History of Photography Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the key figures, dates, inventions, and theoretical concepts from Muzzarelli's History of Photography lectures at the University of Bologna.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

A medical professor at Harvard who, between $1859$ and $1863$, referred to photography as a 'mirror with a memory' and wrote about stereoscopy in the Atlantic Monthly.

Stereoscopy

Invented by Wheatstone in $1838$ and perfected by Brewster in $1849$, this technique intensifies an image to create an apparent reality that tricks the senses into feeling physically and mentally moved to a virtual elsewhere.

Sir Charles Wheatstone

The inventor of stereoscopic photography in $1838$.

The Photographic (Krauss)

Rosalind Krauss's term for that which, within a given image, makes it a photographic image.

Nièpce

The individual who used Bitumen of Judea and created the first photograph in history, the 'Vista dalla finestra a Gras'.

Heliography

Named by Nièpce as 'sun writing,' it describes the spontaneous reproduction of images received in the camera oscura through the action of light.

Bitumen of Judea

A resin used on pewter plates that hardens and turns a pale white color when exposed to sunlight, used by Nièpce for the first photographs.

Ten Hours

The approximate exposure time required for the first photograph in history on a pewter plate coated with Bitumen of Judea.

Sir John Herschel

The person who introduced the term 'photography' in a letter in $1839$ and was the first to use the terms 'snapshot,' 'negative,' and 'positive.'

Photo-engravings (Fotoincisioni)

The name given to Nièpce's first photographic attempts.

Artificial Eye

Nièpce's definition of the camera oscura, which he described as a simple small box of about $15$ square centimeters per face.

Latent Image

Discovered by accident by Daguerre in $1835$, it is the phenomenon where a silvered copper plate reveals an image when treated with mercury vapors after exposure.

Boulevard du Temple ($1839$)

A photograph by Daguerre that became the first image of a human figure, capturing a bystander who remained still at the edge of a busy street.

Francois Jean Dominique Arago

A politician and scientist who announced the birth of photography to the Paris Academy of Sciences on January $7$, $1839$, and advocated for the French state to donate the discovery to humanity.

Dagherrotipo (Daguerreotype)

Images on metal plates ($20 \times 15\text{ cm}$) protected in cases; they are non-reproducible direct positives that appear inverted from right to left.

Indexical Signs (Pierce)

Charles Sanders Pierce's classification of photography as a sign produced in physical contiguity with its referent.

Polaroid

An instant-development camera where the developed photo exits the device used for capture, often used by artists like Mapplethorpe for its voyeuristic and private qualities.

H. F. Talbot

The inventor who presented 'The Art of Photogenic Drawing' in $1839$ and produced the first photographic negative in $1835$ (Window with Grid Frame).

Calotype

A photographic process developed by H. F. Talbot.

The Pencil of Nature

A phrase used by H. F. Talbot to describe his photographic work.

Off-camera Images

Images created without a camera, experimented with by Talbot, Nièpce, Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, and Christian Schad.

Images Photogenees

The name Hippolyte Bayard gave to his direct positive images on paper sensitized with silver iodide in February $1839$.

Le Noyé (The Drowned Man)

An $1840$ project by Bayard where he photographed himself as a drowned man to take revenge on the French government for neglecting his invention.

Micro-experience of Death

Roland Barthes's definition of photography.

Cartes-de-visite

Patented by Disderì on November $22$, $1854$, this camera with multiple lenses produced up to eight sequential or identical images on one plate, facilitating mass photography.

Michel Frizot

The critic who stated that with the carte-de-visite, photography moved from the 'frame on the wall' to the 'album on the table'.

Car Photographique

Patented in $1889$ by Carquerot and Guillamout, it was a cart that marked a step toward automated photography where a button press opened the shutter.

Photomaton

Invented in $1924$ in New York by Anatol Marco Josepho, marketed with the slogan 'Photograph yourself! Eight poses in eight minutes!'

Oscar Reijlander

Defined as a 'failed painter,' he was known for 'Hard Times' ($1860$) and using photomontage techniques that later influenced Berlin Dadaism.

Paul Delaroche

The individual who exclaimed 'From today, painting is dead!' upon seeing a daguerreotype.

Ready-made ($1913$)

Marcel Duchamp's introduction that shifted art away from manual skill and uniqueness, allowing photography to emancipate itself from traditional painting.

Excursions Daguerriennes

Published between $1841$ and $1844$ by Horace Vernet and Frédéric Goupil-Fesquet, featuring early travel photography in Egypt.

Charles Baudelaire

A critic who called photography the 'gymnasium of failed painters' and criticized its excessive adherence to reality and industrial nature.

Pictorialism

A movement where photographers desperately followed the model of paintings to be considered artists.

Punctum

A notion that can be linked to the concept of the photographic index.

Leon Battista Alberti

The first to use the 'open window' metaphor regarding perspective in $1435$.

Roger Fenton

Generally considered the first war photographer, known for his work during the Crimean War ($1853-1856$), including 'The Valley of the Shadow of Death'.

Nadar

Known as the 'Titian of Photography,' his studio was at Boulevard des Capucines, and he was praised for capturing the 'air' of his subjects.

Phantasmagoria

Inaugurated in $1798$ by Etienne-Gaspard Robertson, it was a 'scientific marvel' featuring moving images that changed size using a fantascope.

Optograms

Hypothesized by Dr. Bourion ($1868$) as images registered on the retinas of corpses immediately before death.

Mummy Complex

André Bazin's theory that humans use reality representation like photography to satisfy an ancestral need to crystallize time and halt the decay of the body.

Philippe Dubois

Author of 'L'atto fotografico' who argued that photography cannot be thought of independently from the act of its creation.

Countess of Castiglione

Defined as the 'Great Travestita' (Great Disguised One), she used photography with Pierre-Louis Pierson to create a parallel life through dozens of roles.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Known for her 'Glass House' studio, 'Rembrandt effects,' and long exposure times used to create tableaux vivants.

D'apres nature

A label used for nude photography to pass them off as academic anatomical studies for painting, allowing them to circulate in Salons.

Alinari Brothers

Founders of a laboratory in $1852$ dedicated to the cataloging and architectural/artistic topography of Italy.

New Topographics ($1975$)

An exhibition by William Jenkins featuring the Bechers and others focused on the objective and serial mapping of man-altered landscapes.

FSA (Farm Security Administration)

A photographic mission under Roy Stryker for Roosevelt's New Deal, featuring Lange, Evans, Shahn, and Rothstein.

School of Dusseldorf

A photographic tradition started by the Bechers characterized by detached, minimalist, and objective views of architectural elements.

Auguste Bertillon

The inventor of 'bertillonage' in $1882$, a method of standardized police criminal identification/booking.

Eadweard Muybridge

Famous for the zoopraxiscope ($1880$), 'Animal Locomotion' ($1887$), and the photofinish ($1888$).

Jacob Riis

A social photographer who documented the slums of New York in 'How the other half lives' ($1890$) using a Kodak detective and magnesium flash.

Lewis Hine

The photographer behind 'Men at work' ($1932$) who documented child labor and the construction of the Empire State Building.

Kodak

Created in $1888$ by George Eastman, it was a lightweight, fixed-focus camera with a shutter speed of $1/25$ per second and $100$ pre-loaded shots.

Snapshot

A term introduced by John Herschel referring to an instant photo caught on the fly without formal pretenses.

Sony Mavica

The first digital device, presented by Akio Morita on August $24$, $1981$.