PICTURE PERFECT: PHOTOGRAPHIC INNOVATIONS
Picture perfect: photographic innovations
Since 1826, photography has revolutionized the arts as much as it has technology. Its history is punctuated by a myriad of varied inventions, with new equipment and processes (most of which have been patented) continually emerging. Find out more…
NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION
In the middle of the 19th century, photography was in its infancy. Certain individuals devoted themselves to developing the practice, while people specializing in other fields of study developed this new medium for their own purposes. Already a painter and photographer of renown at the time, Gustave Le Gray developed a new kind of paper negative, which he used in 1851 when he took part in the Mission Héliographique ('heliographic mission'), a photography project aimed documenting the architectural heritage of France.
Gustave’s ‘little papers’
Gustave was recognised as both a talented painter and photographer. After experimenting with the collodion technique, he filed a patent in 1851 for the dry waxed paper negative, a kind of prepared paper for photography, stating that photography on paper was set to become so widespread that, for the sake of art, he now had to focus all his attention and research on either manufacturing the paper or preparing it, to obtain the desired finesse and artistic effect. This invention genuinely revolutionised the practice of photography, especially for travel. Negatives could now be transported and, above all, prepared and stored up to fifteen days in advance, something that had been impossible until then. Le Gray had first-hand experience of this during the 1851 heliographic mission on behalf of the French Commission for Historical Monuments. The patent contains three samples of paper: one of waxed paper, one of waxed and iodised paper and one of waxed and iodised paper washed with silver nitrate. Perhaps the only known papers of this type that have been left untouched to this day.
When seeking a method of carrying out topographical surveys, the French photographer and artist Nadar discovered aerial photography. Attached to the basket of a hot-air balloon, his device took the first birds-eye-view shots of Paris.
The Earth from above
In the 19th century, the many applications of photography saw patents granted that were famous and curious in equal measure. In 1858, Gaspard Félix Tournachon, known as Nadar, proposed a way of carrying out mapping surveys using aerial photography. Nadar planned to attach his device to the edge of a hot-air balloon basket or place it on the bottom, facing the ground. The basket was then turned into a darkroom as well as a laboratory where the collodion process, sensitisation and even image development could be carried out.
French physicist Léon Foucault developed the "heliostat," a device used for observational astronomy from which photographic enlargements could be produced.
Under the magnifying glass! Photography and astronomy
French astronomer and physicist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault was known for his research on the speed of light, for the gyroscope and for his demonstration of the Earth’s rotation. He became interested in photography at a very early stage. He particularly saw all the possibilities it could offer for his astronomical research. In 1841, he proposed an improvement to Daguerre’s process (copper plate daguerreotype). An advocate of astronomical photography, he made a daguerreotype of the sun in April 1845 and also studied microscopic photography. He also made improvements to optics and the construction of telescopes. The ‘heliostat’, which he patented in 1862, was a device used for observational astronomy from which photographic enlargements could be produced.
AT THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S STUDIO
During the Second French Empire, photography was sometimes criticized and often mocked. Despite this, it was becoming increasingly popular, with more and more photographers opening their own studios. By the end of the 19th century, people of all backgrounds had had their photo taken, leading society to wonder if photography would soon eliminate the notion of social class.
Smile!
Eugène Disdéri invented and designed the ‘carte-de-visite’ portrait, which straight away was a huge success. This was a standard size photograph, 6 centimetres wide and just over 10 centimetres long, taken using a camera with several lenses. The camera enabled different photographs to be taken on the same plate, thereby reducing production costs. More prints were produced with the same number of manipulations and operations. This new type of reproduction took its final form when the image was glued onto thick card on which information about the photographer or the studio where it was produced was printed at the bottom of the image or on the back of the card. Disdéri patented this process in 1854 and French Emperor Napoleon III is said to have had his photograph taken in his studio.
Regardless, photography studios were gradually amassing the required equipment to take all types of photos, from the variety of accessories needed to meet the staging requirements of an increasingly demanding clientele to more specific apparatus for long exposures.
Don’t move!
Although photographic techniques improved rapidly in the 19th century, exposure time was still too long. The subject had to keep perfectly still for several seconds to avoid blurring and failed photographs. Oliver François Xavier Sarony was a photographer from Quebec who worked as an itinerant photographer before settling in Scarborough in the north of England. There he set up one of the largest photographic studios in Europe in which he experimented with a sophisticated headrest consisting of “a device to give people posing for photographic portraits more support, comfort and freedom of movement”. He patented his system in France in 1865.
TRUE COLORS
From the invention of photography, even as enhanced, hand-painted images were produced, the possibility of direct shooting in color was often considered. As early as 1857, Testud de Beauregard invented photochromism, a process involving the tinting of photographic prints using different chemical mixtures. The discoveries made in the field of chemistry meant that photographic techniques progressed considerably throughout the 19th century.
Photochromy
In 1857, French engineer and inventor Félix Alexandre Testud de Beauregard proposed photographic printing without using silver salts. Silver salts, which darken when exposed to light, lay at the very heart of the photographic principle at that time. Contrary to common practice, the inventor added colouring substances to obtain coloured prints before the solar reaction of dichromate and gelatine. The patented process heralded the beginnings of colour photography.
Later, Leon Vidal invented a trichromatic printing process which consisted of superimposing 3 monochrome prints to obtain a polychrome print.
Photolithography
Since 1840, photographers had constantly been searching for ways to capture colour, from the colouring of daguerreotype plates to the invention of the autochrome process by the Lumière brothers. A French chemist and science populariser, Léon Vidal, invented the photochrome process, patented in 1872, as part of this resolve to render colours naturally. In his patent application, he stated that his “invention consists of the combined use of colour prints obtained either by photography or by various mechanical means such as lithography, typography or engraving so that all of these superimposed prints form a single polychrome image”.
It was Ducos du Hauron who finally mastered color photography. The Lumière brothers later invented and commercialized autochrome, which originated from a process used for a different color photography method. Ducos du Hauron and Charles Cros are considered to be among the fathers of color photography.
Colour photography
Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron was one of the pioneers who took an early interest in colour photography, especially light and its interactions with colours. In 1859, when he was just 22 years old, he figured out a way of reproducing colour images. This was followed by a large number of discoveries and patents filed in this field. Ducos du Hauron, along with Charles Cros, is considered to be the father of colour photography. The patent he filed in collaboration with André Quinsac in 1883 contains an exquisite sample of a still life in colour, obtained using a photochromatic process.
LEAVING THE STUDIO
As inventions progressed, the devices became simpler and the equipment became easier to use. The processes were refined and became more widespread. The various products needed also became more accessible. As a consequence, photography could be practiced outside the studio and the prospects of those who practiced it expanded.
Photography tours
Intended for travel, the ‘euphographe’ was a device that served as a darkroom, a stand and a tent for photographic preparations. The invention was filed by the famous French optician Charles Louis Chevalier in 1854 and made it easier to transport the camera, even over rough terrain. From the mid-19th century, cameras and photographic processes evolved rapidly, allowing photographs to be taken outdoors.
Amateur photographers of varying levels of expertise organized themselves into associations, societies or photo clubs: it was a time of excursions, traveling and the birth of reportage photography.Amateur photographers of varying levels of expertise organized themselves into associations, societies or photo clubs: it was a time of excursions, traveling and the birth of reportage photography.
Photography walks
In the early days, in-depth, advanced technical knowledge was needed in order to practise photography. The 1880s marked a turning point, first with glass plates and then with celluloid film which was marketed by George Eastman and Kodak, and promoted as easy for the general public to use. At the same time, knowledgeable amateur photographers were joining the large number of photographic societies in Paris and around France. Photography tours began to flourish in these meetings which were fun yet educational. The patent obtained by Gaëtan Mattioli in 1891 is a prime example of this: the photographic chamber and its stand were designed to be installed on a velocipede so that the equipment could be transported and shots quickly taken during the journey.
Then, in 1881, George Eastman founded Kodak. He designed and industrialized the first portable camera and made it widely available, giving everyone the ability to capture the world as they see it from that moment onwards.
You press the button, we do the rest!
George Eastman founded the very famous Kodak company. He revolutionised the practice of photography, designing and manufacturing the first portable camera that everyone could operate, with the advertising slogan “You press the button, we do the rest!”. This camera, which was patented in 1888, worked with a light-sensitive film and was a small but complete photographic darkroom that made the company successful. The invention was considered to be a camera for everyone and enabled a large number of enthusiasts to try their hand at photography. When the film had been used up, the camera was sent to Kodak for the film to be developed and then returned loaded with a new film and along with the photographs.
CREATING ANIMATED IMAGES
Long before the invention of photography, no doubt since the camera obscura, scholarly minds were searching for solutions to move on from still images to animated images. The development of photographic processes and cameras allowed these dreams to come true. People were interested in animated images for a wide variety of reasons: Some people had a scientific interest in animation, such as Georges Demenÿ and Étienne-Jules Marey who studied human locomotion.
Chronophotography
As photographic processes and cameras became more sophisticated, interest in setting images in motion grew. Georges Demenÿ, a physical trainer at the Collège de France, was interested in gymnastics from a scientific and medical point of view. To help him with this research, he developed a chronophotographic camera that produced images at regular intervals which, once animated, made it possible to reconstruct the movement. Demenÿ is considered to be one of the pioneers of cinema and the inventor of the phonoscope and the chronophotograph for scientific observation.
Eadweard Muybridge was also a pioneer of the technique known as chronophotography and used hundreds of shots taken almost simultaneously to study movement, particularly that of horses.
The horse in motion (Eadweard Muybridge) 1878 First Film Ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heRuLp7CyTM&t=10s
Photographing movement
The English photographer Eadweard James Muybridge is considered to be the father of chronophotography. The patent he filed in 1878 was concerned with the deconstruction of the motion of a galloping horse: the photographic shots were taken in quick succession as the animal passed by. The method for analysing the movement, broken down by the succession of snapshots, had a tremendous impact. This breakthrough heralded one of the paths taken by photography at the end of the 19th century, namely the moving image and cinema.
As for the Lumière brothers, were they guided by anything other than joy and the need to discover? In any case, their invention laid the foundations of cinema and opened a new path in the world of pictorial art.
1895 - L'arroseur Arrose'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E0IenGJ09o&t=1s
Creating animated images
Auguste and Louis Lumière need no introduction. The two brothers wore many hats as photographers, chemists, industrialists and inventors, and filed a large number of patents in the field of photography. Probably the best known are the cinematograph and the so-called autochrome process for colour photography. The cinematograph was the first device that could film, develop and project images. It was a device for viewing chronophotographic prints that followed each other at regular intervals, thereby creating the illusion that the images were moving. It was the birth of cinema.
Exhibition produced in partnership with Amandine Gabriac, PhD in History
