CS100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Nicéphore Niépce, Henry Fox Talbot, Camera Obscura
Photography and The Moving Image
Consumption and Celebrity
Photography
● From Greek (phos = light, graphos = writing)
○ Daguerreotype (1830s)
○ Calotype / Talbotype (1840s)
○ Wet-plate (1850s)
○ Dry-late (1870s)
○ Celluloid (1880s)
○ KODAK (1888)
● Camera obscura → image reflected off mirror, someone drew reflection
● First known photograph → Joseph Nicephore Niepce, balcony, heliograph, 1827
Daguerreotype → slide shutter on or off, coated metal plates are in back of camera, sun reflects
through and burns image on plate, would take 20-30 minutes - first time there has been crisp
clear lifelike representations of someone, became status symbol to have daguerreotype as it
was expensive, produced one single image
Calotype → William Henry Fox Talbot, china, salted paper print, image burned onto paper was
inverse of what was to be printed (negative), wasn’t as clear as daguerreotype, but allowed for
multiple images to be printed by single source
Wet-plate → Roger Fenton, Photographic Wagon, gel put on plate, plate exposed but had to be
processed before it dried, develop it in darkroom, must be done quickly without further exposure
to light, high quality detail but time intensive, lots of work, first aerial picture, allows you to leave
studio… Matthew Brady (early photojournalist), Federal Dead, Gettysburg 1863 → allows for
new kinds of information
Dry-plate → chemical compound can be suspended in solution, can be developed later,
exposure times declining into seconds (fractions of seconds)
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
From greek (phos = light, graphos = writing) Camera obscura image reflected off mirror, someone drew reflection. First known photograph joseph nicephore niepce, balcony, heliograph, 1827. Calotype william henry fox talbot, china, salted paper print, image burned onto paper was inverse of what was to be printed (negative), wasn"t as clear as daguerreotype, but allowed for multiple images to be printed by single source. Dry-plate chemical compound can be suspended in solution, can be developed later, exposure times declining into seconds (fractions of seconds) Kodak camera . you press the button and we do the rest, emergence of photographic industry (film/camera makers, photographers, developers Almost anyone could take photographs, colour not introduced till 1907, but system was set in place by 1900. Photography quickly cements itself as a mass media. Matthew brady manipulates the scene to capture truth of what he saw. Begins to have uses in advertising, demonstrating social issues (poverty)
