Democratic - 3 : relating to, appealing to, or available to the broad masses of the people ~Websters Dictionary

After the first image was fixed over 150 years ago, photography took its leap into reality. Scientists and artists had the ideas to photograph for a long time, but keeping the image there or fixing it proved to be difficult. As years progressed studios opened, and with it daguerreotypes became a common name. These images were small, fragile, toxic to make, and hard to view at times. Surprisingly these images were extremely detailed; one could even say they rival what we create today.

One thing about changes in photography is simple. Technology does not exactly improve the image all the time, it does however make easier to create and cheaper. The daguerreotype required great care; it was created on a sheet of copper with a thin coat of silver. The plate was polished like a mirror. Then the plate was sensitized, and put inside the camera. After the plate was exposed for several minutes, it was fogged with hot mercury. The image was then fixed with sodium thiosulfate or salt and toned with gold chloride. Most of this process also has to be done in complete darkness.

Some of the ingredients for the daguerreotype were pretty expensive, if they were not expensive they were horrible to make or extremely toxic. Think this was crazy, and you must think nobody does this today. Wrong, there is actually a society of people who still makes these. They use today’s safety devises and precautions when making daguerreotypes but the process is still pretty much the same.

Later new innovations such as the heliotype, calotype, glass plates, film negative, and film positive, and now digital. Some glass plates were huge! Guess what some people today still use them and still even use large format negatives they also create awesome images. But again it requires time, knowledge, skill, education, and practice to use them.

Now digital cameras are here, does this mean film is lost? Not really, it just means yet again photography is more democratic. More people can use these digital cameras. The advertisement of Professional Quality however on some of these in stores is wrong. A Hassleblad H2D-39 professional camera can shoot 39 Mega Pixel. Also a lot of the cheaper consumer cameras say they shoot high resolution but they truly interpolate. At 100% you should be able to count hairs and see detail not have haze or blur if focused properly. Digital professional cameras also use the same technology as film; the only difference is the file is readily available. Metering, reciprocity, lighting characteristics are all still the same, if not more complex.

Labels: 150 years, Changes, Daguerreotypes, Kiwi, Photography, Sun, Technology

It has become quite evident that cameras are getting smaller, faster, and easier to operate. Over one hundred fifty years ago cameras were bulky, heavy, and they took a substantial amount of intelligence and practice to operate. The idea to open photography up to everybody began when the Brownie was introduced by Kodak in the early 1900s. Today in our digital world all a person has to do is flip open a cell phone to capture a photograph. With all this technology that has been under development for over a century and a half has the quality been diminishing at the cost of convenience?

After the first image was fixed over 150 years ago, photography took its first big leap into reality. Scientists and artists had the ideas to photograph for a long time, but keeping the image there, or fixing it, proved to be difficult. The first photograph by Joseph Niecephore Niepce titled View from His Window at LeGras on Bitumen on Pewter created in 1827 was remarkable. Being the first of its kind, however, the detail in the image overall was something that needed to be worked on. Later photographers like John Plumbe, George Barnard, Alexander Gardner, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, Antoine Francois Claudet and many others researched different ideas and photographed the world around them, improving the quality of images.

At that time photographers had to discover what processes worked best for them. Early photographers all put a great deal of time into composing and adjusting cameras for the images. I took around 15 minutes for daguerreotypes and dry plate negatives to expose an image, so one could imagine that the time people had to sit still was also lengthy. While 15 minutes seems like a long time, some exposures were even longer. Getting people to sit still was a chore in itself which required photographers to get creative. Long ago photographers had special chairs with clamps for people’s necks so they could sit up straight without movement. While people complained that the chair was a form of torture and put them in agony, some sitters had to endure harsh light which would make their eyes tear up. While they were most likely difficult to produce, most of the photographs created were extremely detailed. Since the daguerreotype had no grain an electron microscope with a magnification of a millionth of an inch is required to view what made up the image.

While the images had tremendous detail the public desired a quicker systematic approach. Kodak fulfilled the demand with the Brownie. The Brownies were small boxes with film that people could load from rollers. Children were encouraged to use Brownies and to join camera clubs to win prizes. While the camera only cost a dollar it was also proclaimed to be very easy to use. It was apparently so easy that Kodak used the slogan “Just push the button and we’ll do the rest.” The camera was so popular that 150,000 were shipped the first year. The invention of the point and shoot camera opened the doors to people who just wanted a photo on the fly which led to the birth of the snapshot. After the film was exposed it was sent off for development.

While Brownies used what we consider medium format film, by today’s standards the lenses were cheaply made which required contact prints to be made. Over time came improvement in the film & camera technologies which made it so images could be enlarged rather then contact printed. Photographers like Ansel Adams put forth a great deal of research coupled with trial and error to understand what potential film harnessed to create the best photographs.
Today society has been bombarded with digital cameras. To the general public the biggest advancement is that you can print your images on a personal computer at home and also view them right away on the back of the camera to make sure they turned out. It’s common to measure a digital camera’s quality by the mega pixels that it can hold. When the first cameras came out I remember seeing a camera that could harness 1 mega pixel and thought it was a big deal. Over time it steadily grew; now you can get a point and shoot camera that can harness more than 8 mega pixels.These days’ cameras are used by all sorts of people around the world. People no longer have to sit for 15 minute-long exposures and people creating the photographs hardly take the time and effort to compose an image, since if they do not like it they can just delete it. Today people do not have to send images to a lab; rather they just send them through a computer or through the printer directly at home.

As it seems to always do, history has repeated itself. The technological format that we use today, known as digital, started off with a little detail packed into large clunky cameras. Smart people in labs that make a lot of money have shrunk the cameras and managed to pack a lot more detail into them, making them more technologically advanced than ever. Over the course of time in photography, people have seemed to like things to be easier and have consistent results that they can produce themselves. While cell phones create images that people are able to print on an ink jet, these images do not have the detail that can be seen through an electron microscope (much less a magnifying glass) but they are fairly simple and readily available so people frequently use them.

References:

Carter, R.L.. "1906-1920." digicamhistory.com. 28 Nov 2007 http://www.digicamhistory.com/1906_1920.html.

The Brownie Camera @ 100: A Celebration. Kodak. 28 Nov 2007 http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/brownieCam/.

About daguerreotypes. 28 Nov 2007 http://www.newdags.com/about.html.

"PART 6 : 'Dry Plate' Photography." History of Photography in Brighton. 28 Nov 2007 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/DSphotodry5E6.htm.

"Kodak: You press the button." History of the Button. August 10th, 2006. 28 Nov 2007 http://www.historyofthebutton.com/2006/08/10/kodak-you-press-the-button/.

Labels: Brownie, Changes, Daguerreotypes, Dry Plate, Kiwi, Over, Photographic, Photography, Royal, Sun, Time

The Royal Photographic Society was founded in the early days of photography in 1852. Today the society remains an organization with its place etched in history around the world. A man named David Land wrote an article about Nick Danziger titled Blair at War in the Royal Photographic Society Journal.

Nick Danziger began his career as a painter and on the side from publishing to documentary filmmaking. His books and films always had included his photographic work. What sparked Danziger’s interest was “looking at aspects of the world we rarely have access to see.” While photographing political figures he noted that at times it’s easier and some times it’s difficult. It’s easier when you have security clearance and behind the scenes access. Then it is difficult when your subjects are afraid that a simple image can destroy there reputation. He goes on to explain as you develop a report with your subjects and they start to trust you as time progresses.
The Times commissioned Blair at War as a project to write about the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. At that time Danziger was asked if he was available to photograph two or three days a week over a months time. Later the photographer learned that he would be photographing Tony Blair. The photographer actually worked on the project for 30 full days including the weekends.
Unlike most documentary photographers Danziger prefers to use 35mm black and white film over digital. He goes on to explain that with his raw and immediate work he likes to use Kodak Tri-X film. The photographer believes that to document he must be able to blend into his surroundings and desired to be as “invisible or transparent as possible.” His style coupled with not using a flash when doing his documentary made it so some of the political figures forgot he was around from time to time.

Danziger knows that the general public wants color but uses black and white because it helps people understand what is going on in an image without the distraction of color. He also goes on to explain the immediacy of digital and that how he would rather take a great picture of a moment rather then “several frames per minute like a video.”

Through forums, experience and education as photographers we all learn the theories of black and white photography and the theories of color photography. We also learn the nuances of cameras and what has been the general rule throughout history. A black and white medium tends to always let people look at an image holistically and view the situation simultaneously. Color photography on the other hand is more realistic because of the simple fact that people can view the color as if they were actually there. Although color tends to be more realistic the subject of the photograph can suddenly become the colors in the photograph which can be slightly distracting.

Different camera formats are used for different things. Since medium and large format cameras are large, clunky, and take time to focus and compose an image most people prefer the speed and choice of lenses with a SLR camera for documentation and photo-journalism. Most people prefer digital SLR cameras because they are quick and you can capture several images per second if need be to stumble upon that perfect shot when you edit your images. While this works most of the time photographers generally spend less time composing an image. A photographer using film on the other hand can only expose 32 frames before he or she has to reload the camera. This tends to make a photographer more conscientious of capturing a great photograph. With film photographers take a little more time to compose the image and wait for the perfect moment to finally capture the image. This theory however is not etched in stone, some photographers do take the time to compose an image in digital and others take random snapshots with film.

People who photograph documentaries as a rule try there best not to affect what is going on. You would rarely see photographers with cameras photographed in a documentary. Rather you attempt to photograph things as they are without having people pose for situations. As a general rule people know when a camera is around and act differently because they know that it’s an indexical. Photography harnesses the power to communicate to the masses. They know that if they are scratching themselves or something the whole world might see it. Since this is true you either have to sneak photographs without people knowing you are there or by developing a trust with your subjects. This trust and develop by experience in that you have not released images that destroy people carriers and is heightened when people know that your carrier could be destroyed if you produce that type of images. It’s likely that a member of the paparazzi from the tabloids would do not have access and must hide out because political figures are afraid that a wrong angle or something they do in the fraction of a second will be plastered all over magazines and newspapers for the world to see.

Reference:
David Land. (2007). Blair at War. The Royal Photographic Society Journal. 147 (2), 54-59.

Labels: Documentaries, Film, Kiiwi, Photographic, Royal, Society, Sun Photography, Today, Use