ch 21 lecture and book notes

Camera obscura –

Dark room/box with a tiny hole (or lens) that projects an inverted image of the outside scene onto the opposite wall for tracing.

first camera

alhazeen 1000 AD

Camera lucida –

Portable drawing aid (patented 1806) that uses mirrors and lenses to superimpose the view onto a drawing surface, helping users copy what they see.

second camera

drawing aide

Calotype

– William Fox Talbot’s 1841 photographic process that creates a paper negative, allowing multiple positive prints; the ancestor of modern film photography.

Collodion

– Syrupy nitrocellulose solution mixed with light‑sensitive salts; forms the wet plate used in the wet collodion photographic process.

Daguerreotype

– Louis Daguerre’s 1839 method producing a single, highly detailed image on a silver‑coated copper plate; the first widely publicized photograph.

Darkroom

Light‑tight space where photographic material is developed, fixed, and washed; essential for early chemical processes.

Digital sensor

– Silicon chip (CCD or CMOS) that converts light into electronic signals, replacing film in modern cameras.

Dry plate

– Pre‑coated glass plate that could be stored and exposed later, simplifying photography after the wet‑plate era.

Exposure

– Duration the camera’s shutter remains open, letting light strike the light‑sensitive material; longer exposures capture more light but risk motion blur.

Golden Section (Golden Ratio)

– Proportion ≈ 1:1.618 used by artists to arrange elements harmoniously, reinforcing depth created by perspective

Halftone process

– Printing technique that renders a photograph as a pattern of varying‑size dots, enabling images in newspapers and magazines.

Illusionary (linear) perspective

– Drawing method using converging lines and vanishing points to give a flat surface the appearance of three‑dimensional depth.

Kodak (camera)

– George Eastman’s 1888 compact camera loaded with roll film; users simply “point and shoot,” then send the camera for processing.

Lens –

Glass (later plastic) element that bends light to focus and magnify an image; added to camera obscura for clearer projections.

Neoclassical painting

– 18th‑century art style reviving classical Greek/Roman aesthetics; regarded as “dead” after photography demonstrated a more direct way to capture reality.

Optics

– Science of light behavior (reflection, refraction, lenses); foundational for camera obscura, camera lucida, and early photographic lenses.

Negative (photography)

– Inverted image (light areas appear dark, dark areas appear light) produced on paper or film; used to generate multiple positive prints.

Positive (photography)

– Image that reproduces the original scene’s tones, made from a negative.

Renaissance

– European cultural rebirth (14th‑17th centuries) that introduced realistic art techniques like illusionary perspective.

Roll film

– Flexible strip of transparent base coated with light‑sensitive emulsion; enabled multiple exposures per load and later motion pictures.

Stereoscopic photograph

– Pair of side‑by‑side images taken from slightly different angles; viewed together they give a 3‑D illusion.

Wet collodion (wet plate) process –

Mid‑19th‑century method where a glass plate is coated with wet collodion, exposed, then developed and fixed; used by Civil‑War photographers.

joseph niepce

1st permanent photograph

single postive image

niepce’s garden: first permanent photograph (ran through chemicals so it doesnt change0

louis jaques- mande daguerre

daguerro type

single postive image

french academy of science (de la rouche)

william fox talbot

calotype

negative process

multiple copies

sheet of paper coated with silver xloride

calotype was a negative process

photogram

image created without a camera by placing an object on light sensitive paper

constance mundy fox talbot

williams wife

was involved as much as him

experts suspect some of the images created by her were credited to william

roger fenton

photographed crime and war

one of the first to document war

ex. of using photographs to document the world and not art

mathew brady

shown in galleries (ny, wash)

hired 20 photographers

alexander gardner

worked for brady

george barnard and timmy o sullivan

George worked for barnard

hired by gov to picture lincolns assassins execution

geroge eastman

roll film

kodak camera

easier cheaper