Photography- Birth of Photography

For our photography unit we are to write about the different techniques of capturing a photograph. I figured that the best place to start would be the first reported evidence of photography, and take it from there. I did research and found out that a man by the name of Joseph Nicephore Niepce, produced what is believed to be the first ever photo from a window of his estate in France. He used a technique called Heliography

First recorded photograph by Joseph Nicephore Niepce

I read that the process involved using a naturally occurring asphalt, as a coating on glass and sometimes metal. It hardened when exposed to light. When the plate was washed with oil of lavender, only the hardened areas remained. This sounds like a very clever way of create an image but its not one I feel I can fully review as I wont be able to try this myself. This technique sounds more like a science experiment than photography, but come to think of it, chemistry and photography are closely related when it comes to these kinds of techniques.



Camera Oscura apparatus from around 1770-1775 


Camera Obscura
The name in Latin means Dark Chamber and it consisted of a dark room with light coming through a single tiny hole. The image will be inverted and onto the whitened surface inside the box in which a draftsman or painter would trace the image. This sounds a lot like solargraphy which we have been looking at in class, but the main difference is that the light does all the work when it comes to the solar can. Its interesting to see how photography has evolved so much with new techniques being found regularly.

I'm not sure if I would call Camera Obscura a good example of photography as it seems to rely on the skills of the draftsman to portray the projected images accurately. So it may lose the consistency due to that factor. I suppose over the years the technology has evolved to point where we have to do little to no work to produce a photograph, all we have to do nowadays is point and shoot and the camera does the work. All we need is the vision and timing to capture the right image at the right time which is a skill in itself.


The Magic Lantern
I read that in 1659 the Magic Lantern was introduced and replaced the Camera Obscura as a projector device. The camera Obscura was mainly popular as a drawing aid but the Magic Lantern was said to be the upgraded version of that. This devices was mainly used for entertainment and educational purposes but it was definitely a step forward in the world of imagery. A compact version was then introduced in the 20th century which could hold many 35mm photographic slides.


19th century magic lantern with printed slide inserted

This contraption is mainly more for displaying images printed onto slides but the idea behind it seems like a step in the right direction. And the progression to making it more compact in the later years makes it a much more practical use as apposed to the much larger contraption of the camera obscura.



Final thoughts
Looking back at the beginning of photography has been enlightening, I wasn't aware of what was considered a photograph back then. Some of these examples require a lot of manual work to achieve and some might argue that it is the skill and knowledge of the practitioner, and not the equipment that leads to these images being created. It sounds like a lot of work, but we had to start somewhere, photography has evolved so much since, but it wouldn't be the same if techniques like these didn't kick start the idea of capturing a still image.