Photography Basics

Lesson 1: History of Photography

The Evolution of Photography - Part I

Photography had been brought out into the world with the announcement of Daguerre’s work. However, others had been close. Three weeks after Daguerre’s work came to light, William Henry Fox Talbot appeared before the Royal Institution of Great Britain to announce that he had also found a way to imprint an image permanently, this time on paper.

In 1840 Talbot announced a technique that would become the basis of modern photography. The light-sensitive paper was exposed long enough to produce a dormant image, but nothing could be seen until the paper was chemically developed. He called his invention a calotype (Greek derivative: “kalos” meaning beautiful and “typos” meaning impression).

The greatest asset of Talbot’s invention was that it allowed reproducibility. (This procedure is the equivalent of today’s contact print.) However, it never gained wide popularity due to the fact that it lacked the sharp detail of the daguerreotype.

The wet-plate process combined the best of each process. It had the sharpness of the daguerreotype and the reproducibility of the calotype. Frederick Scott Archer, an English sculptor who had been making calotypes of his subjects to use as studies, discovered that nitrocellulose dissolved in ether and alcohol (known as collodion) was a great basis for an emulsion. Collodion, however, was not convenient. The glass plate had to be exposed and processed while still wet…never mind that coating the plate had to be done skillfully and with precision timing.

Now, let’s fast forward from the birth of photography in the 1830s to the 1880s when photography was still not in the hands of the general public. Due to the technical skill, the expense, and the amount of equipment needed, only professionals took photographs to be shared with the general public.

At this point, a dry plate had been invented with a new gelatin emulsion. This made the way for another modern invention, roll film. (hoorah!) Any idea who’s responsible for that? If you guessed George Eastman, you’re correct.

Eastman was a bank clerk in Rochester, NY and had bought a wet-plate camera in 1877. Almost immediately, he began to search for a simpler way to take pictures. Many had experimented with roll film, but no one was able to produce it commercially until Eastman invented the equipment to mass-produce film. The result of his quest was Eastman’s American Film, a roll of paper coated with a thin gelatin emulsion. This emulsion had to be stripped from the paper backing to provide a negative that light could shine through. Most photographers had trouble with the operation, often stretching the negative when it was removed from paper. Therefore, it was easier to send the film back to the Eastman Company for processing.

This invention of film allowed everyone to be a potential photographer. Eastman introduced the Kodak camera in 1888, which was loaded with enough film for 100 shots. When all were used up, the owner returned it to the Eastman Company with the exposed film inside. What they got back was developed and printed photographs and the camera, reloaded with film.

In 1888, a factory in Berlin that had been producing colour dyes began manufacturing material for the new rage of photography. That factory, Aktiengesellschaft für Anilinfabrikation, soon adopted the acronym Agfa as its official name.

In 1891, an Agfa chemist invented Rodinal, which quickly became the world's most famous black & white developer concentrate, still in use today.

In 1898, Hannibal Goodwin perfected roll film. He made it a transparent, flexible plastic, which was coated with a thin emulsion and sturdy enough to be used without a paper support.

Whew! What an industrious coming of age photography had! Part II of the evolution of photography looks at what occurred in the 20th century and beyond.

  1  2  3  4  5  6