History Film Highlights
- The following items are places to pause the video tape. You should have additional notes than just the following details. If you were absent, please write all of these notes for credit for Focus.
First Impressions – Aristotle thru Frederick Archer, 1851. Discovery Channel, Fall 1988
- The sale of old photos is a big business. Cost of an old photo – $4200 United Kingdom’s Pounds to US Dollars…approximately 1.8 or a total of $7.5k US. Another one at $11k pounds…$20k US!
- Photography began when Charles Dickens was a school boy, i.e. the 1820’s
- A dark box w/ a whole in it…that’s all a camera is
- Camera Obscura…you can create one in your room by covering your window
o What was needed was the ability to record an image
- Niepce (pronounced Kne-eps) – recorded the first photograph…that took 8 hours.
o Never perfected the process…but he partnered with Louis Daguerre
- Daguerre, from France – was first known for his fascinating dioramas.
o Developed the Daguerreotype which was an image recorded onto a copper plate.
o 15-30 minute exposure. First person recorded was a person who stopped to have his shoes polished.
- Henry Fox Talbot, from England, with the Calotype, is known as the Father of Modern FILM photography. He was working on his process as early as 1835. He did not publicize his findings, and did not know of Daguerre’s work until 1839. An interesting side note is that the Daguerreotype is like the digital positive as the Calotype is to the film negative
- Daguerre and Talbot were developing their technology’s at the same time. Talbot tried to get credit for developing process as a prior claim…but they were completely different. Daguerre’s process was much sharper, so the glory went to him even though they were one of a kind images and could not be reproduced.
- The Daguerreotype met with a lot of enthusiasm in America, which prompted a lot of other research.
o Samuel Morse took one of the first American portraits, along with John Drapper.
- Robert Cornelius in 1839, took one of the first photograph with a persons eyes open, something that was difficult to do.
- Talbot became a determined photographer. He perfected the Calotype.
o He set up a photograph factory and was able to put together one of the first photographic books, such as the Sun Pictures of Scotland.
- David Hill and Adamson worked on taking many pictures of people.
- Hill took a picture of a large meeting of over 1500 delegates that took him 23 years to finish as a painting.
- The Daguerreotype and Calotype were used to make many portraits, landscapes and some of the earliest documentaries of the mid 19th century.
- 1851 was a pivotal year for early Victorian Photography.
o The Calotype had been held back by Talbot’s control of the patent. And Daguerre died in Paris.
o Fredrick Archer – Collodian, 1851 – made the Daguerreotype and Calotype obsolete. And so ended the era of the Pioneers of photography.
o The Collodian provided the answer for the craving for photography that existed be people. Archer provided the process freely, which helped photography spread to the masses.
Alexander Gardner – Civil War Photographer. Narrated by Danny Glover
- Mathew Brady – the most well known Civil War photographer.
- Gardner has only recently come out from under the shadow of Brady as one of the most preeminent photographers of all time as having gotten the best shots. Definitely one of the most important in the development of the art.
- Prior to the civil war photography was not used to document historical events, just portraits and landscapes.
- Gardner was first a jeweler. He then became a journalist and a proprietor of a newspaper in Glascow. He took up many studies during his life, such as geology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, he knew shorthand, and eventually included photography. He had a strong sense to make a difference about the inequalities arising in society and longed for a way to help the poor. As a photographer, he sought the truth in every photo.
- For Gardner, the camera clearly had a strong pull on him with it’s ability to capture reality. The entire world was dazzled. It created a great deal of curiosity. It was understood immediately this instrument for recording documentation that was unrivaled in human history.
- His early photographic training was from Brady.
o In 1851, Gardner saw Brady’s Daguerreotypes
o In 1856, Brady hired Gardner as a photographer
- Brady was enjoying a great deal of success as a portrait photographer
o Failing eyesight and not feeling the need to be in every shot, he turned over his portrait studio to Gardner.
- The two of them saw photography the war as a business venture. It is uncertain whose idea it was to start the pictures.
o Brady put into motion the steps to record the first major battle. He personally went to the battle field at Bull Run.
o He got caught up in the retreat as he did not get any pictures from battle.
o He quickly learned that a lot more was needed to photograph war pictures from portrait photography.
- The myth is that Brady was everywhere and photographed everything. But what he did was hire people to go out and photography for him.
- Photography was in its infancy, it had only been around for 20 years.
- Impact of Civil War on photography, and vice versa
o While the CW was affecting the development of photography, photography was affecting the CW
§ Civil War was a Catalyst to photography
§ Photography exposed horrors of war.
- Battle of Antietam
o One of the worst battles
o Gardner was there to witness the battle, which was the first time major battle recorded on film in all of its graphic nature.
o He was in a race for time as burial teams were waiting for him to finish taking pictures.