Essay on the Camera
"Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos "light" and graphein "to draw". The word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. It is a method of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a sensitive material.
On a summer day in 1827, it took eight hours for Joseph Nicephore Niepce to obtain the first photograph. About the same time a fellow Frenchman, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre was experimenting to find a way to capture an image.
Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, inventor of the first practical process of photography, was born near Paris, France on November 18, 1789. A professional scene painter for the opera, Daguerre began experimenting with the effects of light upon translucent paintings in the 1820s. In 1829, he formed a partnership with Joseph Nicephore Niepce to improve the process Niepce had developed to take the first permanent photograph in 1826-1827.
Blitzlichtpulver or flashlight powder was invented in Germany in 1887 by Adolf Miethe and Johannes Gaedicke, they are two more inventors that obtained photograph. Lycopodium powder (the waxy spores from club moss) was used in early flash powder.
In this time photographs were using a pewter plate and bitumen. This plate was then exposed to light. Since the bitumen hardened where the light struck, the unhardened areas were dissolved away. This left a visible image. Since the lens closed very slowly the object that the photographer wished to obtain had to stay very still in order to not make the shot blurry. If you notice in most pictures in the old days the people are not smiling because they had to hold that position for a very long period of time.
The first camera was a large box that captured light. It took hours to develop the picture because the picture went through many different types of changes. I think the history of the camera is important. The camera is such a big part in our society that I thought it would be a good idea to explain its history.
FUN FACT: Adams was the first president to be photographed!
"Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos "light" and graphein "to draw". The word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. It is a method of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a sensitive material.
On a summer day in 1827, it took eight hours for Joseph Nicephore Niepce to obtain the first photograph. About the same time a fellow Frenchman, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre was experimenting to find a way to capture an image.
Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, inventor of the first practical process of photography, was born near Paris, France on November 18, 1789. A professional scene painter for the opera, Daguerre began experimenting with the effects of light upon translucent paintings in the 1820s. In 1829, he formed a partnership with Joseph Nicephore Niepce to improve the process Niepce had developed to take the first permanent photograph in 1826-1827.
Blitzlichtpulver or flashlight powder was invented in Germany in 1887 by Adolf Miethe and Johannes Gaedicke, they are two more inventors that obtained photograph. Lycopodium powder (the waxy spores from club moss) was used in early flash powder.
In this time photographs were using a pewter plate and bitumen. This plate was then exposed to light. Since the bitumen hardened where the light struck, the unhardened areas were dissolved away. This left a visible image. Since the lens closed very slowly the object that the photographer wished to obtain had to stay very still in order to not make the shot blurry. If you notice in most pictures in the old days the people are not smiling because they had to hold that position for a very long period of time.
The first camera was a large box that captured light. It took hours to develop the picture because the picture went through many different types of changes. I think the history of the camera is important. The camera is such a big part in our society that I thought it would be a good idea to explain its history.
FUN FACT: Adams was the first president to be photographed!
