The Evolution of Photography Through History

So in order to understand photography, I think it's really important to take a look at the history, because I think it's really interesting, and it also gives you some perspective on why photography developed the way that it did. Now, doing the research for this lesson, I realized it actually went back a little further than I had remembered. The first idea for a pinhole camera was kind of came up with in the time of Plato. So in ancient Greece and in China, around the same time, people were kind of imagining doing sort of... sort of thought experiments for something that would someday resemble what we'd use hundreds of years later, thousand years later, in the pinhole camera. Now the next step is the camera obscura. And the camera obscura is actually really interesting because it's basically a camera without film. The idea is you've got a wall, so you've got this empty room, and if you put a little tiny hole in the wall, the light will come in from the other side and it will be... sort of focus through that hole and then onto the wall on the opposite side. So you can see here that this scene is being reflected on this wall, or sort of focused on this wall through this hole. And this is basically the foundation of photography right here. This is the moment when this came into focus, or well really quite literally as well. The only thing that was really missing was the chemicals for this, and these were discovered somewhere between the year 1200 and 1600. The different scientists at different times realized that there was this sort of group of chemicals that were related to silver, and one was silver nitrate. And this turned out, in the end, to be photosensitive. And this whole discovery of it being photosensitive was first sort of formulated and organized by a guy named... Wilhelm Homberg in 1694. This is when he realized that there was a, as he put it, a photochemical effect. Now the groundwork was basically laid for photography to begin. So from here, from 1700 through the 1800s, you see kind of a focus on lenses and on sort of bettering this camera obscura over here. So you'd have people putting in a lens right here instead of just a hole. And this would lead directly to the developments that would come in the 1800s. And that development came roaring around the corner in 1826 in southern France. This guy right here, his name is Joseph. And his last name is Niepce. And I'm spelling it wrong. And Joseph Niepce was just kind of a guy who was interested in the entire idea of photography, and he wanted to develop some kind of camera. And he had taken a camera obscura, and he had worked around with these light-sensitive silver nitrates, and at the same time, he had been exchanging letters with this guy over here, Louis Degas. Well, Joseph Niepce was the first person to really come up with a photo. a permanent photo. And that's a really important distinction because a lot of people had made photos, but this was the first permanent, and I'm not spelling it right, permanent photograph. Lots of times they would make them and then they would soon deteriorate really quickly, but this was the first one that would last and it lasted up until now. You can see here that you've got some buildings, got maybe a field back here. And if you look really closely, you can actually see that the sun moved so far during the day that it's actually exposed the walls on both sides. So the lighting of the photo is actually a little off. Now this was done on a piece of pewter with some, just with some silver nitrate slapped on it. And it took eight hours to make this photograph. So eight, can you just imagine taking a photo that takes eight hours to make? You can't move the camera a single bit. So I have to leave the camera there for eight hours. So this step. Now behind them, the move then became to simplify and strengthen the power of photography and to make photographs something that you could take instantaneously, so it wouldn't take eight hours to make a photograph. So when Niepce died, Niepce died in 1833, and he passes all of his papers on to Daguerre, who... In turn, just six years later, comes out with the daguerreotype. And this was a revolution. This was very, very big news. The daguerreotype took the same process and basically made it something that could be done more quickly and more permanently. So instead of taking eight hours, it would just take a few minutes to make a photograph. And this is one of the first daguerreotypes. It's of a city, obviously, somewhere in southern France. And you can see here this guy with his foot up on a sort of pedestal. This guy's actually getting his shoes shined. There are lots of other people walking around on these streets, but this guy was the only person to stay still for the whole photograph, the whole time it was being made. And so he's the first photographed human that we know of, at least. So very interesting, you know? So this whole discovery and the release of this discovery really prompted a lot of activity. Now this guy over here, his name is Fox Talbot. Fox Talbot was a British guy, so across the channel, and he had been interested in the idea of photography, or it wasn't called photography yet, but in the idea of capturing images on silver nitrate plates, as they would say back then. And he and this astronomer, whose name was John Herschel, worked together on lots of different things. And in 1839, sort of... through their collaboration, John Herschel came out with the glass negative. The glass negative was important because it was a better way of capturing the image and it was something that would become sort of a standard for some time, for almost really 60 years or something like that. So the glass negative is developed. Get the name down, John Herschel. quite a famous astronomer in his own right, as well as a developer of photography. And then just one year later, Talbot comes out with his own process, and it was called the calotype. It was a wet process that had some sort of paper negative. And the thing was, though, that Talbot then, and this was Talbot, we'll make sure we distinguish that, and the thing was that Talbot put a copyright on this. And that is the reason that, really, the daguerreotype... took off because the daguerreotype was bought by the French government and put immediately in the public domain. That meant that any photographer could use it and so the daguerreotype basically within a couple months became the standard form of photography at that time. And the calotype, because it would have been a little bit more expensive and money would have been going to Fox Talbot over here, it never became quite the hit that the daguerreotype did. Now things went very quickly from here and within a couple months of the daguerreotype being developed it was already being used in the field and by the 1850s it was really common to see roving photographers like this traveling through the countryside of of europe and and even in america and other places and um doing these sort of mobile photo studios and because the whole i mean These days, you can do everything that they could do in this with a laptop and a camera and even a cell phone. But at the time, it took quite a lot. You had a lot of chemicals. You had to do a lot of mixing. You needed a dark room. So everything had to be brought with you in the wagon. But it was very quick. You could see here that prominent people, this is the czar and his wife, and this is Abe Lincoln, one of the early American presidents, all being photographed early on because they... realized the power and were all very fascinated by the idea of photography. Now during the 1860s, the American Civil War was photographed by this guy named Bradley, or well, it was most likely photographed mostly by his assistants, and he sort of took credit for it. And this was basically, this was kind of more the second incidence, the Armenian War was really the first incidence of photography being used in war and photographing war. So kind of an interesting note in history. Now early studios would have looked something like this. So pretty much any time from the 1840s onward, you would have had a big, huge camera. You can see that is a massive camera. And you've got this guy sitting here doing this very sort of stilted pose. And the reason for this is because you've got this piece here holding his head. And this was sort of a required piece of equipment for photographers at the time because this... speed of the camera was still so slow. You would have had to hold that pose between two minutes and maybe if your photographer had a really fast camera maybe 30 seconds. So that's a really long time to hold your head very still for a photograph. It's pretty amazing. You'll sometimes look in the photos and you'll see that people blinked during the photos or things like that. But this piece of machinery here on the back, this sort of stand, is meant to secure the head. And it's often hiding behind the person in the photo. You don't usually see it when you look at the actual photos. But this is how people adapted to the technology. As it progressed, though, things got better and they didn't have to use that anymore. Now, here is really where that... step takes place where things really got a lot faster and really changed a lot 1870s um the dry plate comes out and becomes really popular instead of having wet plates of of of copper or things like that that you had to put inside of a camera or um like a pewter plate or something like that you would just have a dry piece of emulsion that was sort of like the film that you would be used to from from but but on usually on like a hard plate not on something that was soft Now, in the 1880s, Kodak really made some big steps in the technology and really kind of came out with some things that would really forever change photography. In 1840, or in 1884, George Eastman develops a dry gel on paper. And so basically, it's sort of the predecessor to the film that we would be using 50 years later. In 1888, they came up with... this slogan right here which i think is just great you press the button and we do the rest and they used to send cameras to their customers with a hundred photos in them and then the person could run around and take photos all they want to their heart's content and then send them into the kodak factory which looked something like this get it developed and they would then come back as photos and you can actually see here part of my family this is actually this right here is my great great great grandpa they would make photos of each other and so there's all these great old photos from this time that were all probably most likely taken on Kodak cameras. 1924 was important because Leica came out with the first 35 millimeter camera and 35 millimeter camera really revolutionized photography in some pretty fundamental ways. The reason is because before this cameras were just so big and heavy it was really hard to take them out and captures things. in the way that you would experience them. And so you can see here, for example, this image from D-Day in World War II. This is sort of the style of photography that the 35mm allowed for. People could bring a camera with them and shoot something running along with the action. And the camera was so light and small that you didn't have to even have a tripod, and it was fast enough that you could really take a lot of new, innovative photos. After World War II, things really changed a lot, and this is where things really kind of blasted out of the gate. The first SLR came in 1949, so this is a single-lens reflex, and we'll explain what that means later, but this is a very special kind of camera that really kind of has become the industry standard for professional photographers. Also, the first digital image. So this is... Actually a scanned image, so it's not from a digital camera, but it is the first digital image right there. So from that moment on, photography really made a lot of leaps and bounds very quickly. In 1963, you get the Polaroid camera. In 1985, you got autofocus, which really changed the way cameras worked with consumers and really changed the kinds of cameras that consumers were buying. From there you then move into the 90s and it was definitely the beginning of the digital age. You can see this NASA experiment up here. This was a press camera that was being experimented with. You can see it's like carrying a massive computer around. And then there were some early attempts at consumer cameras as well. And that brings us to now. That brings us to the almost now. In 2004, Kodak stopped making film cameras, so they started switching over to digital cameras like this one right here. Cameras got to be a lot bigger, took a lot of different directions. You can see here the mirrorless sort of wave of cameras that came in 2011. And the DSLRs also got very big, very expensive, and started making video. So that is sort of the story of photography. You can check out more videos for this course and check out other courses. at allversity.org.

So in ancient Greece and in China, around the same time, people were kind of imagining doing sort of... sort of thought experiments for something that would someday resemble what we'd use hundreds of years later, thousand years later, in the pinhole camera. Now the next step is the camera obscura. And the camera obscura is actually really interesting because it's basically a camera without film. The idea is you've got a wall, so you've got this empty room, and if you put a little tiny hole in the wall, the light will come in from the other side and it will be...

sort of focus through that hole and then onto the wall on the opposite side. So you can see here that this scene is being reflected on this wall, or sort of focused on this wall through this hole. And this is basically the foundation of photography right here.

This is the moment when this came into focus, or well really quite literally as well. The only thing that was really missing was the chemicals for this, and these were discovered somewhere between the year 1200 and 1600. The different scientists at different times realized that there was this sort of group of chemicals that were related to silver, and one was silver nitrate. And this turned out, in the end, to be photosensitive. And this whole discovery of it being photosensitive was first sort of formulated and organized by a guy named...

Wilhelm Homberg in 1694. This is when he realized that there was a, as he put it, a photochemical effect. Now the groundwork was basically laid for photography to begin. So from here, from 1700 through the 1800s, you see kind of a focus on lenses and on sort of bettering this camera obscura over here.

So you'd have people putting in a lens right here instead of just a hole. And this would lead directly to the developments that would come in the 1800s. And that development came roaring around the corner in 1826 in southern France.

This guy right here, his name is Joseph. And his last name is Niepce. And I'm spelling it wrong. And Joseph Niepce was just kind of a guy who was interested in the entire idea of photography, and he wanted to develop some kind of camera. And he had taken a camera obscura, and he had worked around with these light-sensitive silver nitrates, and at the same time, he had been exchanging letters with this guy over here, Louis Degas.

Well, Joseph Niepce was the first person to really come up with a photo. a permanent photo. And that's a really important distinction because a lot of people had made photos, but this was the first permanent, and I'm not spelling it right, permanent photograph. Lots of times they would make them and then they would soon deteriorate really quickly, but this was the first one that would last and it lasted up until now. You can see here that you've got some buildings, got maybe a field back here.

And if you look really closely, you can actually see that the sun moved so far during the day that it's actually exposed the walls on both sides. So the lighting of the photo is actually a little off. Now this was done on a piece of pewter with some, just with some silver nitrate slapped on it. And it took eight hours to make this photograph. So eight, can you just imagine taking a photo that takes eight hours to make?

You can't move the camera a single bit. So I have to leave the camera there for eight hours. So this step. Now behind them, the move then became to simplify and strengthen the power of photography and to make photographs something that you could take instantaneously, so it wouldn't take eight hours to make a photograph.

So when Niepce died, Niepce died in 1833, and he passes all of his papers on to Daguerre, who... In turn, just six years later, comes out with the daguerreotype. And this was a revolution. This was very, very big news.

The daguerreotype took the same process and basically made it something that could be done more quickly and more permanently. So instead of taking eight hours, it would just take a few minutes to make a photograph. And this is one of the first daguerreotypes.

It's of a city, obviously, somewhere in southern France. And you can see here this guy with his foot up on a sort of pedestal. This guy's actually getting his shoes shined.

There are lots of other people walking around on these streets, but this guy was the only person to stay still for the whole photograph, the whole time it was being made. And so he's the first photographed human that we know of, at least. So very interesting, you know? So this whole discovery and the release of this discovery really prompted a lot of activity. Now this guy over here, his name is Fox Talbot.

Fox Talbot was a British guy, so across the channel, and he had been interested in the idea of photography, or it wasn't called photography yet, but in the idea of capturing images on silver nitrate plates, as they would say back then. And he and this astronomer, whose name was John Herschel, worked together on lots of different things. And in 1839, sort of... through their collaboration, John Herschel came out with the glass negative.

The glass negative was important because it was a better way of capturing the image and it was something that would become sort of a standard for some time, for almost really 60 years or something like that. So the glass negative is developed. Get the name down, John Herschel.

quite a famous astronomer in his own right, as well as a developer of photography. And then just one year later, Talbot comes out with his own process, and it was called the calotype. It was a wet process that had some sort of paper negative. And the thing was, though, that Talbot then, and this was Talbot, we'll make sure we distinguish that, and the thing was that Talbot put a copyright on this.

And that is the reason that, really, the daguerreotype... took off because the daguerreotype was bought by the French government and put immediately in the public domain. That meant that any photographer could use it and so the daguerreotype basically within a couple months became the standard form of photography at that time. And the calotype, because it would have been a little bit more expensive and money would have been going to Fox Talbot over here, it never became quite the hit that the daguerreotype did.

Now things went very quickly from here and within a couple months of the daguerreotype being developed it was already being used in the field and by the 1850s it was really common to see roving photographers like this traveling through the countryside of of europe and and even in america and other places and um doing these sort of mobile photo studios and because the whole i mean These days, you can do everything that they could do in this with a laptop and a camera and even a cell phone. But at the time, it took quite a lot. You had a lot of chemicals.

You had to do a lot of mixing. You needed a dark room. So everything had to be brought with you in the wagon. But it was very quick. You could see here that prominent people, this is the czar and his wife, and this is Abe Lincoln, one of the early American presidents, all being photographed early on because they...

realized the power and were all very fascinated by the idea of photography. Now during the 1860s, the American Civil War was photographed by this guy named Bradley, or well, it was most likely photographed mostly by his assistants, and he sort of took credit for it. And this was basically, this was kind of more the second incidence, the Armenian War was really the first incidence of photography being used in war and photographing war.

So kind of an interesting note in history. Now early studios would have looked something like this. So pretty much any time from the 1840s onward, you would have had a big, huge camera.

You can see that is a massive camera. And you've got this guy sitting here doing this very sort of stilted pose. And the reason for this is because you've got this piece here holding his head. And this was sort of a required piece of equipment for photographers at the time because this... speed of the camera was still so slow.

You would have had to hold that pose between two minutes and maybe if your photographer had a really fast camera maybe 30 seconds. So that's a really long time to hold your head very still for a photograph. It's pretty amazing.

You'll sometimes look in the photos and you'll see that people blinked during the photos or things like that. But this piece of machinery here on the back, this sort of stand, is meant to secure the head. And it's often hiding behind the person in the photo.

You don't usually see it when you look at the actual photos. But this is how people adapted to the technology. As it progressed, though, things got better and they didn't have to use that anymore. Now, here is really where that... step takes place where things really got a lot faster and really changed a lot 1870s um the dry plate comes out and becomes really popular instead of having wet plates of of of copper or things like that that you had to put inside of a camera or um like a pewter plate or something like that you would just have a dry piece of emulsion that was sort of like the film that you would be used to from from but but on usually on like a hard plate not on something that was soft Now, in the 1880s, Kodak really made some big steps in the technology and really kind of came out with some things that would really forever change photography.

In 1840, or in 1884, George Eastman develops a dry gel on paper. And so basically, it's sort of the predecessor to the film that we would be using 50 years later. In 1888, they came up with... this slogan right here which i think is just great you press the button and we do the rest and they used to send cameras to their customers with a hundred photos in them and then the person could run around and take photos all they want to their heart's content and then send them into the kodak factory which looked something like this get it developed and they would then come back as photos and you can actually see here part of my family this is actually this right here is my great great great grandpa they would make photos of each other and so there's all these great old photos from this time that were all probably most likely taken on Kodak cameras. 1924 was important because Leica came out with the first 35 millimeter camera and 35 millimeter camera really revolutionized photography in some pretty fundamental ways.

The reason is because before this cameras were just so big and heavy it was really hard to take them out and captures things. in the way that you would experience them. And so you can see here, for example, this image from D-Day in World War II.

This is sort of the style of photography that the 35mm allowed for. People could bring a camera with them and shoot something running along with the action. And the camera was so light and small that you didn't have to even have a tripod, and it was fast enough that you could really take a lot of new, innovative photos. After World War II, things really changed a lot, and this is where things really kind of blasted out of the gate. The first SLR came in 1949, so this is a single-lens reflex, and we'll explain what that means later, but this is a very special kind of camera that really kind of has become the industry standard for professional photographers.

Also, the first digital image. So this is... Actually a scanned image, so it's not from a digital camera, but it is the first digital image right there. So from that moment on, photography really made a lot of leaps and bounds very quickly.

In 1963, you get the Polaroid camera. In 1985, you got autofocus, which really changed the way cameras worked with consumers and really changed the kinds of cameras that consumers were buying. From there you then move into the 90s and it was definitely the beginning of the digital age.

You can see this NASA experiment up here. This was a press camera that was being experimented with. You can see it's like carrying a massive computer around.

And then there were some early attempts at consumer cameras as well. And that brings us to now. That brings us to the almost now. In 2004, Kodak stopped making film cameras, so they started switching over to digital cameras like this one right here. Cameras got to be a lot bigger, took a lot of different directions.

You can see here the mirrorless sort of wave of cameras that came in 2011. And the DSLRs also got very big, very expensive, and started making video. So that is sort of the story of photography. You can check out more videos for this course and check out other courses.

at allversity.org.

Transcript for:The Evolution of Photography Through History

Transcript for:
The Evolution of Photography Through History