By S am Casey

1. History Of photography and development as an art form By Sam Casey

2. The Camera Obscura In the early 19th century a contraption called the camera obscura was created to aid in permanently recording images as photographs. The camera obscura consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down. It was invented by Johann Zahn in 1685.

3. First Photograph The first recorded photograph was taken in the early years of the 19th century. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the first photograph by using a camera obscura. The first picture was taken of a man with a horse.

4. Developing Photos A painter working in Paris, Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, became interested in Joseph Nicepes work and persuaded him to go into partnership in 1829. Nicepe died four years later and Daguerre continued Nicepes work with his own son Isadore. Nicepe invented, permanently developing images on photographic paper. He did this by using bitumen which was dissolved in lavender oil. This changed the way that people took photos as you would no longer have to etch out your photos. He called the process of developing photos heliography.

5. At the same time that Daguerre was working and discovering new ways to make photographs William Henry Fox Talbot was working on a method to permanently preserve the image created by the camera obscura using a chemical process. William Henry Fox Talbot discovered that to preserve a photo you needed to have. a sheet of fine writing paper, coated with salt and brushed with a solution of silver nitrate, darkened in the sun, and that a second coating of salt impeded further darkening or fading. Talbot used this discovery to make precise tracings of botanical specimens: he set a pressed leaf or plant on a piece of sensitized paper, covered it with a sheet of glass, and set it in the sun. Wherever the light struck, the paper darkened, but wherever the plant blocked the light, it remained white. He called his new discovery "the art of photogenic drawing."

6. In 1851, another Englishman, Frederick Scott Archer, introduced a process where glass plates, not paper, were covered with a light-sensitive solution. This process was known as the ‘collodion wet plate processes’. The process works by having the photographic material to be coated, sensitized, exposed and developed within the span of about fifteen minutes, necessitating a portable darkroom for use in the field.

7. Advantages • The advantages of this process are The collodion process produced a negative image on a transparent support (glass). This was an improvement over the calotype process, invented by William Henry Fox Talbot, which relied on paper negatives, and the daguerreotype, which produced a one-of-a-kind positive image and could not be replicated. The collodion process, thus combined desirable qualities of the calotype process (enabling the photographer to make a theoretically unlimited number of prints from a single negative) and the daguerreotype (creating a sharpness and clarity that could not be achieved with paper negatives). Collodion printing was typically done on albumen paper. The collodion process had other advantages, especially in comparison with the daguerreotype. It was a relatively inexpensive process. The polishing equipment and fuming equipment needed for the daguerreotype could be dispensed with entirely. The support for the images was glass, which was far less expensive than silver-plated copper, and was more durable than paper negatives. It was also fast for the time, requiring only seconds for exposure.

8. Disadvatages The wet collodion process had a major disadvantage. The entire process, from coating to developing, had to be done before the plate dried. This gave the photographer no more than 10 minutes to complete everything. This made it inconvenient for field use, as it required a portable darkroom. The plate dripped silver nitrate solution, causing stains and troublesome build-ups in the camera and plate holders. The silver nitrate bath was also a source of problems. It gradually became saturated with alcohol, ether, iodide and bromide salts, dust, and various organic matter. It would lose effectiveness, causing plates to mysteriously fail to produce an image. As with all preceding photographic processes, the wet-collodion process was sensitive only to blue light. Warm colours appear dark, cool colours uniformly light. A sky with clouds is impossible to render, as the spectrum of white clouds contains about as much blue as the sky. Lemons and tomatoes appear a shiny black, and a blue and white tablecloth appears plain white. Victorian sitters who in collodion photographs look as if they are in mourning might have been wearing bright yellow or pink.[1]

9. Stereo Photography Photography became increasingly popular with many wealthy people , who enjoyed recording images as well as having their portraits taken. Another popular innovation was a process known as sterio-photography.