19th August, 1939 (World Photographic Day)
10:14:00
World Photography Day originates from the invention of the Daguerreotype, a photographic process developed by Joseph Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre in 1837.
On 9th January 1839, the French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype process. A few months later, on 19th August 1839, French government purchased the patent and announced the invention as a gift ‘Free to the World’. The word photography was first used by scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839.
To create what we know today as photography or painting with light, dates back to several inventors trying to form image.
Beginning was as early as 5th century B.C. where a small hole was used to direct the straight rays of light against a wall in a darkened room, creating an image reversed of that found on the outside (Historic Camera).
Later, by the 15th century, Leonardo Da Vinci would describe clearly a similar device, now coined by its name as Camera Obscura, that followed the same principals but in a smaller instrument consisting of a wooden box.
By the 16th century, a lens is added to the configuration to have greater control of the light entering the device. Modern camera Obscura with optics was built by English scientists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke.
Now challenge left was to record and fix the image. In 1816, Frenchman Nicephore Niepce made a crude wood camera fitted with a microscopic lens. He invented Heliography around 1826, which he used to make the earliest known permanent photograph from nature, View from the Window at Le Gras.
This process used bitumen (Residue from petrol or coal), as a coating on glass or metal, which hardened in relation to exposure to light. When the plate was washed with oil of lavender, only the hardened image area remained. View from the Window at Le Gras required as long as eight-hour exposure.
The first practical photographic process was developed in 1837 by Joseph Nicephore Niepce and Louis Daguerre formed the basis of photography, exposing, developing and fixing the image.
The process developed by them is of brass plate coated with silver was sensitized by iodine vapor and exposed to light in a camera for several minutes. A weak positive image produced by mercury vapor was fixed with a solution of salt.
At the same time, Calo type process was also invented by William Henry Fox Talbot and he presented it to Royal society of London.
Then came wet plate process called ‘collodian’ process developed by Frederick Scott Archer in 1850’s which almost replaced Daguerreotype type process, This process had advantages of producing a negative and multiple positive images.
The collodion process produced a negative image on a transparent medium ‘glass’ involved adding a soluble iodide to a solution of collodion (cellulose nitrate) and coating a glass plate with the mixture. In the darkroom the plate was immersed in a solution of silver nitrate to form silver iodide.
The plate, still wet, was exposed in the camera. It was then developed by pouring a solution of pyrogallic acid over it and was fixed with a strong solution of Sodium Thiosulfate.
Dr Richard Maddox discovered a method of using gelatin instead of glass as the plate material for the light-sensitive solution. This discovery led to the invention of dry plate photography, a process that did not require the photographer to use a darkroom tent for immediate plate development as had been required by wet plate process.
George Eastman introduced celluloid based film in 1884 and the small portable easy to use box camera in 1888.
Photography could now reach the masses, once the 100 shots on the camera had been taken, the camera was sent back to Kodak for film processing, new film was loaded, and the camera was returned ready-for-use to the owner.
Kodak marketed cameras with the tag line ‘You press the button, we do the rest’. This was a major breakthrough for photography becoming most sort art for public.
Author:
CJ Rajkumar
Author/Cinematographer.
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