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LESSON 1 - The History of Photography
(Part B)
Article by Stephen J. Kristof
© 2010, all rights reserved
Welcome to Part 2 of this lesson on photography's historical origins! History may not have been your favorite subject back when you were in school, but when you consider the various historical stages of invention and progress resulting in what we now use and understand as "photography", you may wonder about a few things.
First of all, why would Niepce have ever even had the inkling to use something as unlikely as "asphalt" to create his (and the world's) first ever photograph? Secondly, did these men have any concept of just how BIG photography would eventually get?
One thing for sure is that even though the technology did not yet exist, people as far back as you can imagine in human civilization, had desire to record the visible. Through countless years, perhaps millenia, people who lived before the men portrayed on these pages, wanted to be able to somehow record a more realistic representation of what is seen than could be drawn or painted. Imagine having to sketch or paint a portrait of your spouse or child in order to help remember how they look at any particular point in time! For those with financial resources, the task was less daunting, as they could and did hire artists for this very purpose.
Yet the average individual living anywhere on the globe had no way of recording the likeness of their loved ones, homes or possessions, other than putting pencil or brush to paper. How sad to see ones' family members grow old and lose the memory of how they looked in years past!
Yes, the will to create a visual record was very strong. But just how would the next set of photographic pioneers make it happen? Read on!
(Part B)
Article by Stephen J. Kristof
© 2010, all rights reserved
Welcome to Part 2 of this lesson on photography's historical origins! History may not have been your favorite subject back when you were in school, but when you consider the various historical stages of invention and progress resulting in what we now use and understand as "photography", you may wonder about a few things.
First of all, why would Niepce have ever even had the inkling to use something as unlikely as "asphalt" to create his (and the world's) first ever photograph? Secondly, did these men have any concept of just how BIG photography would eventually get?
One thing for sure is that even though the technology did not yet exist, people as far back as you can imagine in human civilization, had desire to record the visible. Through countless years, perhaps millenia, people who lived before the men portrayed on these pages, wanted to be able to somehow record a more realistic representation of what is seen than could be drawn or painted. Imagine having to sketch or paint a portrait of your spouse or child in order to help remember how they look at any particular point in time! For those with financial resources, the task was less daunting, as they could and did hire artists for this very purpose.
Yet the average individual living anywhere on the globe had no way of recording the likeness of their loved ones, homes or possessions, other than putting pencil or brush to paper. How sad to see ones' family members grow old and lose the memory of how they looked in years past!
Yes, the will to create a visual record was very strong. But just how would the next set of photographic pioneers make it happen? Read on!
Louis Daguerre
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The Daguerreotype had several disadvantages that led to its eventual replacement: *very dangerous, toxic chemical fumes had to be used (iodine and mercury) *heavy, metallic picture *could not hang picture on wall, because it looked like a negative from certain directions *could not make duplicates, as there was no ‘negative’ *required a very long posing time *required a horse cart to be brought to the outdoor shooting location, as the process required a portable lab and darkroom |
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William Henry Fox Talbot 1800-1877 Talbot was an intellectual; a mathematician, philosopher, classicist, Egyptologist, transcriber and translator. In 1840, Talbot wanted to get away from the idea of metal pictures and all of the fuss, disadvantages and dangerous chemicals associated with them. Instead, his idea was to coat a piece of paper with a light-sensitive silver compound and put it into a camera with the sensitized side facing the lens. Of course, the silver compound would have to be kept in darkness until used and, even then, would be applied to his photo paper in a very dim room. His sensitized paper would need to be kept in a light-tight environment. This is very much like today's true photographic print paper in that it, too, must be manufactured and stored in light-tight environments. Talbot's process was very much like what Thomas Wedgwood did some forty years prior. The difference was that Talbot gleaned from Daguerre and others, the new knowledge of the day. Talbot now knew how to remove the remaining unexposed silver compound from his prints after the image was developed. That, of course, was the stumbling block that Wedgwood found to be an insurmountable nemesis. Talbot used paper not as an end product (a photograph), but rather, as a negative. In this way, he was able to use the paper negative to produce multiple copies of positive prints; something that Daguerre could not do. Talbot would treat another piece of paper with the silver compound and then place the first developed paper "negative" on top of the newly sensitized paper. He would sandwich the two papers in glass and then expose the frame to light. Light would travel through the paper negative, giving greater exposure to thelight parts and less exposure to the dark parts. Since the light parts of the negative represented dark parts of the original scene, these areas of the image would again turn dark on the finished print. Conversely, the dark parts of the negative represnted bright parts of the original scene; because light could not travel as readily through these dark parts of the paper negative, the resulting areas of the finished print would appear bright once again. Talbot also used a fixing solution after development, removing any remaining silver salt, so that the rest of the photograph would be permanent and not turn black. He coined a term for his product, calling it a "calotype". |
  This is a Calotype depicting a Calotype camera in use. Taken in 1845.  This is a Calotype from 1846. Note how the 'detail' is quite soft and looks rather like a sketch or painting. This was a hallmark of the Calotype, in that this soft focus appearance resulted from the somewhat transparent paper negative. |
Claude Felix Abel Niepce de Saint Victor
1805-1870
Have you ever been the victim of a Hallowe'en egg prank? If so, you know that once the egg dries, it is very difficult to remove from glass. It's likely that our ancestors in the mid-1800's knew about this as well.
A cousin of Joseph Niepce, Claude decided in 1847 to coat glass with a mixture of silver nitrate and egg whites (albumen). What a fantastic idea this turned out to be, because it very effectively jumped the hurtle that Talbot couldn't. Remember that Talbot was printing through the relative opacity and blurriness of a paper negative. With St. Victor's discovery/invention, the stage was set for full, crystal clarity; something that the world in coming years would demand.
He was able to produce very clear images both on his glass negative and the paper prints. (Light can be projected through the glass, the projected image falling onto a piece of paper that is also coated with a light-sensitive silver salt; this would produce a positive print image.) The dried glass negatives were permanent, which meant that reprints could be made well into the future.
In order to make the gelatin-silver mixture stick to the glass better, Claude mixed in honey and syrup. While it certainly improved the stickiness, to his amazement, it also increased the photo-sensitivity! However, this required a "wet" process in order to maintain the higher light sensitive properties. In order for his "wet plates" to be sold worldwide to photographers, they would need to be kept in a gel-like state in transit. Claude did not jump on this opportunity, but a shrewd young American businessman certainly did... (read on!)
A cousin of Joseph Niepce, Claude decided in 1847 to coat glass with a mixture of silver nitrate and egg whites (albumen). What a fantastic idea this turned out to be, because it very effectively jumped the hurtle that Talbot couldn't. Remember that Talbot was printing through the relative opacity and blurriness of a paper negative. With St. Victor's discovery/invention, the stage was set for full, crystal clarity; something that the world in coming years would demand.
He was able to produce very clear images both on his glass negative and the paper prints. (Light can be projected through the glass, the projected image falling onto a piece of paper that is also coated with a light-sensitive silver salt; this would produce a positive print image.) The dried glass negatives were permanent, which meant that reprints could be made well into the future.
In order to make the gelatin-silver mixture stick to the glass better, Claude mixed in honey and syrup. While it certainly improved the stickiness, to his amazement, it also increased the photo-sensitivity! However, this required a "wet" process in order to maintain the higher light sensitive properties. In order for his "wet plates" to be sold worldwide to photographers, they would need to be kept in a gel-like state in transit. Claude did not jump on this opportunity, but a shrewd young American businessman certainly did... (read on!)
George Eastman
(1854-1932)
AKA, the Kodak Man. George grew up in the State of New York, raised by his single mother. Unlike all of the other pioneers of photo history that preceded him, George was not born into privilege and upper society. Perhaps this gave him the necessary 'fire in the belly' to make more money and success out of his photo business pursuits than his predecessors. He borrowed money from a boarder who was a traveling businessman staying at his mother's home. George used this money to start the photographic wet plate manufacturing company. His business was so profitable and so well patronized by photographers, that George was able to buy-out his former partner, the traveling businessman
In 1880, George developed and patented the "dry plate", which used a glass negative like his predecessor, but he mixed silver salts with gelatin instead of eggwhite, which meant that the plates could be dried. In doing so, the plates became MUCH more sensitive to light. Exposure time went from minutes to a fraction of a second. The plates were sold around the world to photographers, making Eastman a very rich man very quickly. He called his 'little' photo outfit the Eastman Kodak company (yes, the same one).
Then, in 1882, Eastman patented a process that would turn ordinary people into photographers, which meant massive profit. (Kind of like the Bill Gates of the late 1800's and early 1900’s.) He coated paper with the gelatin and silver compound mixture. Paper was flexible and could roll. After development, the clear, dry gelatine negative would be stripped from the paper so that prints could be made.
Imagine this scenario...In 1888, Eastman sells the Kodak camera for $25 ($591 present value). It comes loaded with enough paper-backed film to take 100 pictures. The customer sends the camera back to the Eastman-Kodak company and receives the 100 photos in the mail, along with the camera. In order to retain business and a revenue stream, the customer pays an additional fee to have his or her camera returned re-loaded with another 100 exposures of film. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? (THINK - DISPOSABLE CAMERAS OF TODAY)
Eastman was a very shrewd businessman and became unimaginably successful, in terms of building a strong company with what one would modestly say, "robust revenue".
One year later, in 1889, Eastman patented a transparent roll film using celluloid (similar to an early form of organic vegetation-based plastic). This replaced all paper film in the Kodak cameras and meant that people could get 100 pictures AND 100 negatives back, so that Eastman could make even more money on re-prints from the negatives.
Many decades after Eastman died, celluloid was found to deteriorate and its use in the motion picture and photo was replaced with polyester.
THE LEGAL BATTLE:
Hannibal Goodwin, a protestant preacher, also experimented with transparent roll film and some say he did so before Eastman. Goodwin did not have enough money to patent it properly or quickly enough and Eastman beat him to the punch. Goodwin eventually died penniless, while Eastman was enormously wealthy. Goodwin’s heirs sued Eastman successfully in 1904 and won a court award of $5 million (over $118 million in today’s dollars), which Eastman paid without appealing. His photography business must have been very successful indeed!
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