History of photography



History of Photography
The term camera drift of double bed, that in Latin means `habitación' or `cámara'. The original dark camera was a room whose unique light source was a very small orifice in one of the walls. The light that penetrated in her by that one orifice projected an image of the outside in the opposite wall. Although the image thus formed was inverted and blurred, the artists used this technique, long before which the film was invented, to outline scenes projected by the camera. With the course of the centuries the dark camera evolved and it became a small manageable box and to the orifice an optical lens settled to him to secure one more a clearer and defined image.

300 a.c.
Aristotle uses the dark camera to study the sun eclipses.

Century XVII
Leonardo da Vinci realizes that the images received inside the room are more of reduced and invested size, conserving its own form and colors.

Century XVIII
Sensitivity in the light of certain composed of silver, particularly nitrate and the chloride of silver, was already well-known before the British scientists Thomas Wedgwood and Humphry Davy began their experiments at the end of century XVIII to obtain photographic images. They were able to produce picture images, human silhouettes of leaves and profiles using silver covered chloride paper. These photos were not permanent, since after exposing them to the light, all the surface of the paper was blackened, consequently never could get to obtain the fixed one of the images.

History of photography

Century XIX
This it is the century of the birth of the photography, exactly in 1816, that is when the French physicist Nicéphore Niépce secures to an image by means of the use of the dark camera and a photochemical procedure. Niépce baptizes to its invention with the name of heliograbados, but it is not until year 1831 when French painter Louis Jacques I sent Daguerre realised photographies in plates covered with a sensitive lining in the light of silver iodide. After exhibiting the plate during several minutes. Daguerre used mercury steam to reveal positive the photographic image. These photos were not permanent because the plates were blackened gradually and the image ended up disappearing. In the first permanent photographies obtained by Daguerre, the developing plate was covered with a concentrated dissolution of common salt. This determined process of, shortage by British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot, caused that silver the exhibited iodide particles were not insensible to the light, and so the total blackening of the plate was avoided. With the method of Daguerre a unique image in the plate of silver by each exhibition was obtained.

While Daguerre perfected its system, Talbot developed a photographic procedure that consisted of using a negative paper from which it could obtain a limitless number of copies. Talbot discovered that the paper covered with silver iodide was more sensible to the light if before his exhibition it submerged in a dissolution of silver nitrate and gálico acid, dissolution that could also be used for the paper developing after the exhibition. Once finalized the developing, the negative image submerged in sodium tiosulfato or sodium hyposulphite to make it permanent. The method of Talbot, call calotipo, required exhibitions of about 30 seconds to secure an image adapted in the negative. As much Daguerre as Talbot their methods in 1839 made public. That same year John Eilliam Herschel gives the name of " photographies " to the fixed images.

Within three years the exposure time in both procedures it was reduced to few seconds.

History of photography

In the procedure of calotipo the granular structure of the negatives appeared in the final copy. In 1847, the French physicist Claude Felix Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor conceived a method that used a negative of plate or crystal plate. This one, covered with potassium bromide in albumen suspension, submerged in a silver nitrate solution before its exhibition. The negatives of these characteristics gave an excellent definition of image, although they required long exhibitions.

In 1851 the sculptor and become fond of photographer British Frederick Scott Archer collodion instead of albumen like covering material introduced humid plates of crystal when using to agglutinate sensible compounds to the light. As these negatives had to be exhibited and developings while they were humid, the photographers needed a darkroom near one to prepare plates before the exhibition, and to immediately reveal them after her. The photographers who worked with the American Mathew Brady realised thousands of photos of the battlefields during the war of American Independence and for it they used humid negatives of collodion and covered carts as a dark camera.

Since the procedure of the humid collodion almost was limited the professional photography, several investigators tried to perfect a type of negative that could be exposed dry and that immediately did not need to be developing after its exhibition. The advance had to British chemistry Joseph Wilson Swan, whom it observed that the heat increased the sensitivity of the emulsion of silver bromide. This process, that was patented in 1871, also dried plates, which made more manageable. In 1878 the British photographer Charles E. Bennett invented a covered dry plate with an emulsion of gelatin and silver bromide, similar to the modern ones. The following year, Swan patented the dry paper of bromide. While these experiments were followed one another to increase the effectiveness of the photography in black and white, preliminary efforts were realised to secure images of objects in natural color, so covered plates of emulsions were used. In 1861, the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell successfully obtained the first color photograph by means of the procedure color additive.

Around 1884 the American inventor George Eastman patented a film that consisted of one long strip of paper covered with a sensible emulsion. In 1889 he realised the first flexible film and he is transparent in the form of cellulose nitrate strips. The invention of the roll film marked to the end of the primitive photographic era and the principle of a period during which thousand of photographers become fond of they would be interested in the new system.

History of photography

Century XX
At the beginning of this century the commercial photography grew quickly and the improvements of the black and white one laid way all those that lacked the time and the ability for the so complicated procedures of the previous century. In 1907 the first commercial materials of film in color, crystal plates called Autochromes Lumière in honor to their creators were put generally at the disposal of the public, the French Auguste and Louis Lumière. At this time the color photographs were taken with cameras of three exhibitions.

In the following decade, the improvement of the used photomechanical systems in the press generated a great demand of photographers to illustrate newspaper texts and magazines. This demand created a new commercial field for the photography, the advertising one. The technological advances, that simplified to materials and photographic apparatuses, contributed to the proliferation of the photography like an entertainment or professional dedication for a great number of people.

History of photography

The camera of 35 mm, that required small film and that was, at first, designed for the cinema, was introduced in Germany in 1925. Thanks to its small size and to his low cost became between the professional photographers and the fans popular. During this period, first they used magnesium fine powders like artificial light source. Chalkings on a support that catch oned with a detonator, produced a shining sparkle of light and a caustic smoke cloud. As of 1930, the flash lamp replaced the magnesium dust like light source.

History of photography

With the appearance of the film of Kodachrome color in 1935 and the one of Agfacolor in 1936, with which to trasparencias or slides in color were obtained, the use of the film in color became general. The Kodacolor film, introduced in 1941, contributed to give impulse to its popularisation.

Many photographic innovations, that appeared for their use in the camp during II the World war, were put at the disposal of the public generally at the end of the war. Between these they appear new chemical agents for the fixed developing and of the film. The improvement of the computers facilitated, to a great extent, the resolution of mathematical problems in the design of the lenses. They appeared in the market many new lenses that included those of interchangeable type for the cameras of that one time. In 1947, the camera Polaroid Land, cradle in the photographic system shortage by the American physicist Edwin Herbert Land, added to the fan photography the attractiveness to secure photos totally revealed few minutes after them to have taken. 

In the following decade the new industrial procedures allowed to enormously increase the speed and sensitivity in the light of the films in color and black and white. The speed of these last ones rose from a maximum of 100 ISO to another theoretician of 5,000 ISO, whereas in those of color it multiplied by ten. This decade it was also marked by the introduction of electronicses, calls light amplifiers, that intensified the weak light and did possible to even register the tenuous light coming from very distant stars. These advances in the mechanical devices were able systematically to elevate the technical level of the photography for fans and professionals.

In the decade of 1960 the film Itek RS, that allowed to use cheaper chemical agents, like zinc, sulfide of cadmium and titanium oxide was introduced, instead of the expensive ones composed of silver. The new called technique photopolymerization made the production possible of copies by normal contact on paper not sensitized.

Applications of the photography
At present, the photography has been developed mainly in three sectors, besides other scientific or technical considerations. On the one hand they are the field of the graphical journalistic news article, whose purpose is to catch the outer world as it appears before our eyes, and the one of the publicity. By another one we have the photography like artistic manifestation, with expressive and interpretative aims.

The news article includes the documentary photography and the one of graphical press, and generally usually it is not manipulated. The normal thing is that the graphical reporter uses the techniques and the processes of developing necessary to catch an image under the existing conditions. Although this type of photography usually is described as objective, always is a person behind the camera, that inevitably it selects what is going to catch. With respect to the objectivity, it is necessary to also consider the purpose and the use of the photographic news article, the photos most real, and perhaps most impartial, can be used like propaganda or with advertising intentions; decisions that, in the majority of the cases, do not depend on the own photographer.

On the contrary, the artistic photography is totally subjective, or manipulated or no. In the first case, the light, the approach and the angle of the camera can be handled to alter the appearance of the image; the processes of positivado developing and modify sometimes to obtain the wished results; and the photography is susceptible to be combined with other elements to secure a form of artistic composition, or for the aesthetic experimentation.

Photographic news article
All the photography is, in a certain sense, a news article, since it catches the image that perceives the objective of the camera and the human eye. The first investigators limited themselves to register what they saw, but in the decade of 1960 they were divided between those photographers who continued using their camera to catch images without no intention and those that decided that the photography was a new form of visual art. The photography combines the use of the image like document and testimony; subgenus that is known with the name of social photography.

History of photography

Documentary photography 
British photographer Roger Fenton obtained some of the first photographies that showed with crudity the war of Crimea the British public. Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan documented the sad reality of the war of Secession. After the fight, Gardner and O'Sullivan photographed the West of the United States along with Carleton E. Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, William Henry Jackson and Edward Curtis Sheriff. The clear and detailed photos of these artists showed an ineffaceable image of the wild nature.

Mexico became the front sight of French and American photographers, due to the political relations and of proximity with its respective countries, and to the rediscovery of the civilizations Aztec and Mayan. The French Désiré Charnay realised interesting photographies of the Mayan ruins in 1857, besides leaving to a detailed story of his archaeological discoveries and experiences.

The work of the British photographers of century XIX locks up views of other places and exotic earth. They covered loaded incredible distances with the heavy equipment with the moment to catch scenes and people. In 1860, Francis Bedford photographed the Near East. His compatriot Samuel Bourne took 900 photos from the Himalayas in three trips realised between 1863 and 1866, and in 1860 Francis Frith she worked in Egypt. The photos of this last on places and monuments, many of which today are destroyed or dispersed, still constitute a useful testimony for the archaeologists.

The stereoscopic photos that these travelling photographers obtained, with cameras of double objective, supposed a popular form of homemade entertainment in century XIX, when placed on a special support could be seen in three dimensions. With the creation of the negative plate drought by Charles Bennett in 1878, the work of the travelling photographers was much less arduous. Instead of to have to reveal the plate at the moment, still humid, the photographer could keep it and later reveal it in any other place. In recent years the interest by these photographies has been started again and have been the subject of several exhibitions and books.

Social documentation
Instead of to catch the life in other parts of the world, some photographers of century XIX limited themselves to document the conditions of their own surroundings. This way, the British photographer John Thomson shaped the daily life of the London working-class around 1870 in a volume of photos titled Life in the streets of London (1877). The American reporter of Danish origin Jacob August Riis realised from 1887 to 1892 a series of photographies of gathered the slums of New York in two volumes photographic: How he lives the other half (1890) and Children on the poverty (1892). Between 1905 and 1910 Lewis Wickes Hine, American sociologist responsible for the labor laws for children, also caught in his photos to the pressed ones of the United States: workers of the iron and steel industries, mining, European immigrants and, especially, infantile workers. In Brazil, Marc Ferrez shaped in its photographies the rural life and the small Indian communities. In Peru, the photographer Martin Chambi especially picks up in his work a picture of the society of his country and of the indigenous towns.

The photos of the French Eugène Atget are halfway placed between the social document and the artistic photography, since their excellent composition and expression of the personal vision go beyond the mere testimony. Atget, perhaps one of the most prolific information retrieval officers of this time, obtained between 1898 and 1927 an enormous amount of poetic scenes of the daily life of its dear Paris and its environs. The care and the publication of their work must to the efforts of another capable information retrieval officer of the urban life, Berenice Abbott.


During the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration contracted a group of photographers to document those zones of the country more hard punished by the catastrophe. Walker photographers Evans, Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, Horseradish tree Shahn and Arthur Rothstein, among others, provided graphical testimonies on the conditions of the countryside affected by the poverty in the United States. The result was a series of photographies of working emigrants, tenant farmers, and of its houses, schools, churches and properties. It was as convincing as evidence that as art. The contribution of Evans, along with the text of the writer James Agee, was published separately under the title We praise now famous men (1941), considered like a classic one in their field.

Graphical journalism
The graphical media differs from any other documentary photographic task in which its intention is to count a concrete history in visual terms. The graphical journalists work for newspapers, magazines, agencies of the news and other publications that cover events in zones that include from the sports, the arts and the policy. One of first was the journalist or graphical reporter French Henri Cartier-Bresson, who from 1930 dedicated themselves to document what he called " moment decisivo". It maintained that the dynamics of any given situation reaches its algid point at some time, moment that corresponds with the most significant image. Cartier-Bresson, teacher in this technique, owned sensitivity to tighten the trigger at the opportune moment. The technological advances of the Thirties, in particular the improvements in the small cameras like the Leica, as well as in the sensitivity of the film, facilitated that one instantaneous technique. Many of the images of Cartier-Bresson have as much force in their conception as in which they transmit and they are considered simultaneously work artistic, documentary and graphical journalism.

Brassai, another French graphical journalist born in Hungary, was hard dedicated to catch the ephemeral expressive moments, that if so showed at night Parisian the most provocative side. Their photos were compiled and published at night in Paris (1933).

The correspondent military American Robert Layer began his race with photographies of the Spanish Civil War; like Cartier-Bresson, shaped as much warlike scenes as the situation of the civil populace. Its photography of a wounded militiaman gave the return to the world like testimony of the horror of the war. Layer also covered the disembarkation with the American troops in Europe D-day during II the World war and the war of Indochina, where it found the death in 1954. Another photographer, the Italian Modotti Bathtub, also was in Spain during the Civil War like member of Red Socorro. Also, the Spanish Agustín Centelles as much realised an important documentary work during the war, taking photographies from the front as of the rear, among them those of the bombings of the civil populace. In Mexico, Agustín Victor Casasola picked up in its work stirring images of the Mexican Revolution and Pancho Villa. More recently, British photographer Donald Mc Cullin has carried out works in which picks up images of the devastating effects of the war, which they compiled in two volumes under the titles the destruction of the businesses (1971) and There is somebody realizes? (1973).

History of photography

At the end of the decade of 1930 they appeared in the United States the magazines Life and Look and in Great Britain Picture Post. These publications contained photographic works and texts related to them. This way of presentation, without a doubt very popular, was mainly associated to the great photographers of Life Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith. These magazines continued providing a great graphical cover of II the World war and the one of Korea with photos taken by Bourke-White, the American Layer, Smiths, David Douglas Duncan and several other graphical reporters. Later the photography was used to reflect changes of articles of incorporation. Smith documented, as already Riis had done it previously, the devastating effects of the envenenamiento by mercury in Minamata, Japanese fishing village contaminated by a flight of this mineral in a local industry. Also photographers Ernest Cole, who with House of slavery (1967) he explored the miseries of the system of the apartheid of South Africa, and the Czech Josef Koudelka, known by their splendid narrative photographies have carried out extraordinary works on the gypsys of the east of Europe.

Commercial and advertising photography
The photography has been used to inspire and to influence political or social opinions. Also, from the decade of 1920 use has been made of her to impel and to direct the consumption, and like a component more of the publicity. The commercial photographers realise photos that are used in announcements or like illustrations in books, magazines and other publications. In order that their images are attractive they use an ample range of sophisticated techniques. The impact of this class of images has produced a strong cultural influence. The commercial and advertising photography has also represented a great impulse in the graphical industry along with the advances in the techniques of photographic reproduction of great quality. They emphasized in this field Irving Penn and Cecil Beaton, photographers of the high society; Richard Avedon, whom fame like fashionable photographer obtained, and Helmut Newton, controverted fashionable and retratista photographer whose works own a great erotic content frequently.

Artistic photography
The pioneering works of Daguerre and Talbot lead to two types different from photography. The positive daguerreotype, appreciated by its clarity and details, was used especially for pictures of family like substitute of much more the expensive painted picture. Later, the daguerreotype was supplanted in popularity by carte of visits, that used crystal plates instead of iron laminae. On the other hand, the procedure of calotipo of Talbot was less precise in the details, although it had the advantage of which del produced a negative that could be obtained the number of wished copies. Although calotipo was initially associated to the photography landscaper, from 1843 to 1848 this technique was used by Scottish painter David Octavius Hill and his photographic collaborator Robert Adamson to make pictures.

The photography as alternative form of art
From the decade of 1860 to the one of 1890, the photography was conceived like an alternative to the drawing and the painting. The first norms of critic applied her were, therefore, those that were used to judge the art, and the idea that was accepted the camera could be used by artists, since this one could catch the details with greater rapidity and fidelity than the eye and the hand. In other words, the photography was contemplated like a aid for the art, since Hill and Adamson did. In fact, around 1870 the practice was accepted to make put to the subjects in the study, later to alter and to clarify the photos in order that they seemed paintings. 

During second half of century XIX the Swedish photographer Oscar Gustave Rejlander and the Briton Henry Peach Robinson discovered the method to create a copy from several different negatives. Robinson, who began his race like artist, based his descriptive images on initial notes to pencil. Its influence as artistic photographer were very great. For example, some of the works of their compatriot Julia Margaret Cameron were compound and represented similar scenes pictorial works of the time.

The photography in itself
The retratistas studies of Cameron shaped to their friendly, members of the scientific circles and literary British. They consisted of first planes with intense illumination, to reveal all the force of the character of the personages. Another example of that type of photography is the work of the French caricaturist Gaspard Felix Tournachon, who became photographer under the professional name To swim. His cartes of visits (mounted photos as large as calling cards) are a series of simple and mordacious pictures of the Parisian intellectuality. They show the observation power To swim when it shot its camera with diffuse light against smooth bottoms to heighten the details.

The work of British photographer Eadweard Muybridge is an example of the influence of the art in the photography. Their series of people and animal in movement revealed to artists and scientists physiological details never observed. The American painter Thomas Eakins also experimented with this type of photography, he mainly used although it for the painting of figures.

The become fond of photographer British Peter Henry Emerson questioned the use of the photography like substitute of the visual arts, urging other colleagues towards the nature like inspiration source and limiting the manipulations of the own photographic processes. Its book naturalistic Photography for art students (1899) was based on its belief that the photography is an art in itself and independent of the painting. It modified this declaration later and it defended that the mere reproduction of the nature is not an art. Another writings of Emerson, that differentiated the artistic photography from which it becomes without aesthetic intentions, finished later defining the artistic aspect of the photography.

Photo-Secession
Emerson, like jury of a photographic contest for fans in 1887, granted a prize to Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer who studied abroad then and whose work adopted the points of view of Emerson. In 1890, Stieglitz returned to the United States and realised a series of simple photographies on New York in different times from the year and atmospheric conditions. On 1902 it founded the Photo-Secession movement, that would adopt the photography as a form of independent art. Some of the members of this group were Gertrude Käsebier, Edward Steichen and Clarence H. White, among others. Work double bed was the official magazine of the group. In his last numbers it published some works that represented the rupture with the traditional subjects and the recognition of the aesthetic value of the daily objects. After the members were disintegrated, Stieglitz continued supporting new talents by means of exhibitions in Gallery 291 of its property, in the 291 of the Fifth Avenue of New York. Between the American photographers whom they exhibited their works in her are Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Ansel Easton Adams and Imogen Cunningham.

Manipulated photography
The photography, however, has not been freed completely of the influence of the painting. During the Twenties, in Europe, the inconformistas ideas of the Dadá movement found their expression in works of the Hungarian László Moholy-Nagy and the American Man Ray, who used the technique of the manipulation. In order to obtain his photograms or rayografías, they worked of totally spontaneous form, they took abstract images preparing the objects on sensible surfaces to the light. Also photographies experimented with solarizadas, method that consists of reexponer a photo to the light during the developing process, that gives like result a total or partial change of the white and black tones, exaggerates the silhouettes or contours. In Spain it emphasizes the example of the Basoue Nicholas de Lekuona. In its work the influence of the artistic vanguards of the moment is reflected, through numerous fotomontajes and tilted frames or in mincemeat. As well as the photography had released to the painting of its traditional paper, the new adopted principles of the surrealistic painting, the Dadá and collage allowed the artistic photography to use manipulated techniques.

Direct photography
At the same time, however, a group of American photographers existed who, following the theories of Stieglitz, continued with the direct, that is to say, not manipulated photography. In the Thirties several Californian photographers created an informal group to which they called f/64 (f/64 is the opening of the diaphragm that provides a great depth of field). The members of f/64, Weston, the Adams and Cunningham, among others, shared the opinion of which the photographers had to operate the own ones and inherent characteristics of the camera to secure an image that caught the distant details with an equal clearness to the one of the near objects. These artists took direct images from natural forms, people and landscapes.

Last tendencies
From 1950, they have been appearing diverse tendencies as the distinction between the documentary photography and the artistic one became less clear. Some photographers inclined towards the inward-looking photography whereas others made towards the paisajismo or the social document. One third tendency exists, that has been developed as of the first years of the decade of 1960, towards an impersonal and more and more abstract manipulated photography. For it many of the used systems of impression in the first years of the photography have been revived. By opposition, the neorealistic painters have including real photos in many of their pictures. The work of the photographers in color is beginning to overcome the prejudices previous critics against the use of the color in the artistic photography.

Recognition of the photography as a form of the art
At present, the photography has affirmed like artistic means. Original photographies to the collectors through galleries are sold, and works (as well as elements of photographic equipment) of historical interest appear with regularity in the auctions. Every year a great number of tests is published critics of photography and history of its evolution, as well as works that reproduce the works of the most outstanding artists. Magazines dedicated to this artistic manifestation (different from that contains instructions of handling for professionals and fans) contain studies on the aesthetic one of the photography. The most important museums worldwide own magnificent photographic collections, although there are specialized others more, like the International Museum of Photography de Rochester (New York), the International Center of Photography of New York, the Museum of Photographic Arts of San Diego (Californian), the Pompidou Center of Paris, the Valencian Institute of Arte Moderno (IVAM) and diverse museums of Switzerland and Germany.

That's the history of photography, which are summarized from various sources, mostly from the encyclopedia

Bibliography: Encyclopedia Encarta 99.
Reference: http://www.foto3.es/