Early Photography Notes Lecture 1 Notes

Definition of Photography:
- Photo (from Latin) means light.
- Graphi means writing.
- Photography is essentially writing with light; capturing light onto a permanent medium.
- Early photography was more akin to a chemistry experiment than modern digital photography.

Camera Obscura:
- Discovered before photography.
- Artists used it to project images for tracing.
- Literally translates to "dark room."
- Invented in the 15th century.
- Light enters through a small hole, projecting an inverted image onto a surface.
- Famous artists like Vermeer used it to capture landscapes accurately.

1826: Niepce's Heliograph
- Considered one of the earliest successful attempts at recording a scene.
- Frenchman Niepce used a heliograph to cast light onto a pewter plate.
- The pewter plate was chemically treated to react to light particles.
- Resulted in a blurred image of the scene outside his window.
Heliography
- Invented around 1822 by Niepce.
- A photographic process involving engraving using a sensitized silver plate.
- The silver plate is treated with asphalt or bitumen varnish.
- The engraving is made with light.
- Required about eight hours of exposure time.
- Not practical for portraiture due to the long exposure time.

Daguerre and His Invention:
- Daguerre, a stage artist, sought a technique to aid in stage setting.
- Developed a more mature way of recording light, named after him - Daguerreotype.
- Used light-sensitive copper plates coated with silver iodine.
First Image - Still Life:
- The first image he tested was a still life.
- Still life was a common theme in Europe, featuring precious objects.
- The focus was on capturing different textures and details.
- The image quality was far superior to Niepce's heliograph.
Why Still Life?
- The choice of still life allowed for showcasing the ability to capture light and shade in detail.
- Particularly, it demonstrated how to reveal shapes and textures.
- The goal was to show the invention's capability to capture reality, potentially replacing painting.
- The graduated tones of light and shade could be effectively captured on sculptures.
1839: Daguerre's Breakthrough
- View of the Boulevard du Temple.
- Exposure time ranged from five to sixty minutes.
- Only stationary objects and people were captured.
- The image was crisp and clear, recording details, buildings, and trees.
- The Academy of Science and Arts in France recognized Daguerre's invention, heralding it as a world-changing creation.

Daguerreotype and Calotype Lecture 2 Notes

New invention, not yet mature.
Requires many parts:
- Camera obscura (main part).
- Dark box.
- Silver plate (for recording light particles).
- Chemical treatments (e.g., iodine).
- Sliding legs, developing equipment, etc.
Not portable compared to modern phones.
Requires more than one person to operate.
Samuel Morse:
- Inventor of the telegraph.
- In Paris when daguerreotype was announced.
- First to communicate the discovery to America.
Robert Cornelius:
- Took the earliest portrait in the U.S. in the same year that Daguerre photographed his portrait.
- Indicates that the United States was up-to-date in adapting this technology.

Records light particles on paper, not silver plate.
Involves a negative and a positive:
- Negative: Recorded in the camera.
- Positive: Developed from the negative onto paper.
Significance:
- Reproducibility of photographs.
- Allows for mass production, beneficial for print media (newspapers).
- Enables establishing a business.
- More practical as it does not require carrying a dark room.
Accidental discovery:
- Talbot discovered that salt paper could record light and shade.
Ambitious promotion:
- Published "The Pencil of Nature," the first book of photographic images, illustrating the scientific and practical applications of photography.
- Patented his work for profit.
Demonstration photograph:
- Taken with calotype to show its capabilities (indoor/outdoor, light/shade).
- Details in the image demonstrate calotype's sharpness and ability to capture various textures.

Which one became a commercial success (the "unicorn" of the 19th century)? The hint focuses around portraiture.
Consider the pros and cons of each.

Inventors: Daguerre and Niépce (French), Talbot (British).
France and Britain:
- Dominant empires in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- Possessed resources for technological advancements.
18th and 19th centuries in the U.S. and Europe:
- Intensification of capitalism.
- Shift from mercantile to industrial capitalism (mass production).
- Technological developments (steam engine, electricity).
- Acceptance of Enlightenment thinking.
- Rise of nation-states.
Photography in the context of other inventions (1826-1903):
- X-ray, airplane, motion pictures, radio, light bulbs, telephone, electric motor, sewing machine, telegraph, dynamite, typewriter, etc.
Photography is one of many inventions during a period of social and intellectual change.
People actively pursued science to build a new society based on Enlightenment thinking.

Photography is constitutive of modernity.
Photography shaped the modern condition.
Modernity produced photography (due to technological advancements).
Photography changed our way of understanding modernity by providing different ways of seeing.
Renewed modern way of seeing the world.
Photography is "writing history with light."
Susan Sontag: "To collect photography is to collect the world."