Juan Monroy — Media Technologies: Photography

Photography
- capturing light
- exposure
  - shutter speed (time)
  - aperture (focal length/aperture size)
  - sensitivity
- lens
  - focal length
  - depth of field
Camera Obscura
- ancient device
- “dark room”
- tool for portrait painters
  - tracing tool
  - developed the tool for their own destruction
- tool for long exposure photography
  - Abelardo Morrel, 2013
  - http://www.abelardomorell.net/posts/camera-obscura/
Camera Lucida
- 19th century
- prism
- improved tool for portrait painters
Photosensitive Chemicals
- could “record” the light
- Johann Schulze, 1727
- salts darken in open air
- silver compound darkened when exposed to light
Attempts in Chemical Photography
- Thomas Wedgewood, 1792
- Humphrey Davy, 1802
- Joseph Nicephore Niepce, 1814
  - coated tin plate with asphalt
  - exposed plate in camera obscura
  - “La cour du domain du gras,” 1826
Daguerrotype
- Louis Daguerre, 1838
  - French painter and theatrical producer
    - camera and portrait painter
    - promoter of his new photographic device
- single photographic plate
  - covered in silver
  - exposed to iodine fumes
  - covered in mercury
  - fixed with sodium thiosulfate (“hypo”)
Calotype
- William Fox Talbot
  - English botanist
    - plants
    - contact studies against photosensitive surface
- silver chloride
- negative exposure
- contact positives
- reproducible photo prints
- images were fuzzy compared to daguerrotype
Wet Collodion Process
- Frederick Scott Archer, 1851
- glass plate
  - finer detail
- negative
  - paper printing
  - multiple positive copies
- faster exposure process
- replaced daguerrotype and calotype
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiAhPIUno1o
Ambrotype
- wet collodion process
- variation on Archer’s process
- positive image on a glass plate
- prints on paper
Tintype
- variant of ambrotype
- direct positive on thin iron
- quick and inexpensive
- remained a novelty until the twentieth century
- http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/g1663/sundance-tintype-portraits-2014/
Dry Plate Photography
- Richard Maddox, 1871
  - silver bromide
  - gelatin process
- simpler than wet collodion process
- George Eastman
  - Eastman Film and Dry Plate Company, 1879
  - http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_early/1_early_photography_-_processes_-_dry_plates.htm
Celluloid Film
- Hannibal Goodwin
  - cellulose and nitric acid
  - translucent medium for photography
- George Eastman
  - patented celluloid roll film
  - Kodak, first camera to use roll film, 1888
Kodak
- George Eastman
- roll film, 1888
- “you push the button, we do the rest"
  - fixed focus, aperture, shutter speed
  - $25.00 with 100 pictures
  - sent to Kodak: received prints and reloaded camera
Magic Lantern Shows
- travel photographs
- colored slides
- audiences would pay to hear about distant locations
Crimean War
- 1855
- Roger Fenton and James Robertson
- http://life.time.com/history/crimea-where-war-photography-was-born/
Indian Mutiny
- rebellion against the British East India Company
- 1857–1858
- Felice Beato and James Robertson
- http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/beato/
US Civil War
- 1861–1865
- Matthew Brady
- https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/sets/72157622549882756/
John Thomson
- Scottish photographer
- everyday, street photography
- China and London, 1860s–1870s
- http://www.johnthomsonexhibition.org/en/home/
Jacob Riis
- Danish-American photographer and journalist
- book: How the Other Half Lives (1890)
- documented poverty
- reform: tenement conditions
- http://collections.mcny.org/Explore/Highlights/Jacob%20A.%20Riis/
Lewis Hine
- American sociologist and photographer
- documented powerless
  - immigrants arriving at Ellis Island
  - child labor
  - http://education.eastmanhouse.org/discover/kits/kit.php?id=8
- reform: child labor laws
US Farm Relocation Administration
- New Deal, 1935–1943
- documented lives of displaced farmers
- famous photographers of 20th century
  - Dorothea Lange, “Migrant Mother”
  - Walker Evans
  - Gordon Parks, “American Gothic”
  - http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/
Photographic Magazines
- Henry Luce
- Time magazine, 1923
- Life magazine, 1936
  - photojournalism
  - Illustrated London News: emphasized photos over text
  - “To see life, to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud…”
  - imitators: Look and Paris Match
War Photography
- Robert Capa
  - Spanish Civil War, “Falling Solider,” 1936
  - World War II, Omaha Beach, D-Day
- Margaret Bourke-White
  - liberation of Buchenwald, 1945
- Joe Rosenthal
  - raising of the US flag at Iwo Jima, 1945
- Alfred Eisenstaedt
  - Times Square, VJ Day, 1945
Polaroid
- Edwin Land, 1948
- instant camera
- roll film and then instant “plates”
Japanese point-and-shoots
- Konica C35 AF (“Japusin”)
- Minolta, Canon, Nikon
- auto focus
- late–1970s
Digital Photography
- photons captured by charge-coupled devices (CCD)
  - developed at Bell Laboratories, 1973
  - Willard Boyle and George Smith
- first digital camera
  - Kodak’s Steve Sasson, 1975
  - weighed 8 pounds
  - 0.01 megapixel resolution
  - wrote to cassette tape
  - 23 second exposure time
  - displayed image on a television monitor
  - http://petapixel.com/2010/08/05/the-worlds-first-digital-camera-by-kodak-and-steve-sasson/
Digital Images
- large computer files
- CompuServe
  - Graphic Interexchange Format (GIF), late 1980s
  - 8-bit computer images: 256 colors
- Kodak
  - PhotoCD, 1992
- Joint Photographic Experts Group
  - standardized compression and transmission
  - JPEG, 1992
  - 3 8-bit channels: 16 million colors
  - open source format
Democratizing Photography
- digital photography replacing photochemical film
- improved access and participation
- emergence of photo sharing
  - Flickr, 2004
  - Instagram
  - Pinterest, 2010
Ethics
- spirit photographers: fake photographs of ghosts over portraits
- cut-and-paste to alter photographs
- balance between sensationalism and public service
- “Photoshopping”: digital tools make it easier
  - Time darkening OJ Simpson portrait, 1994
  - Los Angeles Times, Iraq War
Photo Fakes and Manipulation
- Millard Tydings and Earl Browder
- John Kerry and Jane Fonda
- National Geographic and Giza Pyramids
- Tourist Guy
- The Situation Room