Photography

The word photography has a triple meaning ^Etymology

The word "photography" comes from two roots original Greek :

• the prefix "photo" (o pictures: light, clear) - which carries the light, using light;
• the suffix "-graphy" (, graphein: painting, drawing, writing) - who writes, resulting in an image.

Literally "paint with light". The shorter term photo is very frequently used. Where we speak of a photographic image, we use the words as often picture, print or view larger photo.

The person using the photographic technique at the stage of shooting is called the photographer. There are many occupations related to the shooting. For example, a person working in a laboratory to carry out the expansion of negative is called the shooter.

The photographic technique: history

Since its invention, it is one hundred and seventy years, photography has taken advantage of many innovative technologies and techniques in the fields of optics , the chemistry , of mechanics , of electricity , the electronic and the computer.

Invention

The two phenomena needed to obtain photographic images had long been known for certain. Since Aristotle , we knew the reality set in box, simply drill a "small hole ( pinhole ) in a dark room ( camera obscura ) to see a mirror image in the white box. On the other hand, the alchemists knew that the light blackened silver chloride. Around 1780 Jacques Charles , best known for his invention of the balloon inflated with hydrogen, managed to freeze, but so fleeting, a figure obtained by the process of the darkroom on paper soaked in silver chloride. Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805) made similar experiments with silver nitrate , he published a memoir in 1802. For his part John Herschel in 1819 describes the properties of sodium thiosulfate , which will become the fixer.

Joseph Nicephore Niepce , the inventor of Chalon-sur-Saone , combines these three methods to attach images (medium quality) on sheets of tin covered with bitumen of Judea, a kind of natural tar that has the property of hardening in light ( 1826 or 1827 ), the first photograph represents a wing of his property to Saint-Loup-de-Varennes ( Sane-et-Loire ). This view is visible at the University of Texas at Austin since Helmut Gernsheim donated to that institution in 1963 . If you look good image, note the special lighting. Indeed, the exposure lasted many hours (estimated laying between 14 and 18 hours), the sun has lit the right wall and then the left one later in the day.

Nikephoros died in 1833 and Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre continued process improvement. By discovering the principle of developing the latent image , Daguerre found a way to shorten the exposure time to a few tens of minutes. In 1839 , he promoted his invention with the scientist and member Franois Arago , who gave him his support.

Thus, the conventional date of the invention of photography is 1839 , the date of the presentation by Arago at the Academy of Sciences of the "invention" of Daguerre , the daguerreotype. It's actually an improvement from the invention of Niepce. The French state acquired it against a life annuity annual 6000 francs to Daguerre and Isidore in 4000 francs Niepce's son Nicephorus then donated "to the world."

With the daguerreotype images were obtained after "only" half an hour of installation (when the sky is perfectly clear). This slowness is somewhat problematic: the streets of Paris , even at rush hour seem completely empty. But who cares, photography was invented. The first photograph of human beings will be done later: a passerby is a shoe shine Shine Street, the two characters remained motionless for several minutes.

Evolution

Subsequently, photography is changing very fast. Indeed, the search result is acquired by the French government and people can very quickly improve.

The progress along three directions:

• Reducing the exposure time by increasing:
  • the sensitivity of sensitive surfaces
  • the brightness of the objectives;
• Improving the stability of the draw;
• Simplifying the use of devices, thanks to the invention:
  • devices become lighter and less expensive
  • stable preparations of avoiding chemical manipulations,
  • the introduction of computers with scanning the image, called "digital camera".

Invention of the negative

William Henry Fox Talbot ( 1.8 thousand - 1877 ) conducts research parallel those of Niepce and Daguerre from 1833. In 1840 , he invented the " calotype "negative-positive process that allows multiple scattering images.

After further research, which gradually can improve image quality, sensitivity, sensitive surfaces, and simplify the process of shooting; 1847 " process to albumin ( Claude Felix Abel Niepce de Saint Victor , Nicephorus cousin), 1850 "process to wet collodion "and 1851 " ambrotype ( Frederick Scott Archer ), 1852 " ferrotype ( Adolphe-Alexandre Martin ).

Felix Tournachon better known by the name of Nadar in fact a commercial use. He creates portraits of personalities of the time, and in 1858 he directed to Bivres the first aerial photography, taking a view of Paris from a balloon.

Invention of flexible film

The first pictures ( black and white or autochromes) were performed on glass plates, relatively bulky, heavy and fragile. In 1884 , George Eastman develops flexible sensitive surfaces. The film celluloid , to store multiple images in the camera store, then supplants the glass plate. The reduction in aircraft size facilitates the practice of shooting (almost) all places and all circumstances. Kodak will be the first camera made by Eastman to record hundreds of images on flexible substrates. Once the exposed film, the camera was returned to Rochester (NY) where the film was developed from the tests, the device is reloaded, and everything returned to its owner. ^{Invention of color photography}

Charles Cros and Louis Ducos du Hauron show the same day at the Academy of Sciences, the principle of photography in color indirect subtractive trichromatic 1869 , requiring exposure of 3 images corresponding to the three primary colors. The method is widely used by Prokudin-Gorskii between 1900 and 1918.

An important step was then the first truly practical method of photography in color , the " autochrome , "invented by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere in 1903 and commercialized since 1907. The usage is simple (one image) but low sensitivity requires poses few seconds and the format of the plates 9 12 requires heavy equipment.

It was not until 1935 with the entry into production of Agfacolor then the Kodachrome for photography in color spread with compact easy to carry ( film bags), but still limited to slides. The fans will wait for the Ektachrome to 1946 to dispose of affordable treatment that delicate.

Success depended on a large scale of the possibility of drawing on paper that allows Kodacolor introduced in limited quantities during the Second World War ( 1942 ) and more widely in the 1950s in the format 135.

The film 35mm and small format devices

In 1909, French Mollier Stephen had the idea of using 35 mm movie film in his camera called the Hundred Views , appliance "wallet" which took one hundred consecutive views 18 / 24 mm. The Hundred Views was built in 1910, won the Gold Medal Concours Lpine and was immediately sold on a small scale and without much success . In 1913 , Oskar Barnack built the first prototype of the Leica , which was marketed from 1925 and was the first devices using the format 24 x 36 mm , which remained the most common until the late twentieth ^century.

Invention of the direct positive

Around 1948 , Dr. Edwin H. Land developed the first device, instant, the Polaroid , and in 1962 he adapted the method to color. Early versions consisted of an inter Polaroid. In the 1980s we improve the technique of the inter happen and get a real positive line.

Yet one of the first investigations of the photograph in which the French Bayard work around 1838-1839, simultaneously searches Niepce and Daguerre on the daguerreotype. We know of Bayard with this process, the first self-portrait (the "Self-Portrait in flooded") in the history of photography.

A variant, photography relief

The stereo was invented before the photograph (Wheatstone, 1838), photographers have made since 1841 to take pictures in relief, in two successive exposures with a lag between the two shots. The shooting of two times when it is not possible for portraits, devices with two objectives have been constructed for this purpose since the 1850s.

Digital photography

The technical computer can transform an image into a series of points, pixels , whose characteristics are expressed by numbers. With this scan , it is possible to reconstruct the image at will on computing devices adapted: we can treat it with software development and retouching and print or distribute in digital format.

The difficulty with this technology, which marks a complete break with the initial physical and chemical processes, lies in the design of electronic sensors that replace the image of the film. The resolution of these, the number of pixels of an image that they are capable of generating and sensitivity are changing very rapidly. The number of photosites per square millimeter plays a significant role, although, as with the old techniques, the quality of the final image depends on many other parameters such as size of the sensor in connection with the resolving power of the optics used. Using a similar vein, a 12 megapixel sensor full format will be a much better picture quality than a compact digital sensor with the same number of pixels.

Digital photography has the advantage of being able to restate and retouch images with a computer and image processing software. This software allows great freedom of creation, ranging from simple light correction, contrast or color retouching and image composition.

Communication networks, internet and community services online photo appeared since 2003, have made use of the possibilities of digital photography. With blogs and services photo sharing as Pikeo or Flickr , photographers have Internet tools and services to connect, share and display their digital photos, both in private or community that globally. Services provide opportunities for significant operating online: contact management, slide shows, location, etc.. Artists and professionals find their account with large audiences exceeding any place of physical exposure.

Major brands of digital cameras are: Canon , Fujifilm , Kodak , Leica , Nikon , Olympus , Panasonic , Pentax , Samsung , Sony

The photograph synthesis

Mimicry of photography hardware, it fits in the digital 3D. The computer graphics 3D, creating digital universe on a copy of the material universe, requires a process of visual representation of the universe. Photography synthesis is the application to the digital photography hardware (analog and digital). While providing details of the photograph material, it can move away from being constrained by the physical limits of the material world.

The astronomical photography

Technique that is used in astronomy , which involves photographing the stars.

Uses of photography

Since its invention, the use of photography is intimately linked to the evolution of his technique. She became the first truly popular art.

An objective technique?

Photography heralds a new era in the representation; we are now able to have a representation of reality "objective." Man no longer represents reality as he sees it and as he can but the "real" that impresses the support (by the direct action of light (photon) that is reflected or emitted from the object to the sensitive surface). Photography and quickly finds its use in reporting in the anthropometrics , invented by Alphonse Bertillon. We have the ambition to make an inventory of the world.

However, this objectivity has its limits. The photography already allowed to distort the reality, to add or subtract elements of an image by a patient laboratory work (see: Photomontage ). But with the advent of digital photography, the special effects that were previously accessible only to connoisseurs, are almost within reach of all.

Moreover, the choice of the photographer matter: the choice of subject, framing, development, alteration, etc.. The photographer has its own interpretation that the real presents itself. Thus, in black and white, an atmosphere can be made dramatic by some techniques when the reality was not much (by increasing the density of the clouds for example). Merely to draw the eye on an item, by photographing, alters the perception of viewers (receivers of the picture) against the whole of the scene who is more reduced to one or more images.

Add to that the technological limits for the colors, perspectives, moving subjects, etc.. A camera does not transmit exactly what the viewer sees. It can distort the objects and faces, creating chromatic aberrations , tilt a church by exaggerating the perspective , etc..

Influence on Painting

Until the use of photography is the painting that role was the portrayal of reality. The painters were torn between the need for an accurate representation of the reality and the desire to beautify their pictures to make them more attractive. With the advent of photography, visual arts were able to free themselves from reality and turn to the abstract art.

A folk art

Photography has also inaugurated an era where almost everyone could have his portrait or representations of objects or places that remained hitherto reserved for an elite economic, when to ask a painter to produce an image. This resulted initially approached by some photographs that many of the more classic portrait.
But the making of the photograph has been rapidly disseminated. And today, almost everyone has easy access to the ability to "take a picture." The representation of the world has been transformed and sociologists do not fail to study the practices and results of popular photography.

The friendly environment allows to speak of "folk art" by the possibility for the public to have more forms of this art and to produce artifacts.

The Eighth Art

In the classification of art derived from that of Hegel , photography receives eighth place (in competition with the radio and television ). These three activities are sometimes grouped into "media arts".

Photography is a technical and mechanical means to keep a graphical representation of the moments, objects or people. But it is also a means of expression more or less abstract, signed by its author, photographer , and whose objectivity is equivalent to any artistic work. Long locked in imitation of painting ( Pictorialism , seascapes, portraits, etc..) photography has found its own way of expression with the emergence of surrealism.

The great photographers

Among the photographers who had a significant influence, are:

Dedicated category: Photographer (classification by nationality)

Festivals

Dedicated category: photo gallery or museum

France

• Visa pour l'Image International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan (Official Site)
• International Meetings of Photography in Arles (Official Site)
• Mois de la Photo in Paris , every two years (Official Site)
• Salon de la Photo in Paris (Official Site)
• Paris Photo, Paris (Official Site)
• Festimago in Villefranche-sur-Mer (Official Site)
• ADPS Salon, Paris (Official Site)
• Nature Encounters imaging at Fournels

Switzerland

• The Images Festival ' in Vevey

Canada

• Month of Photography in Montreal

Mali

• Photographic Encounters in Bamako

...

References