Birth Of Photography

Thinking Photography

In the beginning...

18th Century:

• The Enlightenment - Age of reason
• Idea of challenging the orthodox
• Challenging religious belief.
• End of superstition
• Replace by science/reason and evidence
• Based upon experience
• Birth of experimentation and responsibility for own knowledge.

The Enlightenment or The Age of Reason (1650 - 1800) brought an era where acceptance of the world and how it was was questioned and challenge, this meant that people were beginning to challenge the church, especially the Catholics. The Enlightenment / Age of Reason was responsible for creating a way for the art of Photography.

John Locke (1632-1704)
Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

Voltaire (1694 - 1778) 
A group of philosophical thinkers, that helped to create this Movement by starting to question what had previously accepted as 'gospel' from the church, instead of agreeing and conforming with these ideas they began to use rationality and logic to the workings of the world. Before this era, and the new thinkings of great thinkers, religion and superstition had been the explanation for all strange workings within the world.

This new idea based around the idea of rational and logical thinking led to many people beginning to experiment and a want for evidence. An English painter named Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-97) began looking at the effect of light and dark within his paintings. He also started to express the discussions and findings from the meetings know as the Lunar Society, which were a gathering of prominent philosophers, scientists and industrialists, of which he was a member.

Joseph Wright  Of Derby, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery (c.1764 - 1766)

A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, shows a lesson on the solar system, the Orrery is a device used by early lecturers on the subject to attempt to demonstrate the planets orbiting the sun. The term light was said to be a metaphor for knowledge, ideas and awareness. The term 'philosopher' is presumed to be equal to that of a 'teacher'. This would support the idea that philosophers took up this role and were major in the leaps made during the Enlightenment. Another example of Joseph Wrights scientific exploration can be seen in An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. This image was said to be recreating an experiment by Robert Boyle who is thought to have created this experiment and used a number of different animals. 

The era of Classicism is where Photography begun, its roots started in ancient Greek and Roman times encompassing, art, architecture, music and literature. Classical music began in approx. 1750. A music composition written by Joseph Hayden in 1761 called Le Matin is said to be a metaphor for The Enlightenment, as it starts slowly at first and gradually builds momentum. Other composers such as Shubert, Mozart and Beethoven  went forth to bring classical music to how it is known today.

The term Camera Obscura, comes from the Latin meaning 'dark' (obscura) 'room' (camera). This is a small hole in the wall of a dark room or tent that allowed light to pass through the wall and reflect an inverted image on a white surface on the opposing wall. This method is thought to have been used first more than a thousand years ago. The example above was built in 1544 by the Dutch scientist and mathematician, Reinerus Gemma-Frisius, who wanted to view an eclipse as it was dangerous to look firectly at the sun. The circle on the left is intended to show the sun reflecting light through a pin hole which would project the image on the wall and be a safe way to view the sun.

The early camera obscura allowed artists to capture an accurate representation of a scene by allowing them to trace the image being projected. In the beginning the images shown were inverted and upside down but perspective was maintained. 

Jan Vermeer (1632-75) is said to have used a portable camera obscura to create his painting that replicated life like scenes with all the proportions and perspective accurately. Various artists such as Canaletto began to see the benefits of the camera obscura. in their work, and actively used it.

Perspective was a phenomenon that came to light during the Renaissance period. The Enlightenment (or Age of Reason) therefore understood this concept but the camera obscurer was able to further prove the theory. The lens came to be seen as representing fact, a way of truth and could be relied upon to produce photo-like imagery. BeforeThe Enlightenment a lot of experimentation with lenses and chemicals had begun, such as the work of Johannes Lipershey (1570 -1619) had already invented the telescope in 1608 which was a big help to to the invention of the camera.

Creating the permanent image

View from the Window at LeGras 

Joseph Nicephore Niepce (1765 – 1833)
Niepce was the first person to officially fix an image with his View from the Window at LeGras. This image was of a view overlooking a courtyard framed with buildings either side at a farmhouse in France. It was fixed on a piece of metal, coated with silver nitrate, and exposed for approximately 8 hours. This image is said to be the earliest photograph in existence. Niepce is said to have been introduced to Louis Jacques Daguerre (1787 – 1851) by a Optician who Daguerre was working with to try and improve upon the clarity of the lens in the camera obscura.  Daguerre and Niepce’s began working together initially to try and reduce the exposure time required. 

In January 1839, Daguerre announced his invention. Using a piece of polished copper plate, polished to a mirror like finish, the surface was coated with iodine gas and exposed to produce a fixed image. His first image of a boulevard in France required an exposure of  at least 10 minutes which meant any moving subjects were lost. This was evidenced by the one man captured and otherwise lack of activity during exposure in this likely full street scene, made possible from the static position required while having your boots polished. 

French bought and patented the Daguerreotype, and made it free to all but the USA & GB in 1839. 

After this, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77) began to experiment with the idea of different methods to create photographs, and created the Calotype method, which was a more advanced idea of the previous. This was a paper process and created one of the first recorded negative. This image was of a Latticed Window at Laycock Abbey.

It reads: Latticed Window (with the camera obscura) August 1835When first made, the squares of glass about 200 in numbers could be counted with the help of a lens.

The term ‘Photography’ is said to have made popular by Sir Frederick William Herschel (1792–1871), meaning light (photo) and drawings (graphy). As the age of photography took hold there was a shift in portrait painters becoming portrait photographers, adopting the same principles of painting. 

• Painters into photographers.
• Used photography as documentation
• Disruption group
• Working photography/democratic subject matter
• First commercial photographers
• Commissioned for images