PHOTOGRAPHY IN SOCIETY Jessica Seth

PINHOLE CAMERA A pinhole camera is a camera without a lens. It is made out of a light-proof box, usually black with one small hole on one side of the box. On the opposite side of the hole, you place photograph paper where an image can be projected on. Light passes through the hole and enters the box and projects an image of the scene on the photograph paper on the opposite side on of the box.

JOSEPH NIEPCE Joseph Niepce, the world’s first photographer produced the first permanent image in 1816 with an 8 hour exposure on a pewter plate after research and experimentation. In 1829 Joseph Niepce and Louis Daguerre established a partnership to improve Niepce’s heliographic process. Little development took place before Niepce’s death in 1833 making him 68 years of age when he died.

LOUIS DAGUERRE Louis Daguerre was a French artist and physicist, but he was well known for his contributions of photography. He made used of the camera obscura to develop the “Diorama”. His interest in the concept of heliography led him to the partnership with Joseph Niepce. After the death of Niepce, Daguerre found out that mercury vapor would develop a latent image on a silvered plate that had been treated with iodine vapor. The image could be fixed with a salt solution.

WILLIAM HENRY FOX-TALBOT William Henry Fox-Talbot was born in He introduced the negative-positive process. His photographic career started with the use of the camera obscura for sketching. In 1834 he began producing fixed images on paper (negatives). The calotupe was patented in 1841 and allowed the production of many positive prints from one negative print. His work is the basis of the photography as we know it today.

RICHARD LEACH MADDOX Richard leach Maddox was famous by his development of the modern gelatin-silver halide emulsion in Maddox used the wet collodian process but suffered from the fumes of the chemicals, which led to the development of a gelatin emulsion with its advantages. Although he was credited as the inventor, he was only one of the many working in the field of emulsion technology.

GEORGE EASTMAN George Eastman was the founder of the Kodak organization. He had an interest in photography but was not satisfied with the amount of equipment needed to make an image. He developed an Emulsion coating machine for dry plates and went into commercial production. In 1888 the number 1 Kodak camera preloaded with film went on the market. In 1900 the brownie camera made photography within the reach of everyone. Eastman’s Kodak company continued to develop in all fields of photographic endeavor with an extensive backing in all scientific and technological research. Eastman died in 1932.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY Digital photography uses a variety of electronic photo detectors to capture and image focused by the lens of the camera. The first attempt at building a digital camera was in 1975 by Steven Sasson, who was an engineer at Eastman Kodak. The first digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was the ‘Fuji DS-1P’. Digital photographs can now be displayed, printed, stored, manipulated, transmitted, and archived using digital and computer techniques, without having to do chemical processing.