The Origins of Photography
Louis Daguerre
The Invention of Photography
Chemical / Optical
“collecting place” “locked treasure room”
Mozi Chinese Philosopher, 5th Century BC
Abelardo Morell View of Central Park Looking North, 2008
Abelardo Morell View of Landscape Outside Florence in Room with Bookcase, 2009
Abelardo Morell Times Square in Hotel Room, 2010
Illustration of Camera Obscura, 1544
Camera Obscura
Thomas Sandby, Nottingham, Unknown date
Thomas Wedgwood approx. 1800 Paper treated with silver nitrate
Joseph Nicephore Niepce
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Joseph Nicephore Niepce-View from his window at La Gras. 1826
Joseph Nicephore Niepce, View from his window at La Gras, 1826
Joseph Nicephore Niepce-View from his window at La Gras. 1827
Louis Daguerre
Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, People Visiting a Romanesque Run, 1826
Daguerre and Niepce became partners in 1829
“Daguerreotype”
Louis Daguerre, L’Atelier de l’artiste, 1837
Louis Daguerre Boulevard du Temple, Paris (Reproduction) 1838
August 19, 1839
Photography is introduced to the world as a “gift to humanity” and a
“force for social progress”
Daguerreotype
• Announced August 19, 1839
• First practical photo process
• Direct positive image • One of a kind- NO
reproduction • Sharp Detail • Small • Reflective Surface
Hippolyte Bayard Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man, 1840
From 1839 on, 24 persons claimed to have invented photography
Henry Fox Talbot Inventor of the Calotype
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Haystack, 1844
“After having devoted much labor and attention to the perfecting of this invention, and having now brought it, as I think, to a point in which it deserved the notice of the scientific world,- that exactly at the moment that I was then engaged in drawing up an account of it, to be presented to the Royal Society, the same invention should be announced in France” –William Henry Fox Talbot
Calotype • Announced around
1841 by Henry Fox Talbot
• Produced paper NEGATIVE image, so copies were possible.
• Precursor to negative film
• Not as sharp as Daguerreotype, so not as popular
Nature’s Process
“…all language must fall short of conveying any just idea of the truth…but the closest scrutiny of the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented.” -Edgar Allan Poe
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Theodore Maurisset La Daguerreotypomanie 1840
The Invention of Photography
Chemical / Optical