Matthew B. Brady, Civil War Photographer

When Matthew B. Brady was young he moved to New York and studied photography in the free time that he had. Apparently Brady had found his calling in the field of photography because in 1844 he had opened his own studio of photography right in New York. He photographed a lot of famous people, done in portraits and said, “’.. I regarded myself as under obligation to my country to preserve the facts of its historic men and mothers.’” Matthew Brady was one of the first ever photographers to use his photography to document national history chronologically. Just as his portrait photography was at it’s highest he tried a different approach and turned his attention to Civil War photography. Brady planned to gather a group of photographers that would follow the troops in the battle field in order to document the war on a larger scale. Due to this method ‘his’ pictures, weren’t actually his, just his idea with him behind them. Though he did not take the pictures he was the working behind it all. He was the one that worked behind the scenes to preserve the negatives that the group of photographers had taken as well as to manage the films, cameras, etc. When the work was printed there was the issue of how to print as the actually photographers names or Brady’s name. In the end the result was that the photographs were “credited ‘Photographed by Brady’” even though the work was not taken by him. In 1862 he displayed the pictures in his gallery which allowed America to finally see how gruesome the war actually was, and not glorified at all. Although America was intrigued by the reality of war they weren’t interested in purchasing his work which led to Brady going bankrupt. Matthew risked his life and changed his entire lifestyle to show the world what they were unable to see in the war and to him that was all worth it.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwbrady.html

Edward Steichen

Edward Steichen, born in 1879, was one of the first ever fashion photographer. He had the talent to turn the work of ordinary photography and give it an edge. He put more thought into his photography to make it an art form. Through the years he was always interested in art and the new beginning processes of photography. In 1888 he left school to work at a lithographing company. He bought his first camera in 1895 and just three years later he was accepted at the Second Philadelphia Salon of Pictorial Photography. On his way to study painting in Paris he stopped in New York and was introduced to Alfred Stieglitz, who was an American photographer leading a movement that would help other people recognize that photography was fine art. They became close friends and cofounded the Photo-Secession. The Photo-Secession was an organization that they dedicated to making sure photography was known as a fine art, and also to exhibit one of their galleries. During world war I he was in charge of all aerial photography of the America Expedition Force, and in 1919 retired as lieutenant colonel and settled down in France. Later he returned to America and opened a commercial studio in New York which specialized in advertising photography. In the 1920’s he produced fashion illustration, which was new, as well as portraiture for magazines such as Vanity Fair and Vogue. He closed his studio in 1938 to breed plants, and was then called back to command all Navy combat photography. When he was 68 years old he was named the director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His largest and most famous exhibit was titles “The Family of Man” containing 503 photographs and was later put into a book that became a best seller. He was a large part in promoting the artistic side that photography has to offer and continued to achieve major accomplishments throughout his lifetime.

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/edward-steichen/

Ideas

1st point & shoot camera
1st DSLR camera
film to digital
1st film camera
early photographs and how the styles differ from today
early war photographers, what did they photograph?
invention of the lens --> telescope lens?
box camera? (stick figure drawing from class)
dark room process
who's idea was the dark room
1st photograph with a purpose, no just 1st image
1st picture of president, who photographed it?
1st fashion photographer
styles differ, east, south, north, west
styles evolve over time
box camera
the sutton
stereoscope viwer

The Calotype process

The Calotype process was a positive/negative process that wasn’t introduced until 1841 and stayed popular for the next ten years. The process was introduced by Fox Talbot who devised the process and showed his results at the Royal Institution in 1839. When using the term Calotype it strictly refers to the negative image, but commonly it is taken to mean both, positive and negative. A piece of paper was brushed with a light salt solution, dried, and then brushed with a thin silver nitrate solution, then dried again, creating silver chloride in the paper. By doing this the paper becomes sensitive to light and is then ready for exposure. Doing so takes about a half hour for a print our image look. In 1844 Fox Talbot opened a photography establishment in Reading in order for him to mass produce his images. In order to make a print the negative was placed on top of more photo paper, laid down flat in a glass frame and then allowed to develop in the light of the sun.
http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/calotype.htm

Orgin of Black and White Photography

Black and White photography is a number of monochrome forms in visual art. Monochrome means one color which is a combination of alone/solitary and color. In 1727 Professor J. Schulze mixed chalk, nitric acid, and silver in a flask, and stumbled upon the first photosensitive compound ever created. Later on Nicéphore Niépce combines the camera obscura with photosensitive paper and created a permanent image in 1826. Black and white dominated photography until about the twentieth century when color photographs became popular. Taking photographs planned in black and white is a lot more difficult than setting up a colored shot. In black and white there are a lot more elements that need to be thought about and carefully planned. Elements such as exposure of light and shadows have a greater effect on black and white photos due to not having a monochromatic picture. The demand for black and white photos and media have reduced since the twentieth century but have more recently become in demand.

http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/the-origins-of-black-and-white-photography-573689.html

The Camera Lucida

The Camera Lucida was for those artists who wanted to quickly record a scene with the correct prospective. The original design of the camera was published by William Hyde Wollaston in 1807. His design used a four-sided glass prism with angles that measured, 90 degrees, 67.5 degrees, 135 degrees, and another 67.5 degrees. Basically the light from the sun’s rays shine through the prism reflecting an image. The four-sided prism is mounted on a small stand above a sheet of paper. Then if the eye is placed half over the prism, there is a reflected image on the sheet of paper which then can be traced onto the paper. The stand is screwed onto the table and is about six to eight inched high.
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/arts/photography/photproces/cameralucid/history/history.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/90864/camera-lucida

Pinhole Camera

The first pinhole camera was invented by Alhazen, who was a great authority in optics in the time of the middle ages. Alhazen was able to why when a picture was being taken it was upside down. The pinhole camera was also called the Camera Obscura. The camera is a small-enclosed box with a little hole that is placed on either one of the sides on the camera. When the light is allowed to come through the small hole, an image of the object gets projected onto the opposite side of the box. In 1544 a German physicist and mathematician, Gemma Frisius used the concept of light projection in a small room to observe the solar eclipse, which is the first documented time that the pinhole method was used. The actual first photograph taken with a pinhole camera wasn’t until 1850 by a Scottish scientist name Sir David Bewster. The camera was not actually recognized in the terms of popularity until the 1960’s. The image that the pinhole creates is soft, the outlines of objects are not sharp, and due to the light conditions needs a long exposure to allow the light in. Due to the fact of needing a long exposure the camera doesn’t take frozen shots of motion.

http://www.video-surveillance-guide.com/pinhole-camera-history.htm

One of the First war photographers - Robert Fenton

Roger Fenton was bron in 1819 and died in 1869, he was one of the world’s first war photographers. He is profoundly known for photographing the Crimean War. Before this he studied at London U and then went on to study art in London and then later to Paris. He had failed as a painter and took interest in photography, observing the freedom that they had. In 1852 he traveled to Russia where his pictures were among the first ever to be seen in England, which meant that Roger was guaranteed fame. Later, in 1853, he formed and was the secretary of a Photographic Society. He was played an important role in photographing Queen Victoria’s family and the official British Museum photographer. The Crimean War lasted from 1853 to 1956 between Russia and the Turks, and involved the British and the French. In 1855 was commissioned to be the photographer and came out with over 350 pictures. He was one sided when taking his pictures and mostly showed propaganda and showed the well-being of the troops. He was looking to sell his pictures, not to show what war was really like. He didn’t photograph that actual battle that was going on, as he photographed the officials, signs, etc.

http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/fenton.htm