Camera Victorian Eyewitness A History of Photography: 1826-1913

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Thomas Annan (1829–1887) is best known for his photographs of Glasgow’s slums. His striking and often moving images, produced between 1868 and 1871, were made at the request of the City of Glasgow council, who commissioned Annan to make a record of the housing conditions in the old town prior to their demolition as part of an urban improvement scheme. In the 1830s, the British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot showed off his photographic process called the 'Calotype'. This method used high-quality photosensitive paper instead of metal sheets like the daguerreotype. When it was exposed to light, the paper produced a hidden image that could be developed and preserved when rinsed with hyposulphite. The results were a little bit fuzzier than daguerreotypes, but they were much easier to reproduce. With the Calotype, infinite copies could be made with just one negative. It would be hard to imagine a mobile phone that did not include a digital camera today. The iPhone 13 has multiple lenses and works as a video camera with 12 megapixels of resolution. That is 12,000 times the resolution of the original device created in 1975. Modern Photography The baseboard was hinged so that when the two standards were pushed together it could be folded up behind the rear standard. As well as making the camera more portable it provided protection for the focusing screen. Before the development of the photography camera, it had been known for hundreds of years that some substances, such as silver salts, darkened when exposed to sunlight. [10] :4 In a series of experiments, published in 1727, the German scientist Johann Heinrich Schulze demonstrated that the darkening of the salts was due to light alone, and not influenced by heat or exposure to air. [11] :7The Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed in 1777 that silver chloride was especially susceptible to darkening from light exposure, and that once darkened, it becomes insoluble in an ammonia solution. [11] The first person to use this chemistry to create images was Thomas Wedgwood. [10] To create images, Wedgwood placed items, such as leaves and insect wings, on ceramic pots coated with silver nitrate, and exposed the set-up to light. These images weren't permanent, however, as Wedgwood didn't employ a fixing mechanism. He ultimately failed at his goal of using the process to create fixed images created by a camera obscura. [11] :8 View from the Window at Le Gras (1826), the earliest surviving photograph [10] :3–5

Above: This tintype of a woman has been heavily tinted. From the Howarth-Loomes Collection at National Museums Scotland. The first permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris. [11] :9–11 Niépce had been experimenting with ways to fix the images of a camera obscura since 1816. The photograph Niépce succeeded in creating shows the view from his window. It was made using an 8-hour exposure on pewter coated with bitumen. [11] :9 Niépce called his process "heliography". [10] :5 Niépce corresponded with the inventor Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, and the pair entered into a partnership to improve the heliographic process. Niépce had experimented further with other chemicals, to improve contrast in his heliographs. Daguerre contributed an improved camera obscura design, but the partnership ended when Niépce died in 1833. [11] :10 Daguerre succeeded in developing a high-contrast and extremely sharp image by exposing on a plate coated with silver iodide, and exposing this plate again to mercury vapor. [10] :6 By 1837, he was able to fix the images with a common salt solution. He called this process Daguerreotype, and tried unsuccessfully for a couple of years to commercialize it. Eventually, with help of the scientist and politician François Arago, the French government acquired Daguerre's process for public release. In exchange, pensions were provided to Daguerre as well as Niépce's son, Isidore. [11] :11 Believe it or not, television didn’t exist in Victorian times! Therefore, Victorians entertained themselves by going to the theatre or watching live music. Visiting the music hall was a popular British pastime for poorer people. For a penny, customers were treated to a variety show, showcasing musicians, comedians and plays. Digital manipulation software arrived on personal computers in 1990, which increased the popularity of digital cameras. Now images could be processed and manipulated at home without the need for costly materials or a dark room.The first color photograph was created in 1961 by Thomas Sutton (the inventor of the single-lens reflex camera). He made the photograph by using three separate monochrome plates. Sutton created this photo specifically to use in the lectures of James Maxwell, the man who discovered that we could make any visible color as a combination of Red, Green, and Blue. Where the front standard can be disengaged from the baseboard it is simply pushed towards the rear standard and the baseboard can fold up to cover it (fig. 70). This is similar to Folding Bed designs. Also in 1851, the scientist Sir David Brewster (1781-1868) presented lenticular stereoscopy to the world for the first time, at the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London. However, the single-lens reflex camera was essential for those with money who were serious about developing their passion for technology. The first 35mm SLR was the “Filmanka,” which came out of the Soviet Union in 1931. However, this had only a short production run and used a waist-level viewfinder. In 1987 Godwin was awarded the Bradford Fellowship, hosted jointly by this museum, Bradford College and the University of Bradford. During the term of her fellowship, Godwin’s experiments with colour photography culminated in the exhibition Bradford in Colour.

Eventually, through much experimentation, inventors were able to develop a film that could capture colorBy 1935, Kodak was able to produce “Kodachrome” film. It contained three different emulsions layered on the same film, each “recording” its own color. The creation of the film, as well as the processing of it, was an expensive task and so was out of reach for the middle-class users that were beginning to take up photography as a hobby. This pattern has similarities with the Kinnear pattern and with the small front focus bellows cameras produced in the wet-plate period.

The Kodak moment

Nicephore Niepce experimented with a range of other substances before turning towards a “film” made from “Bitumen of Judea.” This “bitumen,” sometimes also known as “Asphalt of Syria,” is a semi-solid form of oil that appears like tar. Mixed with pewter, it was found to be the perfect material for Niepce to employ. Using the wooden camera obscura box he had, he could create a permanent image on this surface, though it was quite blurred. Niepce referred to this process as “heliography”.

Front focus models were introduced by Watson (c. 1883) and by Lancaster on several models including the Brass Bound Instantograph (1891). Somewhat similar was the arrangement where the front standard is unclipped from the baseboard and pivots down whilst still held by struts (fig. 74). To these can be added the less common larger sizes 20" x 16" and 24" x 20". Post-card - 5 ½" x 3 ½" - was a common print size from the early 1900s but few cameras were made specifically for this format. British cameras were also produced in metric sizes especially 9 x 12 cm and 13 x 18 cm.This photograph, The Steerage, was a turning point for Stieglitz in his move towards a modern aesthetic. His work started to become more closely aligned with photography’s inherent qualities: sharp focus, good contrast and full range of tones became important to him, and replaced the fuzzy lines and dappled surfaces favoured by the Pictorialists. This change of emphasis became known as ‘straight photography’.