How The Invention of the Camera Changed the World Essay

Eadward Muybridge and Cornelius Jabez Hughes, two photographers of the 19th century, introduced revolutionary ideas impacting the way photographs could be taken, categorized, and used. Muybridge, better known as the ‘father of the motion picture,’ studied landscape photos and invented a device that drastically improved their quality. In addition, he helped to pioneer work in the studies of motion and motion-picture projection. Hughes developed new technology related to photography and helped to guide many other amateur photographers into producing better forms of photography. The two had lasting impacts on the growth and importance of photography in the art, science, and everyday realms.

After a steady progression, pictorial photography as a movement emerged. Pictorial photographers believed that their field is more than just an objective, mechanical media. Photography was not just about capturing the documentation and information contained by an image, but rather, about the effect and the mood they translate. The images began to have meaning and a reason for their capture, completely transforming the images produced.

Photography, meaning “drawing with lights” in Greek, is an art as well as a science of capturing light and storing it on a medium with unprecedented accuracy. Yet, up until the late 18th century, history was mainly recorded through the techniques of painting and the press. These mediums unarguably contained a certain degree of a truth, though, it was not uncommon for events, such as war to be composed with glorified details, or an unfavorable bias from the artist at hand. Beginning in the 1830’s, cameras provided a revolutionary solution by combining the advancements in optics and chemistry. Consequently, the new medium of photography was established and forever changed how history would be visually captured. Unlike other methods, photography

Before photography was invented, the only way to see what someone or something looked like from that time period was a drawing or painting. Before the invention of photography, there was no true way to know what a person looked like as Pey sketches they had could be inaccurate. Photography changed the world not by only showing accurate depictions of objects but also by introducing a new form of art. Anyone can take a photo, but a photographer uses the principles of art and design to capture a moment and astonishing images.

1853 there was eighty-six documented galleries, which had women and children working in them, really changed the times. Around this time, there were document African American operators which seems counterproductive, as acrimonious slaves would be photographing and documenting the slave trade as well as high profile crime trials of relevancy. Post mortem portraits became prevalent as well as the documentation of the different interesting landscapes, for instance Niagara Falls was shown in the chapter with a group of folks standing in the foreground enjoying the view. The American Daguerrotypists made the sites commonly unseen by most, available. Such a Hawaii, Mexico, Philippines and South America. They were also able to introduce Photography as it was then known to the people of

Sense the invention of the camera in 1826 photography has been used to document everything from family portraits, social injustice, sporting events, world news, expressions of joy and sorrow, and hundreds of monumental moments. The camera has given man the power to reveal the truth visually. Throughout history photographs have made enormous impacts on social consciousness and ultimately shaped public opinion on many pressing issues in society. Although photography is often considered a casual pastime, the invention of the camera has contributed to many aspects of history, science, and other important pieces of todays world.

The purpose of my study is to give people a chance to understand what is the meaning of photography and how it was invented, plus how people was able to take photographs before the camera was invented.

Photography is a word derived from the Greek words photos light and to draw. A scientist called Sir John F.W. Herschel, which was in 1839, first used the word. It was a method which was all about recording images by using light or radiation on a sensitive material. The first known camera was created by Alhazen also known as who lived around 100AD he invented the first pinhole camera this camera was used to capture the movement of the sun. Photography was explained to be the science and art of documenting photographs by capturing light on a light sensitive material which included film or an electronic sensor. Light could be reflected from objects which could expose a chemical or electronic material during a timed exposure which is typically used through a camera which can store the information chemically or electronically. The first photograph was take in 1827 taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce who made the first photograph

It is considered that photography only became widely available to the public when the Kodak Eastman Company introduced the box shaped Brownie Camera in 1900. (Baker, n.p.) Its features became more refined since its original placing on the market; one of the reasons why it has become considered the birth of public photography is because of the processing. Using a similar image capture system, the brownie exposed the light to a 120mm roll of film, which could be wound round, meaning six photographs could be taken before the slides needed removing. The first Brownie used a six-exposure cartridge that Kodak processed for the photographer. (Kodak.com, n.d.) Realistically, the armature photographers did not need to understand darkroom processes,

In the world we live in today, anyone can pick up a handheld video camera and record their son’s soccer game or daughter’s school play, but to really capture the beauty of an event takes true talent. It takes the expertise of a cinematographer or director of photography as they are also known, to capture the true essence of an event and scene. Thomas Edison even once said, “By faithfully reproducing and kind or type of movement, it [cinematography] constitutes man’s most astonishing victory to date over forgetfulness. It retains and restores the things memory alone can’t recover, not to mention its auxiliary agencies: the written page, drawing photography. … Like them, cinematography prevents the things of yesterday that are useful to tomorrow’s progress from sinking into oblivion; amongst these one must count moving things, which only a few years ago were considered impossible to fix in an image” (Neale, 54). A picture, whether it be a photographed image or a filmed image is nothing when it has not been looked at with the proper eyes. When expressed through the proper lens and eye an image can really be worth a thousand words.

Since its inception, photography has been used to capture moments in time all around the world. This wonderful technology has existed since ancient times, and has only improved in recent history, changing society in the process.

The earliest record of the uses of a camera obscura can be found in the writings and drawings of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). At about the same period Daniel Barbaro, a Venetian, recommended the camera as an aid to drawing. He wrote:

“Eastman’s improvements had the effect of moving photography from the professional’s studio, where it had evolved from the realm of portraiture and art, to the world of the general consumer,”(Carlisle 247). Photography was a difficult hobby or profession to have in the mid- 1800s. It was difficult because it needed essential pieces of equipment in order to even come out with a decent picture. Cameras were normally five by eight inches, and all the equipment that was needed was a hassle to carry (Buckland and Lefer 250). It required a darkroom, a tripod, and lots of chemicals. In a darkroom, a photographer had to coat a glass plate with egg white, and then lay it on a solution of gun cotton and alcohol mixed with bromide salts. When this

In 1888, George Eastman made the first light and portable camera under the company name Kodak (Graham 28). These cameras gave people the ability to take a photo almost anywhere. The cameras had to be sent back to the factory so the photographs could be printed. Twenty years after Kodak’s first camera, they produced an improved camera, called “Brownie”. The Brownie was simple to use, making the art of photography boom. Flash cameras did not appear until the 1930s, letting people take pictures in areas with dim or little lighting. In 1947, Edwin Land invented the instant camera. Land got the idea after his daughter asked to see her picture after he took her photo. The next step in improving the camera was by making it digital, which was done in 1975 by a Kodak employee. As the camera gets smaller and simpler to use, the quality of the photographs it produces gets better.

Until recently, at least, it was possible to define photography as a process involving optics, light sensitive material and the chemical processing of this material to produce prints or slides. Today though, that definition is subject to change. Technological innovations…are shifting photography from its original chemical basis towards electronics… It is not overstating it to say that the advent of this new technology is changing the very nature of photography, as we have known it. (Bode and Wombell 1991)