PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography is the art of capturing

light with a camera, usually via a digital
sensor or film, to create an image. With the
right camera equipment, you can even
photograph wavelengths of light invisible to
the human eye, including UV, infrared, and
radio.
The first permanent photograph was
captured in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore
Niépce in France. It shows the roof of a
building lit by the sun. “View from the Window at Le Gras”
by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre

The first photographic process — heliography — was
invented around 1824 by Nicéphore Niépce. Images
were obtained with bitumen of Judea spread on a silver
plate after an exposure time of several days.
In 1829, Niépce associated Louis Jacques Mandé
Daguerre to his research. In 1832, they put the last
touches, using a residue of lavender oil distillation, by
means of a second process producing images in a one day
exposure time.

Nicephore Niepce In 1833, Niépce died, and Daguerre invented, in 1838,

on his own the daguerreotype, the first process including
a development stage. A silver plate coated with a very
thin silver iodide layer was exposed in a camera obscura,
then exposed to mercury vapors that induced the
apparition of the invisible latent image that had been
formed during the exposure to light. This development
was in fact such an amplification of the effect of light
that the exposure time was hardly more than 30 minutes.
Fixing was done by immersing the plate in sea salted
water.
Louis Daguerre
Hippolyte Bayard (1801-1887)
In July 1839, another Frenchman, Hippolyte Bayard,
discovered the way to obtain positive images directly on
paper. A sheet of paper covered with silver chloride was
blackened by light, then exposed in a camera obscura after
having been sensitized in silver iodide.
The exposure time was from 30 minutes to 2 hours.

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877)

Still in 1839, the announcement of the daguerreotype
invention incited an Englishman, William Henry Fox
Talbot, to resume interrupted research, the beginning of
which was in 1834. In 1841, he patented the calotype, the
first negative-positive process that made it possible to
multiply the same image, by means of an intermediate
negative on a silver chloride paper made translucid with
wax. As for the daguerreotype, the latent image was
developed by a chemical agent, the developer: a solution of
gallic acid and silver nitate. A second sheet of paper also
covered with silver chloride was then exposed through the
translucid negative, to give the final positive.

John Herschell (1792-1871)

We owe to John Herschell the discovery, in 1839, of the
way to fix images by dipping them in a sodium hyposulfite
bath, which is still used today as the main component of
photographic fix-baths. The main advantages of the
calotype were the easiness with which one could
manipulate the paper prints and the possibility of multi-
printing. On the other hand, the sharpness, limited by the
fibers in the negative paper, could not compete with the
daguerreotype.
Hippolyte Fizeau
To reduce further the exposure time , short focal lenses were created , letting more
light in the camera , however keeping the sharpness on the whole image . In 1841 , the
physicist Fizeau replaced silver iodide by silver bromide, the sensibility of which to light
was far superior . Time exposures of barely a few seconds were needed to obtain a
daguerreotype and so it became possible to do portraits.

Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor

To improve the calotype negative
transparency, Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor
had the idea, in 1847, to replace paper with
glass. So that the silver bromide adhered to
glass, he mixed it with albumen (egg
white). Even though a bit too contrasty, the
images then became much sharper, forcing
opticians to work on higher definition
lenses.

Scott Archer
In 1851, an Englishman named Scott Archer replaced albumen by collodion, the
base of which is gun-cotton (cellulose nitrate). The black and white images obtained with
this process reached a quality unknown until then. The only drawbacks were that the picture
had to be taken while the collodion on the plate was still humid and the developement had
to happen immediatly after the exposure.

Richard Maddox and Charles Bennet

In 1871, another Englishman, Richard Meaddox, resolved
this problem by replacing collodion by gelatin, a process
perfected by Charles Bennet, who demonstrated that
gelatinized plates acquired a high sensitivity when they
were kept for a few days at 32° Celsius. Not only could
the gelatino-bromide plates be stored before use, but their
sensitivity was such that the exposure time could not
exceed a fraction of a second. The story of the shutter
started shortly before 1880, because the high sensitivity
of these plates made it necessary to conceive mecanisms
able to let light enter the camera for 1/100th and even
Richard Maddox,1816-1902 1/1000th of a second. It became necessary to precisely
evaluate light intensity, and the light meter then became a real measuring device.
George Eastman, 1854-1932
The American George Eastman, Kodak founder,
conceived, in 1888, the idea of the supple base. Glass plates
were progressively replaced by celluloid rolls.
The reproduction of colors
Photography was still missing color reproduction.
The first tries were due to Edmond Becquerel in 1848. In
1851, Niépce de St-Victor showed that a silver plate coated
with a layer of pure silver chloride reproduced colors
directly, but in an unstable manner.
In 1869, Louis Ducos du Hauron, in Agen, made
the first color photograph applying the principle
demonstrated by Maxwell of light decomposition in three
primary colors: red, yellow and blue. He made three photos
of the same subject, each of them through a different filter: a red, a yellow, and a blue one.
He obtained three positives that he dyed with the color corresponding to each filter. By
superimposing in register the three images, he got the restitution of the colors.

Autoportrait of Gabriel Lippmann

The physicist Gabriel Lippman
received the Nobel prize in 1906 for having
found in 1891 a way to obtain photos in
direct colors on one plate, by an
interferencial process prefiguring
Holography. Too complicated, this
invention remained only a laboratory feat.
The first monoplate color process
practicable by amateurs was created in
1906. The autochrome plate invented by the
Lumière brothers was based upon the principle of the trichromatic synthesis, realized on
only one plate by joining to it a mosaic of microfilters in the primary colors realized with
minuscule colored grains of potatoe starch.
The discovery by R. Fisher around 1911 of the chromogene developer gave color
photography a new direction. It had been noticed that some developers gave images with
one color instead of black and white.
 The brothers Auguste Lumière (1862-1954) and
Louis Lumière (1864-1948)
The trichromatic principle was used by Agfa
to realize in 1936 Agfacolor films, made of three
superimposed layers, respectively sensitive to blue,
green and red. A developer that colored every layer
into a color of its sensitivity was invented. The
superimposition gave an image in color. The
possibility of color reproduction led to
improvements in lens manufacturing to transmit
acurately the colors of the subject to the film.

In 1935, two Americans, L . Mannes and L . Godowsky, improved this process.

Bought by Kodak, it was named Kodachrome. If today’s color films are much more
sophisticated, they still use silver bromide, gelatin and basic principles from Agfacolor and
Kodachrome.
 References

French Ministry of Culture The History of Photography - “Maisons des illustres”

Retrieved from: http://www.photo-museum.org/photography-history/

Cox, 2019 Introduction to Photography: The Universal Language PhotographyLife

Retreived from: https://photographylife.com/what-is-photography