Photography gives us many ways to view the world, and glimpses of how others view it. Through photography we are able to freeze time and see the invisible in everyday life.
This image includes Halfdome from Yosemite National Park in California. This photograph is significant because Yosemite is an icon for photographers. Carleton Watkins first photographed there in 1861 and Ansel Adams is more closely associated with Yosemite than any other photographer. Jerry Uelsmann, Untitled, 1989.
This oldest surviving photograph, made from asphalt on a pewter plate, took eight hours to expose. How does it look different from photograph’s you’ve seen? Joseph Nicephore Niepce, View from a window of Niepce’s house, Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, ca. 1826
This photographer chose to show mostly reflections of the buildings and trees on the wet concrete. What other kinds of scenes could be handled the same way?
This scene, the first known photograph of a person, actually had many people walking on the street, but only the shoeshine man and his client are visible. Why do you think that is? Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 1839.
This photograph was made in bright sunshine for the shortest exposure. Why do you think the men in the picture are leaning against the building during the exposure?
William Henry Fox Talbot, The Cloisters at Lacock, 1844.
George Eastman changed the nature of photography. In 1888, he made the first mass-market, point-and-shoot camera, called the Kodak. One year later, he introduced a new version of his Kodak camera that used a roll of film. It was a simple box camera preloaded with enough film to make 100 exposures. His invention made photography accessible to anyone, professional or amateur. This photograph shows George Eastman with one of his new Kodak cameras. How was Eastman looking through his camera? Frederick Church, George Eastman on Board the S.S. Gallia, February, 1890.
The next great innovation was the invention of color photography. The first successful color process was the autochrome, invented in France by the Lumiere brothers in 1907, which used a glass-plate color transparency made up of red, green, and blue grains of dyed starch, usually from potatoes. This photograph is an example of the use of the earliest color processes, the autochrome. How is the color in this image different from today’s color films and prints?
Think about how many times you see photographs in one day. Whether you look at a cereal box, the morning newspaper, your textbooks, magazines, or posters on the street, chances are there’s a photograph within arm’s length. Today, photography is an accepted art form and offers a number of careers to anyone who appreciates images and is ready to master photography’s fascinating processes. This image is an informal view of a bride on her wedding day. What does it say to you about her personality?
What kind of photography do you think you might be interested in? What interests you in life and the world? How can photography fit into those interests?