The document traces the origins and early development of photography from the camera obscura through its evolution into a portable box form. It describes some of the key early inventors and photographic processes including Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce's "first photograph" from 1826, the daguerreotype process developed by Nièpce and Daguerre, and the calotype process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot which produced negatives allowing for multiple prints. The document also discusses how photography became more widely available commercially in the mid-19th century through portrait studios and the rise of cartes de visite photographs.

1. Photography
GETS BORN
ART 100
Summer 2016
Diane ARBUS, Crying Child, New Jersey, 1967

2. photography seems like an
inevitable fact of modern life
but, where did it come from?

3. The original “camera” is as big as
a nice walk-in closet!

4. The origins of the “camera”
These diagrams are two early depictions of the workings of the
“camera obscura” (meaning "dark room”), in which an external image
enters a darkened chamber through a pinhole opening and appears
upside down on the opposite wall. The resulting image can be traced.
It's essentially a very elaborate "drawing aid."

5. Slowly the camera
obscura gets
smaller and more
portable. Here it has
contracted to the
size a small cabinet
with legs.

6. The origins of the “camera”
Gradually it shrinks to a tabletop apparatus, and finally, to the size of a small box.

7. The origins of the “camera”
With the room-size camera obscura now contracted into a small box, the
pinhole replaced with a lens that permits focusing, and a mirror installed to
reverse the image, all that remains is to find a way of making the reflected
image permanent.

8. The physics and optics of the
camera are put together first,
but the chemistry remains to be
cracked.

9. As often happens in the history of technology, multiple
competing solutions appear at more or less the same
time.
It turns out that a number of alternative chemical
solutions to the problem are developed.
Use these links to see some of the possibilities that
were explored by early photographers:
– http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_phot
ography_-_processes.htm
– http://photographymuseum.org/primer.html
– http://www.birrcastle.com/history/photographicTec
hniques.asp#

10. Today some photographers still enjoy
experimenting with different techniques from
the 19th century.
http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/p
rocesses
http://imsc.usc.edu/haptics/LostandFound/e
arly.html

11. This link shows how the different kinds of 19th
photographs have aged differently, detailing
how these photographs (which are stored in
many libraries and archived collections) may
appear today and can be properly classified.
This is the kind of information that people
who work closely with historical objects have
in mind.
http://www.lib.ua.edu/libraries/hoole/collections/
PhotographTypesatTheW.S.HooleSpecialColl
ectionsLibrary.htm

12. The dominant technology in France is
invented by Joseph Nièpce (NEE-eps) in
conjunction with Daguerre (DAH-gair).

13. Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce,
View from the Window at Le Gras, c. 1826, heliograph
“the first photograph”

14. Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce
View from the Window at Le Gras, c. 1826, sketch by
Helmut Gernsheim

15. Joseph Nicéphore Nièpce
View from the Window at Le Gras, 1826, 1952 print

16. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibiti
ons/permanent/wfp/
LEARN MORE about the
"first photograph"

17. equipment needed for “daguerreotype” process

18. early daguerreotypes
View of San Francisco,
1848
• tend to be quite small
• produce a sharply
detailed image
• they produce a single,
"positive" image (not
multiple prints from a
negative)
• also known as
"tintypes" because the
image imprints on a
metal plate

19. Portrait of
Edgar Allan Poe, 1848
Often presented in
decorative leather cases.

20. early daguerreotypes
The Barton family dog, Nero, 1848
Group of 10 unidentified boys,
Date unknown

21. "calotype"
• In England, a competing process was
invented by William Henry Fox Talbot. He
called his process the “calotype.”
• It was rather different as it was a negative
process, capable of generating multiple
prints on paper.
• Softer, more faded image.

22. Talbot published a beautiful folio
of his photographs in 1844 to
promote his new invention. He
called photography the "Pencil of
Nature" and thought of it as
nature writing its own image in
light.

23. Talbot, Bust of Patroclus, 1839

24. Talbot, Articles of Glass, 1839

25. Books in a
Library

26. Talbot, “The Haystack,” 1839

27. Photography began as a plaything of the
rich but quickly entrepreneurs and inventors
sought to make it widely available.

28. Nadar’s studio, 35 boulevard des
Capucines, Paris
Gaspard Félix Tournachon, “Nadar”

30. Disdéri, Portrait of Rosa
Bonheur, c. 1871

31. Nadar,
Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt

32. Disdéri, uncut sheet of cartes-
de visite

33. Queen Victoria in carte-de-visite
format

34. Disdéri, Unidentified Ballerina, uncut
sheet of carte-de-visite photographs

35. Disdéri, Self Portrait
The days of a handheld camera that
anyone can use are still in the
future!
For now, the photographer has a
unique set of skills.

36. Daumier, “Nadar, elevating the
status of photography to an art,”
May 1862