History of Photography
The history of photography spans millennia, ranging from the Greek philosophers to the photographic pioneers of today. Throughout this history, the problem of being able to store an image, or make it permanent, has been the most restrictive factor of advancement in photography. How was this problem overcome, and how is it being dealt with today? The history of film is what has made these problems solvable. The first real photographic discovery came when Aristotle came upon camera obscura. What aristotle saw was a reflection of an image from outside on a wall inside a dark room. Although this was an amazing discovery, people didn't realize its significance until about 1500 A.D. in Italy. The the principle was rediscovered, and given its first real use in what can be called the first camera. It was a large box, with a small opening through which the image was projected, and then sketched by artists, and later colored. This had obvious shortcomings however, and people still sought after a way to permanently record an image. Nearly 250 years later, a German Physicist named Johann H. Schulze discovered that silver salts change when exposed to light, and about 50 yeas later, a Swedish Chemist named Carl Scheele discovered that
The invention of the dry-plate process by a british doctor named Richard L. Maddox overcame the inconvenience of the collodion method. Unlike collodion, gelatin dried on a plate without harming the silver salts. By using dry plates, photographers did not have to process a picture immediately. The use of the gelatin also made it possible to take a camera off a tripod, as it reduced exposure times to 1/25 of a second. Photographers now had the ability to hold the camera in their own hands. In addition to giving photographers mobility and freedom, the introduction of the gelatin revolutionized the design of cameras. Earlier types of printing paper could only be contact printed so negatives had to be as large as the intended print. But photos on paper coated with gelatin could be made by projection printing. Photographers could enlarge such pictures during the printing process, and so the size of negatives could be reduced. Smaller negatives meant smaller cameras. Meanwhile, a French inventor named Joseph Niepce was busy at work making the first photograph. By coating a metal plate in light sensitive chemical, and exposing the sheet, he was not only able to make the first photograph, but also the first film. In 1830, a man named Louis Daguerre perfected Joseph Niepce's technique and expanded on it. By taking a sheet of copper covered in silver salts
Some common words found in the essay are:
Richard Maddox, Frederick Archer, Brownie Kodak, Fox Talbot, , Joseph Niepce's, Button Rest, AD Italy, Joseph Niepce, Carl Scheele, silver salts, film rolls, roll film, inventor named, process british, fox talbot, reduced exposure, photographers process,
Approximate Word count = 923
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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