Juan Monroy — Week 6, Photography

Photography
- capturing light
- exposure
  - shutter speed (time)
  - aperture (focal length/aperture size)
  - sensitivity
- focus
  - lens
  - 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 photograph
  - Abelardo Morrel, 2013
  - http://www.abelardomorell.net/posts/camera-obscura/
Camera Lucida
- 19th century
- prisim
- 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
Louis Daguerre: Daguerrotype
- French painter and theatrical producer
  - camera and portrait painter
  - promoter of his new photographic device
- copper plate
  - covered in silver
  - exposed to iodine fumes
  - single photographic plate
- daguerreotype, 1839
William Fox Talbot: Calotype
- English botanist
  - plants
  - contact studies against photosensitive surface
- calotype, c. 1839
  - silver chloride
  - negative exposure
  - contact positives
- reproducible photo prints
- slow cameras
  - long exposures
  - static objects
- faster cameras
  - shorter exposures
  - action shots
  - photograph: sister playing harp
Wet Collodion Process
- Frederick Scott Archer, 1851
  - faster process
  - multiple copies
  - paper printing
  - finer detail
- replaced daguerrotype and calotype
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiAhPIUno1o
Ambrotype
- printed on paper
- multiple copies from a camera
Tintype
- direct positive on thin iron
- single copy from the plate
- http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/g1663/sundance-tintype-portraits-2014/
Dry Plate Photography
- Richard Maddox, 1871
- 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
Magic Lantern Shows
- travel photographs
- colored slides
- audiences would pay to hear about distant locations
War Photography
- Crimean War
  - 1855
  - Roger Fenton and James Robertson
  - http://life.time.com/history/crimea-where-war-photography-was-born/
- Indian Mutiny
  - 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/
Everyday Life: Street Photography
- John Thomson
  - Scottish photograph
  - 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
    - Walker Evans
    - http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/
- Photo Printing
  - photoengraving
  - woodcuts
  - letterpress (for type)
  - halftone
- Amateur Photography
  - 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
  - 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
  - Steve Sasson and Kodak
  - December 1975
  - first digital camera
    - 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/
- Photo Fakes and Manipulation
  - Millard Tydings and Earl Browder
  - John Kerry and Jane Fonda
  - National Geographic and Giza Pyramids
  - Tourist Guy
  - The Situation Room