World Image issue 11 October 2014

So Who Actually Invented Photography?
So who actually invented photography? An
interesting thought that, with the onset of
digital, may just desire some enlightenment
from a different perspective.
Looking at the subject in reverse starting with
digital, many expound the idea that this is not
‘real’ photography. The extol the virtues of film
photography as being the real thing.
The first successful attempt at producing a
digital image was made by Steven Sasson of
Eastman Kodak in 1975 with a resolution of
0.01mp and taking 23 minutes to produce an
image. The result of this experiment was that
the film camera all but died a death even
though it has taken 30 years to accomplish.
But for 170 years film photography held its
ground. Firstly with Black and White and in the
1960’s with the introduction of colour film to
the marketplace.
This photographic process using a negative and
positive prints was invented by William Henry
Fox Talbot in England in 1839. Talking to the
old hands at photography this was, and still is,
considered to be true photography.
But when Photography started, the Fox Talbot
process had competition from France in a
process that used a silver coated copper plate
that produced a one off, highly detailed image.
According to many books on the subject, this
process died out during the 1860’s in favour of
the negative/positive option.
It might interest some to know that there was
still a photography shop in London (I believe in
Dagenham) in 1936 using coated copper plates,
not to produce the image, but to produce high
gloss prints. This same shop used cyanide and
egg white somewhere in the processes, but I
never found out where.
But I digress, In fact we can move further back
in history to experiments on the light sensitivity
of certain chemicals conducted by Johann
Heinrich Schulze of Germany in 1727 as being
the first experiments leading to the
photographic process.
The principles of camera optics go back much
further, to the 4th Century BC, with the first
form of cameras being the Camera Obscura.
Although the Camera Obscura was originally
used as a drafting aid, it was quickly taken up
by artists for use in painting and drawing.
It was later when it was coupled with the plate
and film processes of Daguerre and Talbot to
record the image, that the foundations were
completed for all photography.
It is also interesting to note that the camera
obscura design has a similar principle to the
photographic enlargers used in the darkroom.
The mirror having been replaced by the light
and negative carrier.
Yes, I am aware that this is a simplistic
comparison, but it was the same principle that I
used in 1964 to build my own enlarger. My first
camera was a shoebox that also used the
principle of the camera obscura.
So it would appear that it was the inventor of
the Camera Obscura who unwittingly invented
the basic equipment for photography.
So we return to William Henry Fox Talbot and
Daguerre. There is discussion on who was first,
but the fact remains there were two different
processes that were fundamentally different in
their concepts.
Daguerre produced a process to create a single
finished image in the same way as an landscape
painter.
William Henry Fox Talbot produced a system
that also produced a single picture, but allowed
that picture to be copied many times.
Times and processes change, but photography
will go on, and I dream of the day when the
camera can be replaced with an optic implant
that will allow me to record in print the beauty I
see with my eye, so that I do not keep missing
those special, unrepeatable moments.
Website = photosociety.net Page 16 email = magazine@photosociety.net