Origins of Photography

Nicéphore Niépce was a French inventor who is accredited with making the first permanent photographic image. In 1813, lithography ⁽¹⁾ became a fashionable hobby in France and Niépce, lacking either drawing skills or to procure good quality lithographic stone locally, sought to find a novel way to record images on their own. He experimented with coating pewter, a metal alloy, with several light-sensitive substances in order to copy superimposed engravings in sunlight. In 1816, he moved on to experimenting with sun drawings, called heliography. ⁽²⁾ After several failed attempts at experimentation, in 1826/27, he was able to create a photographic copy of the first permanent image of an engraving that was superimposed on glass, by setting up a device known as the camera obscura, ⁽³⁾ that captured and projected scenes that were illuminated by sun light. The crude image thus captured included buildings and rooftops outside of his studio in eastern France and took an exposure time of approximately eight hours (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020).

This major achievement paved the way for further development of photography. When Niépce could not reduce the long exposure times by either chemical or optical means, he finally collaborated with a Parisian painter Louis Daguerre on 1829, in order to perfect and experiment with heliography more. He died before he could see any results of this collaboration, but Daguerre, building up on Niépce’s knowledge and resources, ultimately succeeded in reducing the exposure times greatly through his discovery of a chemical process, by which if a copper plate coated with silver iodide was exposed to light in a camera, followed by fuming it with mercury vapour and making it permanent by a common salt solution, a permanent image would be formed – this process came to be known as the daguerreotype, named after its inventor. This further sowed the seeds of the origins of photogravure,⁽⁴⁾ leading to the invention of photography and for reproduction of photographs (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020).

In 1852, a British scientist and inventor, William Henry Fox Talbot, by placing a piece of black tulle, a kind of cloth, in between a leaf and the photosensitive coating spread on a steel plate, managed to produce a picture that retained the fine mesh of the cloth. This etching with acid not only lead to a consistent and substantial corrosion of an area but also to minute holes all over the photosensitive coating, fluctuating in depth as per the degree of exposure. He had not only invented the screen but also paved the way for the development of a new style of printing called rotogravure. ⁽⁵⁾ By the 1880’s the screen was perfected by substituting two sheets of glass in lieu of the cloth, thereby making possible letterpress and lithographic reproduction in full range of tonalities of a photographic document by using diffusion of light. (Lechêne, 2020).

Talbot’s experimentation with capturing an image, due to his interest in drawing but lacking the necessary skills, led him to successfully make a photograph of his home in Lacock Abbey in 1835. This was the first recorded instance of a photographic image. He did not publish this process and was unaware of Daguerre’s photographic developments until the French Government’s announcement of the daguerreotype in January 1839 (Whitmire, 2020).

He immediately published his earlier researches and refined them to produce and apply for a patent on what became known as the “Calotype Process” – from the Greek kalos or beautiful – in 1841. “To produce a negative, the paper was first washed in nitrate of silver then with potassium iodide, forming silver iodide. Before exposure the paper was coated with a compound of acetic aced with silver nitrate and gallic acid, forming gallo silver nitrate. The paper was rinsed and dried before exposure in the camera. After exposure the paper was again washed with the gallo silver nitrate, then a hot solution of hypo was used as a fixative. A positive print could now be made on paper treated with silver chloride. Thus, Talbot became the creator of negative-positive photography.” (Whitmire, 2020)

William Henry Fox Talbot, An oak tree in winter, Lacock (c.1842-43) :Calotype negative and salted paper print (Fig 5)

Talbot’s first book titled ‘The Pencil of Nature‘, illustrated with photographs containing scenes from daily life along with predictions and goals for the photographic art, was published in 1844. Had Talbot published his findings a few weeks earlier, he would have been known as the father of photography instead of Daguerre. He was the founder of the negative-positive photographic process as is practised even today, despite not being able to achieve breakthrough commercial success with calotype, though his work is regarded as one of the photography’s major achievements, both in terms of art and science. and most importantly, his greatest gift was creating a niche for photography’s place into the world of art (Whitmire, 2020).

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ENDNOTES:

(1) Lithography – A process where ink is applied to a grease-treated image on the flat printing surface; nonimage (blank) areas, which hold moisture, repel the lithographic ink. This inked surface is then printed—either directly on paper, by means of a special press, or onto a rubber cylinder.

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2019) Lithography | Printing. At: https://www.britannica.com/technology/lithography (Accessed 26/04/2020).

(2) Heliography – A method by which light can draw pictures by oiling an engraving to make it transparent and then placed it on a plate coated with a light-sensitive solution of bitumen of Judea (a type of asphalt) and lavender oil and exposed the setup to sunlight. After a few hours, the solution under the light areas of the engraving hardens, while that under the dark areas remains soft and could be washed away, leaving a permanent, accurate copy of the engraving.

(Rosenblum, N., Helmut Erich Robert Gernsheim, H. and Newhall, B. (2019) History Of Photography | Inventions & Events. Encyclopedia Britannica. At: https://www.britannica.com/technology/photography (Accessed 26/04/2020).

(3) Camera obscura – The Latin name means “dark chamber,” and the earliest versions, dating to antiquity, consisted of small darkened rooms with light admitted through a single tiny hole. The result was that an inverted image of the outside scene was cast on the opposite wall, which was usually whitened.

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2020) Camera Obscura | Definition & Facts. At: https://www.britannica.com/technology/camera-obscura-photography (Accessed 26/04/2020).

(4) Photogravure – Is an intaglio printmaking process whereby a metal plate is grained (adding a pattern to the plate) and then coated with a light-sensitive gelatin film, and then etched, resulting in a high quality etched plate that can reproduce detailed continuous tones of a photograph.

Renaissancepress.com (2020) Photogravure | Renaissance Press. At: https://www.renaissancepress.com/photogravure/ (Accessed 26/04/2020).

(5) Rotogravure – Is a system of printing based on the transfer of fluid ink from depressions in a printing plate to the paper. It is an intaglio process, so-called because the design to be printed is etched or engraved below the surface of the printing plate. At the start of the process, the plate is covered with ink and the surface is then wiped clean. When paper is pressed against the inked plate, the paper penetrates the sunken parts slightly and draws out the ink.

Encyclopedia Britannica (2013) Rotogravure Printing | Printing. At: https://www.britannica.com/technology/rotogravure-printing (Accessed 26/04/2020).