, therefore the royal society rejected it. Then before he suddenly passed away he gave his specimens to Baure. 

• enhanced version of Nicephore Niepces first photo

Henry Fox Talbot

Cameraless images were another version of photography. He used a sheet of fine writing paper, coated with salt and brushed with a solution of silver nitrate, Henry Talbot found that the paper would darkened in the sun. He set a pressed leaf or plant on a piece of sensitized paper, covered it with a sheet of glass, and set it in the sun. If it was light outside the paper darkened, but wherever the plant blocked the light, it remained white. This is now called photogenic drawing.

The mousetraps are sturdy little wooden boxes with a brass tube housing a lens at one end, and a sliding wooden panel at the other. Into the wooden panel at the back Talbot would stick a piece of normal writing paper that he had made chemically sensitive to light. On some you can still see the traces where successive pieces of paper have been stuck in place.

However, While Talbot quietly continued his experiments, he discovered that he had a rival. In January 1839, Louis Daguerre was finding own method for fixing the shadows.

Daguerreotype

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 daguerreotype process made it possible to capture the image seen inside a camera obscura and preserve it as an object. It was the first practical photographic process and ushered in a new age of pictorial possibility.

Richard Maddox

Richard Maddox invented lightweight gelatine negative plates for photography in 1871.  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.

The low f-stop value like this will isolate the foreground subject from the background. This means it has a wider aperture and a smaller depth of field. The shutter speed is so fast that the motion in the shot looks like it’s frozen in time.

Shutter speed: 1/4000

Aperture: 2.8

ISO setting: 6400

Because of the slow shutter speed in this image, it not only makes moving things seems more blurry but also makes the image brighter. In this case the image in not brighter as the ISO setting is quite low, this makes the image seem more clearer and is darker.

Shutter speed: 1/3

Aperture: 22

ISO setting: 400

Depth of field determines which parts of your photo are in focus and aperture lets you control that depth of field. Adjusting the focus can lead to sharper images, or, if handled in a specific way, create depth of field and emphasize just one part of an image while blurring everything behind it. to do this is by usually turning a focus ring on the lens. Adjusting the focus yourself is called manual focus. It can be advantageous to use it in a few different situations. But in most situations autofocus is incredibly convenient as well, it does have its downsides though. the control of aperture itself can be adjusted to let in more or less light. A small aperture lets in less light and leads to a darker image, while a larger one can flood the sensors with light.

CAMERA OBSCURA

The camera obscura is an optical device that served as the starting point for cameras. It consists of a darkened room or box with a small hole on one side so when light passes through it projects an inverted, upside down image of the outside scenery onto a wall if its in a room or a surface of the inside of a box.

Sometimes it can be difficult to see that the camera obscure was the origin of photography because technically it was scientifically founded and not invented by anyone so the fact is that it has always been around.

NICEPHORE NIEPCE

One of the pioneers of photography is Nicephore Niepce and the world’s first permanent photograph is credited by him. Using a technique called heliography, Niepce created what is thought to be the oldest surviving photograph in 1826. It took several hours or possibly days to create using a camera obscura. Niepce’s creation established the groundwork for contemporary photography. But for a variety of reasons, including technical ones like being overshadowed by a later invention and the changing perception of photography as a medium, he wasn’t always acknowledged as the first photographer. His creation had some important drawbacks, such as extraordinarily long exposure durations and comparatively weak image quality. Because of this, it became less useful.

Henry Fox Talbot

Henry Fox Talbot created hotogenic Drawing, one of the first photography processes, in the 1830s. It entailed applying a silver chloride coating to paper that darkened in response to light. When objects were positioned directly on the paper, sunlight would darken the exposed portions while leaving the covered portions light, producing a negative image. By establishing the idea of making negatives, this procedure constituted a significant milestone in the history of photography and made it possible to eventually make reproducible photographic prints.

In his early photography efforts, he employed little camera obscuras called mousetraps to take pictures. These gadgets were called “mousetraps” because of the way they looked—small, like boxes. Talbot utilised the cameras to take pictures by inserting light-sensitive paper inside of them.

Daguerreotype

One of the first types of photography is the daguerreotype, which Louis Daguerre created in 1839. It is a direct-positive method, which means that no negative is needed to produce a single, distinct picture on a polished copper sheet that has been plated in silver. The result is an extremely detailed image that can be viewed from many perspectives and has a surface that resembles a mirror.

Despite being revolutionary, the daguerreotype system did not achieve the same level of success as other inventions due to its inability to make duplicate images and its limited scalability. In addition, it was a more costly and intricate procedure that needed dangerous chemicals and silver-coated plates.

Anna Atkins

The first book illustration using photography was British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions by Anna Atkins, published in 1843. A photographer’s toolkit has included this technique of using light to trace the contours of objects on receptive surfaces since the beginning.

A cheap, slow-reacting photographic printing formulation, the cyanotype is sensitive to a narrow range of blue and near-ultraviolet light spectrum, the so-called UVA radiation range, which is between 300 and 400 nm. The device generates a black-and-white, blue-colored print on various surfaces, frequently utilised for artwork and blueprint reprography. In general, the procedure requires two chemicals for any given purpose.

Richard Maddox

The dry plate photographic process was created in 1871 by Richard Leach Maddox. This innovation took the role of the previous wet plate method, which made photography labour-intensive and time-sensitive because it required photographers to coat and develop plates while they were still wet. Greater convenience and flexibility were provided by the gelatin emulsion coating applied to Maddox’s dry plates, which could be made ahead of time and utilised afterward. This breakthrough established the foundation for contemporary photographic film and made photography more easily transportable and accessible.

Muybridge’s famous Motion Study

Muybridge collaborated with Leland Stanford, a businessman and ex-governor of California, in the 1870s on an innovative project to resolve a dispute about whether all four hooves of a horse are off the ground at the same time during a gallop. Stanford, with a strong interest in horse racing, had a firm belief in this statement and assigned Muybridge the task of confirming it using photography. 

Eadweard Muybridge’s innovative use of sequential photography to capture motion is seen as a key influence on the creation of motion pictures, making him a pioneer of cinema. During the late 1800s, Muybridge utilized multiple cameras to capture images of animals and people in motion, analyzing their movements by capturing individual frames. “The Horse in Motion” (1878), his best-known masterpiece, illustrated how consecutive still images could create the illusion of continuous motion. 

Muybridge subsequently created the zoopraxiscope, a tool that displayed pictures in succession, giving the impression of movement – essentially an early version of film projection. His examination of movement, along with his advancements in technology, had a direct impact on the progress of cinematography. His research demonstrated that single frames could be pieced together to mimic authentic movement, which later served as the fundamental basis for film and animation. 

George Eastman

George Eastman transformed photography by changing the technology and process, making it available to more people. His main innovations focused on streamlining the photo-taking process and reducing costs, enabling amateurs to easily capture and develop photos. Eastman established Kodak, formally known as the Eastman Kodak Company, in 1892. The company transformed the world of photography by introducing cost-effective and user-friendly innovations like roll film and compact cameras like the Kodak camera, making it accessible to the general public. 

The Kodak Brownie

The first Kodak camera was originally named the “roll holder breast camera” based on the design of the film roll. Eastman himself coined the name “Kodak,” which made its debut in December 1887. 

Eastman established the foundation for enabling photography to be available to all with the Kodak camera. The Brownie, an Eastman Kodak innovation, was a basic box camera with one lens and utilized roll film. Customers will be given a camera with photos already on it, are supposed to take their own photos, and then return the camera to Kodak. The company will proceed to create the film, produce the photos, replace the film in the camera, and give it back to the customer. 

Digital Photography

In 1969, the groundwork for digital photography was laid by an Eastman Kodak team, with engineer Willard Boyle and physicist George E. Smith creating the charge-coupled device (CCD). This advancement in technology enabled the electronic capture of images, signifying a major departure from traditional film photography. The CCD sensor transformed light into electric signals, allowing for the digital recording and saving of pictures. Even though it would be many years before digital photography was widely available and film was replaced, this advancement set the stage for the development of digital cameras and imaging technology in the future. 

Camera obscura, an early optical device, was used in the ancient times and during the Renaissance. It operated by allowing light to pass through a small hole into a darkened room or box, projecting an inverted image of the outside scene onto a surface inside. This phenomenon was the basis for the development of modern cameras. The camera obscura was crucial in understanding optics and served as a precursor to the invention of photography. 

Nicephore Niepce, a French inventor, is renowned for creating the world’s first permanent photograph in 1826. He developed a process known as heliography, which involved using a camera obscura and light-sensitive materials to capture images. Niepce’s groundbreaking achievement marked the beginning of photography as we know it today, laying the foundation for future advancements in the field. His work was instrumental in the development of photographic technology and the art of capturing images through a chemical process. 

Henry Fox Talbot, an English scientist and inventor, is well-known for his contributions to the field of photography. He is famous for developing the calotype process, an early photographic technique that allowed multiple positive prints to be made from a single negative. Talbot’s invention revolutionized photography by introducing a more practical and versatile method compared to earlier techniques. His work played a significant role in the advancement of photography as an art form and a means of visual documentation. 

Louis Daguerre was a French artist and physicist known for his pioneering work in photography. He is famous for inventing the daguerreotype process, which produced highly detailed images on silver-plated copper sheets. Daguerre’s process was the first practical and commercially successful photographic method, marking a significant advancement in the field of photography. His contributions played a crucial role in the early development of photography as an art form and a means of visual expression. 

Richard Maddox was an English photographer and inventor renowned for his significant contribution to the field of photography. He is famous for developing the gelatin dry plate process in the 1870s. This innovation replaced the cumbersome wet plate collodion process, making photography more convenient and accessible. Maddox’s invention revolutionized photography by allowing photographers to use dry plates coated with a light-sensitive emulsion, leading to improved image quality and ease of use in capturing photographs. 

George Eastman was an American inventor and entrepreneur known for founding the Eastman Kodak Company and popularizing photography through the introduction of the Kodak camera. He revolutionized photography by making it more accessible to the public with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.” Eastman’s innovations, including roll film and the Brownie camera, played a significant role in the development and widespread adoption of amateur photography. His contributions transformed photography from a complex process into a simple and enjoyable activity for people around the world. 

The Kodak Brownie was a popular series of cameras introduced by the Eastman Kodak Company, founded by George Eastman. The Brownie cameras were affordable, simple to use, and played a significant role in popularizing photography among the general public. They were designed for amateur photographers and allowed people to capture moments easily. The Brownie cameras used roll film, making photography more accessible and enjoyable for a wide audience. The simplicity and affordability of the Brownie cameras contributed to the democratization of photography as a hobby and art form. 

Digital Photography is a modern method of capturing images using electronic sensors to record light. It became popular in the late 20th century as technology advanced. Instead of film, digital cameras store images as electronic data. When a photo is taken, the sensor converts light into digital information, which is then stored on a memory card. This digital data can be easily transferred to a computer for viewing, editing, and sharing. Digital photography revolutionized the way we take and interact with images, offering instant feedback and the ability to manipulate photos easily. 

 

Camera Obscura

The Camera Obscura is a natural phenomenon where the rays of light pass through a small hole into a dark space and when they hit a surface they will form an inverted and reversed image of the view outside in that dark space. The name is formed from Latin words for dark (obscura) and room (camera) and it is about 200 years old although its exact origin cannot be pinpointed as it is a phenomenon.

Nicephore Niepce

Nicephore Niepce in the early 18th century was the first person who was able to find a way to use the Camera Obscura and make the image formed permanent. He inserted at the back of the Camera Obscura sheets of silver salts coated paper which were known to blacken by daylight which would then form an image when the camera was in contact with sunlight. He was not always considered as the first person to shoot a photo as the method he used was done with the Camera Obscura which is a natural phenomenon meaning that anyone could of replicated the discovery that Niepce had discovered.

Henry Fox Talbot

In 1834 Henry Fox Talbot discovered a way to create camera less images called Photogenic Drawing. He used a fine sheet of writing paper and coated it in salt and brushed with a solution of silver nitrate. By doing this he was able to discover that the paper would darken when in contact with sunlight so with this discovery he was able to make precise tracings of specimens like leaves and plants. How he did this was he pressed the specimen of his choice against the paper then covered it with a sheet of glass and let it sit in the sun. After letting the light strike for a while he was then able to analyse that the paper had darkened under the sun but where the plant was placed it remained light due to the plant blocking the section of the paper from receiving sunlight. looking at this he called his new found discovery “the art of photogenic drawing”.

As his chemistry knowledge improved he was able to make a new discovery with this time returning the idea of photographic images made using a camera. He placed the sensitized photographic paper into the miniature cameras and used it to try and record the silhouette of Lacock Abbeys animated roofline and trees. His wife called his discovery the mouse trap. The mousetrap was a little wooden box with a brass tube housing a lens on one end and a sliding wooden panel at the other end. The wooden sliding panel housed the writing paper he made sensitive to light so when it was inserted in the camera, the camera would have to be placed in front of the subject and be left for hours to expose. Once it was left long enough to expose the paper would be removed from the mouse trap and be chemically treated so the image is stabilised. if the image reached this point successfully then the negative points were then used to create positive points by sensitising another sheet of paper, laying the negative on top of it on the frame, and exposing it for multiple hours. The resulted print would then need to be fixed to prevent the image from fading. Having to have the right balance of chemicals and treatments in order to produce the perfect and clearest image. This process was seen as one of the most tedious areas of research for the duration of early photography.

Louis Daguerre

Louis Daguerre presented his new discovery called the daguerreotype in 1839, the daguerreotype was the first commercially success photographic process used popularly from 1839 till 1860. The daguerreotype was named after the inventor Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. How the daguerreotype worked was the picture was produced onto a sheet of copper plated with a thin silver plate instead of photographic paper, the plate had to be polished until the surface looked like a mirror after that the plate would be exposed to chemicals that made it light sensitive and then inserted into the camera. The images produced was very accurately detailed and sharp. The daguerreotype had a big flaw which was that you could not reproduce the original image which then made Talbots photography system dominate the daguerreotype.

Richard Maddox

Richard Maddox was a English Photographer and Physician who invented lightweight gelatin negative plates to be used in photography in 1871, His invention was called the dry plate. The dry plate is a glass plate coated with a gelatin emulsion of silver bromide. It can be easily stored and then be exposed and after exposure it can be brought back to a dark room for development at a leisure. His invention was so important for the history of photography as photographers were able to use dry plates off the shelf instead of having to prepare their own solution in a darkroom. The negatives also did not have to be developed immediately and for the first time cameras were made small enough to be able to hold and be used handheld.

George Eastman

George Eastman initially worked in the bank as a bank teller. He grew an interest in photography as he wanted to document a vacation he had planned. He became so interested in photography that he ended up not going to vacation at all. In 1879, London was the center of the business world especially for photography. George Eastman ended up obtaining a patent there for his plate-coating machine, he was able to get an American patent granted the following year. In April of 1880 Eastmen was able to lease the third floor of a building on state street in Rochester and was able to manufacture and sell dry plates for photography use. He ensured that his product was focused on the customer, mass produced at a low cost, was able to be sold worldwide and was advertised extensively in order for his company to grow and be successful. His company at one point found itself collapsing when a batch of dry plates went bad in the hands of the dealers. Instead of ignoring this issue eastman issued a recalled and replaced them all with a good product, even though it cost him his last dollar he believed that the companies reputation was more important than money. Eastmans goal was to make cameras as convenient as the pencil so he conducted experiments to make a new product that would change everything. The roll of film which he formed a new company for called Kodak.

Kodak (Brownie)

The roll of film was used for the first Kodak camera, the term kodak was formed by George Eastman himself and the name first appeared in December 1887. With the Kodak Camera Eastman insured that it would be able to be used by everyone. The Camera (named Brownie) was a basic box camera which housed a single lens, it used their roll of film made by George Eastman himself to produce photographs. Once you would take photographs with this camera you would send it to Kodak to get developed and then printed, the camera would then return to you with a new roll of film along with your photos.

Digital Photography

In 1969 sensors were being made which were needed for digital photography to take place, the sensor acts like a roll of film as it records the light that hits it and then sends it to the processor (CCD chip) in order for it to be translated to be viewed and made digitally. These sensors were being made by Willard Boyle and George Smith in a company named Bell labs, They made the CCD chip (Charge-Coupled Device) which worked by essentially using a row of tiny metal-oxide-semiconductors capacitors to store information as electrical chargers. Subsequent Inventors after hearing this information made the connection that if you were able to pair this chip with something that was photosensitive then you had got yourself a camera sensor. in 1972, the first published digital colour photograph was used on the cover of the Electronics magazine, taken by a British-born engineer named Dr Michael Tompsset

Henry Mullins

Henry Mullins worked at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and he had decided to move to jersey in July of 1848. He set up a studio known as the Royal Saloon at 7 Royal Square. He was in a partnership with Mr Millward but shortly afterwards he worked alone in the same studio for 26 years. He took up to 16 photographs in a single sitting of his subjects including some influential people such as Dean Le Breton and the father of Lillie Langtry. His preferred method of photography was the Daguerreotype who was invented by Louis Daguerre.