Table Of ContentPhotography:
An Illustrated History
Martin W. Sandler
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Photography
AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY
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Photography
An Illustrated History
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Martin W. Sandler
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Oxford NewYork
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and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 2002 by Martin W. Sandler
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Printed in Hong Kong
on acid-free paper
On the cover:William Henry Jackson photographing
Yosemite Falls,around 1880.
Frontispiece:The first commercial photographic printing
establishment,operated by William Henry Fox Talbot in
Reading,England,in 1846.
Title page: Russell Lee.A crowd in front of a traveling
photographer’s tent,1938.
Contents page:Dr.Harold Edgerton.Flying bullet,1964.
Contents
7 Chapter One / Beginnings
23 ChapterTwo / Portraiture
39 ChapterThree / TheWorld Around Us
57 Chapter Four / Photography as Art
73 Chapter Five / Documentary Photography
91 Chapter Six / Photographs in Print
105 Chapter Seven /War Photography
117 Chapter Eight / Photographs in Color
131 Chapter Nine / Modern Photography
144 Chronology
146 Photography Museums and Websites
150 Further Reading
152 Index
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Chapter One
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Beginnings
A
photograph is a kind of miracle. been an earlier achievement in recording a
There is a picture of our mother permanent image in a camera.In 1827,a
exactly as she looked as a child. French engineer and experimenter,Joseph
There,in another picture,is a scene Nicephore Niépce,had produced a small,
of an event that helped shape the history of crude but permanent positive image on a
a nation,taken at the moment it happened. metal plate.However,his method did not
There,in yet another image,is a photograph use light-sensitive silver compounds,which
created so artistically that it is a profound are the basis of photography,and required an
delight to see. eight-hour exposure.It was far from being a
When photography burst upon the practical process.
scene in the first half of the 19th century, The daguerreotype was named after its
people were amazed by the fact that they inventor, the Frenchman Louis Jacques
were suddenly able to view or even possess Mandé Daguerre. His achievement was
an exact likeness of themselves,their rela- announced in January 1839 but was shown
tives,their friends,and the celebrities of only to small invited audiences until August
their day.Looking back at that time,what is of that year,when Daguerre gave a public
equally amazing is how rapidly the medium demonstration of the procedures.The calo-
of photography advanced.Within only 50 type was invented by an Englishman,
years of its introduction,photographers not William Henry Fox Talbot,who showed
only had the ability to capture likenesses but some images and described a preliminary
were recording places and events around the version of his process just three weeks
Frederick Fargo Church.George world.They also had the means and the skill after Daguerre made his accomplishment
Eastman with a Kodak Camera on to produce photographs that were regarded known,but he did not perfect it and release
Board the S.S.Gallia,1890.
as works of art. the details for another year and a half.
In 1888,George Eastman invented a The first official forms of photography The calotype had much more impor-
small,easy-to-use camera that made it
were the daguerreotype and the calotype,or tance for the future development of pho-
possible for almost everyone to take pic-
talbotype, as it was also called. They tography,but the daguerreotype produced
tures.Here,Eastman demonstrates his
invention aboard an ocean liner. appeared in 1839 and 1841,but there had far more beautiful,and technically perfect,
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BEGINNINGS • 7
Nicephore Niépce.View from his
Window at Le Gras,about 1827.
Although Niépce’s process was much
too lengthy and complicated to be
repeated,this picture,taken from the
window of his home,is widely regard-
ed as the world’s first photograph.
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visual image had been known for thou-
sands of years.By the mid 16th century,
astronomers and artists were using a device
based on those principles,called a camera
obscura(“dark chamber”) to view eclipses
and other sun phenomena and to make
images and was the dominant method for
drawings.The first camera obscuras were
the first 15 years of the medium.Thus,for
literally dark rooms.They operated on the
his invention of the first practical method
principle that if a small hole is made in a
of recording images in a camera,Daguerre
wall of a darkened room,an upside down
is recognized as the father of photography.
and left-right reversed image of the outside
In order for photography (the word
view in front of the hole will appear inside,
means “writing with light”) to be invented,
on the opposite wall.A person inside the
two elements were necessary. One was an
room could then trace the image on paper.
optical and mechanical device for forming
By the late 17th century,a portable box-
an image.The other was a chemical proce-
shaped camera obscura with an image-
dure for making a permanent record of the
forming lens in place of a hole had been
image.The optical principles of forming a
perfected and was commonly used by
artists for tracing images of real scenes and
objects.Thus,the camera was in existence
at least 250 years before a chemical proce-
dure for recording its images permanently
on some kind of surface was invented.
Daguerre and Talbot both solved the
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ing with light-sensitive silver compounds,
but their results were very different.
To make a photograph,Daguerre used a
highly polished,silver-plated sheet of cop-
per. He treated the silver surface with
fumes from heated crystals of iodine to
make it light sensitive and exposed it to the
The Camera Obscura
focused image in a camera obscura.This
The portable camera obscura provided the optical element necessary for photog-
formed an invisible latent image on the
raphy.It was constructed with a lens at one end of a long wooden box.A mir-
ror placed inside the box at a 45-degree angle reflected the image from the lens plate.To make the latent image visible–
upward to a sheet of glass placed flush with the top of the box.A lens forms developit–he treated the silver plate with
an image that is upside down and reversed left for right.The mirror reflection
fumes from heated mercury.Development
turned the image right side up but did not correct the left-right reversal.To use
brought out the very light and middle-tone
the camera obscura,an artist would place a thin piece of paper on the glass to
view or trace the image.Cloth baffles (not shown) on each side of the lid over areas of the image in proportion to their
the glass blocked stray light that would wash out the projected image. brightness in the scene.In this way,a direct
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PHOTOGRAPHY / AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY • 8
