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19th Century Photography Research Paper

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Have you ever noticed that in 19th century photography the images captured through a lense developed black and white images that were mostly distorted and hard to understand? If people were captured through a lense they were usually not smiling, it was an odd period for photography. Photography has always been a contentious fine art used by artists to capture art. Concerns have been raised to whether photography should be considered an art or a science, since both are incorporated to create “art”. Photography was considered more true to reality. Photography has been around for a while now, and although the concept of the camera has been known in the “ancient past” it was not until the nineteenth century when the technology …show more content…

This problem was fixed when Joseph Niecehore Niepce invented the light sensitive surface that catapulted a series of inventions in the 19th century. Joseph Nicephore Niepce contributions aided in the improvement in photography that pertained to the speed, resolution and durability of the photographs. In 1826, Niepce’s photographs were amongst the first photographs developed and the most difficult as well. He captured the “View form the Window at Gras”, in which it took him about 8 hours and required a long exposure period, making it impractical to photograph. The weather conditions did not make the task any easier and it affected every aspect of the photograph. Niepce struggled with the issue of the durability of the photographs that he would take since over time they would turn black due to exposure to light. He aimed to successfully stop this situation from happening. The church bells rang and hallejah’s were sung when this problem was solved in 1839 with the invention of the hypo, a chemical (Sodium Thiosulphate) that kept the light sensitivity of …show more content…

This allowed more than one copy of an image. Along with this new technology and his experimenting the calotype photography method was introduced and patented in 1841. In the past exposure time usually took hours to develop, but the collodion method that solved the problem of long exposure time to shorter exposure time of about 3-5 minutes along with clearer photographs. This was possible by adding a gun cotton substance onto a glass plate. The Collodion method did have his disadvantages, for one thing the image had to be exposed and developed while the silver iodine coating was still wet. This was an inconvenience to the photographer because he/she had to immediately run to the portable darkrooms to develop the images after they were captured. As technology and advanced so did the need for more creative photography emerged. For instance, Honore Daumier’s pushed the standards of photography and was able to capture the aerial view upon a hot air balloon. However, he must have had a difficult time capturing images with the wet collodion

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