Photography
Prepared by
Lecturer
Vilnius, 2007
Table of contents
I. PHOTOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………..3
1. Photographic cameras…………………………………………………………………….4
2. Use of photography……………………………………………………………………….4
3. History of photography……………………………………………………………………5
4. Photography types: •Black&White photography………………………………..6
•Color photography………………………………………..7
5. Digital photography…………………………………………………………………..8
6. Photography styles…………………………………………………………………………9
7. Photography as an art form…………………………………………………………….11
8. Technical photography………………………………………………………………….12
9. Other photographic image forming techniques…………………………………12
10. Myths and superstition………………………………………………………………..13
11. Myths in rural India………………………………………………………………..13
II. CAMERA…..…………………………………………………………………………………14
1. History…………………………………………………………….…….14
2. Exposure control…………………………………………………….….16
3. Focus………………………………………………………………….…16
4. Image capture……………………………………………………….…..17
5. Camera brands……………………………………………………….…18
6. Camera gallery…………………………………………………….…….19
III. PHOTOGRAPHER………………………………..……………………………20
• Also……………………………………………………………..……….21
List of resources……………………………………………………………….…..22
I. PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography is the process of recording pictures by means of capturing light on a light-sensitive medium, such as a film or electronic sensor. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects expose a sensitive silver halide based chemical or electronic medium during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically.
Lens and mounting of a large-format camera
A student using a handheld digital camera.
The word „photography“ comes from the French photographie which is based on the Greek words φως phos („light“), and γραφίς graphis („stylus“, „paintbrush“) or γραφή graphê („representation by means of lines“ or „drawing“), together meaning „drawing with light.“ Traditionally, the product of photography has been called a photograph, commonly shortened to photo.
1. Photographic cameras
The camera or camera obscura is the image-forming device, and photographic film or a silicon electronic image sensor is the sensing medium. The respective recording medium can be the film itself, or a digital electronic or magnetic memory.
Photographers control the camera and lens to „expose“ the light recording material to the required amount of light to form a „latent image“ or „raw file“ which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable image. Modern digital cameras replace film with an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically, but can be reproduced on paper or film.
The controls usually include but are not limited to the following:• Focus of the lens
• Aperture of the lens.
• Shutter speed.
• White balance.
• Metering.
• ISO speed.
• Auto-focus point.
2. Uses of photography
Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge’s study of human and animal locomotion in 1887. Artists are equally interested by these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement. Military, police, and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used to preserve memories of favorite times, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to send messages, and as a source of entertainment.
Commercial advertising relies heavily on photography and has contributed greatly to its development.
3. History of photography
Nicéphore Niépce’s earliest surviving photograph, c. 1826. This image required an eight-hour exposure, which resulted in sunlight being visible on both sides of the buildings.
Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries. Long before the first photographs were made, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (965–1040) invented the
camera obscura and pinhole camera. Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) discovered silver nitrate, and Georges Fabricius (1516–1571) discovered silver chloride. Daniel Barbaro described a diaphragm in 1568. Wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694. The fiction book Giphantie (by the French Thiphaigne de La Roche, 1729-1774) described what can be interpreted as photography.
Photography as a usable process goes back to the 1820s with the development of chemical photography. The first permanent photograph was an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce. However, the picture took eight hours to expose, so he went about trying to find a new process. Working in conjunction with Louis Daguerre, they experimented with silver compounds based on a Johann Heinrich Schultz discovery in 1724 that a silver and chalk mixture darkens when exposed to light. Niépce died in 1833, but Daguerre continued the work, eventually culminating with the development of the daguerreotype in 1839.
Meanwhile, Hercules Florence had already created a very similar process in 1832, naming it Photographie, and William Fox Talbot had earlier discovered another means to fix a silver process image but had kept it secret. After reading about Daguerre’s invention, Talbot refined his process so that it might be fast enough to take photographs of people. By 1840, Talbot had invented the calotype process, which creates negative images. John Herschel made many contributions to the new methods. He invented the cyanotype process, now familiar as the „blueprint“. He was the first to use the terms „photography“, „negative“ and „positive“. He discovered sodium thiosulphate solution to be a solvent of silver halides in 1819, and informed Talbot and Daguerre of his discovery in 1839 that it could be used to „fix“ pictures and make them permanent. He made the first glass negative in late 1839.
In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer published his findings in „The Chemist“ on the wet plate Collodion process. This became the most widely used process between 1852 and the late 1880s when the dry plate was introduced. There are three subsets to the Collodion process; the Ambrotype (positive image on glass), the Ferrotype or Tintype (positive image on metal) and the negative which was printed on Albumen or Salt paper.
Many advances in photographic glass plates and printing were made in through the nineteenth century. In 1884, George Eastman developed the technology of film to replace photographic plates, leading to the technology used by film cameras today.
4. Photography types
Black-and-white photography
„Casting Winds“ – this black & white displays the classic monochrome look, as well as the use of simulated optical filtering to enhance or diminish the rendering of certain light wavelengths.
All photography was originally monochrome, or black-and-white. Even after color film was readily available, black-and-white photography continued to dominate for decades, due to its lower cost and its „classic“ photographic look. In modern times, black-and-white has mostly become a minority art form, and most photography has become color photography.
Many photographers continue to produce some monochrome images. Some full color digital images are processed using a variety of techniques to create black and whites, and some cameras have even been produced to exclusively shoot monochrome.
Color photography
Color photography was explored beginning in the mid 1800s. Early experiments in color could not fix the photograph and prevent the color from fading. The first permanent color photo was taken in 1861 by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell.
Early color photograph taken by Prokudin-Gorskii (1915)
One of the early methods of taking color photos was to use three cameras. Each camera would have a color filter in front of the lens. This technique provides the photographer with the three basic channels required to recreate a color image in a darkroom or processing plant. Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii developed another technique, with three color plates taken in quick succession.
Practical application of the technique was held back by the very limited color response of early film; however, in the early 1900s, following the work of photo-chemists such as H. W. Vogel, emulsions with adequate sensitivity to green and red light at last became available.
The first color plate, Autochrome, invented by the French Lumière brothers, reached the market in 1907. It was based on a ‘screen-plate’ filter made of dyed dots of potato starch, and was the only color film on the market until German Agfa introduced the similar Agfacolor in 1932. In 1935, American Kodak introduced the first modern (‘integrated tri-pack’) color film, Kodachrome, based on three colored emulsions. This was followed in 1936 by Agfa’s Agfacolor Neue. Unlike the Kodachrome tri-pack process the color couplers in Agfacolor Neue were integral with the emulsion layers, which greatly simplified the film processing. Most modern color films, except Kodachrome, are based on the Agfacolor Neue technology. Instant color film was introduced by Polaroid in 1963.
As an interesting side note, the inventors of Kodachrome, Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, Jr. were both accomplished musicians. Godowsky was the brother-in-law of George Gershwin and his father was Leopold Godowsky, one of the world’s greatest
pianists.
Color photography may form images as a positive transparency, intended for use in a slide projector or as color negatives, intended for use in creating positive color enlargements on specially coated paper. The latter is now the most common form of film (non-digital) color photography owing to the introduction of automated photoprinting equipment.
5. Digital photography