Summer Exhibition
Behind the Scenes
PHOTOGRAPHY PROCESS NOTES
Franz Nicolay, 2024
Silhouettes
The derivation of the word photography is “to draw with light,” In that pursuit a couple of inventions predated photographs as we know it. The first was the camera obscura (dark room), a device first used by artists in the Renaissance era hundreds of years before, to aid in perspective drawing. One simply traced over a projected image, suspended on a ground glass. The second was the Pantagraph and the Physionotracey, utilized in silhouette shadow drawings and cutouts, accurately reducing the scale in proportion.
Heliograph
In 1814-5 the first photograph was made by Joseph Nicéphore Niepse. He discovered that asphalt was sensitive to light and hardened when exposed. A solvent would wash the unexposed areas away. He called his early experiment a Heliograph.
+++++
Daguerreotype
The Daguerreotype, announced in France in 1839, was a direct positive process, marking the popular emergence of photography as a documentary/historical recording medium of life.
The process began with a copper plate coated and polished with silver, and fumed with iodine to make it light sensitive. It was then developed with heated fumes of mercury, and fixed in place with sodium thiosulfate.
The image was a one-of-a-kind object, and was the actual plate in the camera obscura that was exposed to light. It then had to be sealed from air behind glass to keep it from tarnishing.
+++++
Salted Paper Print & Calotype
Also in 1839, in England, William Henry Fox Talbot Introduced what he called the Photogenic Drawing process on paper. He coated paper in salt water, and then added a layer of silver nitrate to make it light sensitive. After exposure, he resoaked the photogram image in extra salty water to dilute the unexposed silver chloride in the fibers of the paper, which could then be washed out.
Later, he used a fixer to allow the paper negative to become fully permanent, from which repeated positives could be produced, In Talbot’s original form it was called the Salted Paper Print. He then improved the process and emulsion speed by switching to silver iodide and created the latent image Calotype negative in 1840, using gallic acid as a developer to make it visible, thus issuing in the long-standing photographic negative/positive process we have utilized for close to 200 years. He created a paper negative first, and then printed a paper positive from that negative. Reproduction of multiple, identical photographs was introduced to the world.
It was a softer, repeatable image embedded in the paper fibers, whereas, the daguerreotype was a crisper, singular image on the top surface of metal.
+++++
Cyanotype
In 1840, Sir John Hershel created a simple, non-silver, process called Cyanotype. Combining two salts of iron together (potassium ferrocyanide & ferric ammonium citrate) and exposed to sunlight for exposure, a contact printed image could be produced by running to exposed image under running water, creating a blue toned image. Th e first photographically illustrated book was created using this process. Botanist, Anna Atkins, made photogram negative images of plants for this publication. Since the process of developing was very simple, it was very popular with amateurs, especially in the late 1800’s. It continues to be used today!
+++++
Platinum Process
In 1873, William Willis and Alfred Clements created the Platinum Print process, which offered a beautiful look to images that contained an extended, neutral
tonal range embedded in a matte paper surface, which also appealed to photographers who desired a more “fine art,” interpretive, soft look to their photographs. It fit into the Pictorialist wave of image-making, popular at the time, noted for its “impressionistic,” romantic look. Platinum (and later palladium), is a noble light sensitive metal, and made it an expensive process with which to work, which limited its use and affordability. Platinum images are very permanent and see very little change in tonality over extended periods of time.
+++++
Wet Collodion Negative:
In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer invented a process to create a transparent negative on glass, from which, Ambrotypes or Tintypes could be made. Collodion was a thin syrupy solution to which a small amount of potassium iodide was added. It was then placed in a silver nitrate bath, after which a compound of light-sensitive silver iodide was created. The wet plate was then put inserted into the camera for exposure, and subsequently developed, washed, dried, and coated with a protective layer of varnish. From this glass negative, an ambrotype or tintype could be made.
Ambrotype
An ambrotype is a collodion image on clear glass with a black cloth backing, or a a collodion image on a dark red glass plate (ruby ambrotype) Each backing turns the negative into a positive. They are typically displayed in hard cases for protection, as were daguerreotypes.
Tintype
A tintype was a direct positive image printed on a collodion coated, thin, iron plate, utilizing the collodion process. They were quick, lightweight, and inexpensive to make. They were usually coated with a varnish for protection.
+++++
Albumen Prints
Albumen Silver Prints were invented in 1850, by Louis Désiré Blankquart-Evrard, and quickly became the most prolific photographic process from 1850-1890. A piece of paper is immersed in a solution of salt and beaten egg-whites, and when dry, it is then floated in a silver nitrate solution, thus combining to make silver-chloride photographic emulsion. The image created is a printing-out process, requiring no development other than exposure to UV light. The image is then fixed in place to keep it from continuing to darken by a hypo bath (sodium sulfate) before its final washing.
The image is suspended in the emulsion above the paper contributing to the hard and sharp image quality, distinctive of albumen prints. As the albumen deteriorates over time, the highlights take on a yellow tint. Many CDV’s and Cabinet cards were made using this printing process.
+++++
Cartes de Viste (CDV):
Cartes de Viste or CDVs (visiting cards) were popular from mid 1850 trough the 1870’s. They were small, cheap and easily reproduceable ambrotypes from a wet-collodion negative, mounted on thin card stock. They capitalized on the popular, traditional calling card used and exchanged when visiting friends and associates. They replaced daguerreotypes because multiple copies could be made, and they were lightweight and unbreakable. Shortly thereafter, tintypes along with CDVs served this purpose, as an inexpensive and accessible photograph portrait, now available to the masses. CDVs were especially popular during the Civil War years, as a way for soldiers to connect with loved ones back home. Early 1860’s CDV’s included tax stamps on the back, used by the government to raise money for the war effort. CDV’s might be considered a vintage precursor, in its use, to our electronic, social media.
+++++
Cabinet Cards:
In the mid 1870s CDV’s began to give way to the larger format (3x larger than CDVs) Cabinet Cards. They were also primarily albumen prints (and later, gelatin silver prints) mounted on thicker card stock, and better suited to for display in your parlor. The larger format offered more details with props, could be retouched, and were easier for viewing at a distance. They became the primary style until the end of the 19th century, when they lost ground to board mounted images, and growing interest in snapshot photography.
+++++
Board Mounted Photographs:
Near the last decade of the 19th century into the 20th century, photographers were looking for different presentation options for showcasing their work beyond the standard sizes. Board Mounted Photographs were their solution. An expanded ability to enlarge images also demanded fresh approaches for displaying their work and protecting the image. Black and gray board were the most popular value selections for boarders, both large and small. They were also easily framed for hanging, for more presence.
+++++
Pigment Process:
Chromium salts (potassium dichromate) were experimented with as another source of light sensitivity. Gum Bichromate (Mango Ponton, 1839, color layering) and Carbon (monotone) Printing processes utilized this material mixed into a colloid matrix (like gum arabic) with pigment added (early color layering). The colloid hardened black with light exposure, The darker the black value, the thicker the exposed and hardened colloid. The non-hardened, unexposed particles were then washed away in warm water. The highlight values became simply the white of the paper backing; making an image print with slight relief, when viewed closely from the side.
Carbon Prints
Joseph Swan introduced improvements to the pigment-added option processes, coating surfaces with a gelatin, containing pigment and sensitized with chromium salts.
++++++
Photo Mechanical Process:
Woodbury Print
In 1864, Walter Woodbury created a NON-photographic emulsion, solely pigment printing process. He created a cast mold in sheet lead, from a shallow bas-relief gelatin negative, whose gelatin depth was proportional to the amount of exposure it had received. The cast plate was subsequently inked, and then printed on a sheet of paper that was lain upon that inked casting, under extreme pressure in a press, similar to a wood engraving process. It made for a smooth, continuous tone image with a very slight relief, and was quickly utilized in commercial book publishing. It was eventually replaced by collotype or halftone printing processes by the end of the 19th century.
+++++
Gelatin Silver Process
Gelatin Silver Process became ubiquitous in the late 19th throughout the entire 20th century, for its greater light sensitivity and ease of handling. It was a one-step, smooth photo emulsion that combines silver nitrate with bromide in one mixed gelatin emulsion, saving time during the photo shoot. In the 1880’s, dry plates (on glass) of precoated emulsion were manufactured so that exposures with a latent image could be made in the field, and then later developed in a darkroom at the photographer’s convenience. This was the first developing out process of an exposed image. The used film could store the invisible information after the exposure, and a developing bath in the later darkroom process would make the latent image visible to the eye. Many earlier processes required a two-step coating process, and a printing out process of developing photographs.
Silver Gelatin print processes were the mainstay of photography for well over 125 years, until the early 2000’s, when digital photography took over the commercial market as the primary form of making photographs. Gelatin Silver is now considered an historic process, though still practiced today.
Snapshot Photography:
In 1888-9 George Eastman introduced the first Kodak camera utilizing his invention of roll film, a silver-based emulsion on a flexible paper, and then gelatin, base. This put photography in the hands of ordinary people for the very first time. They could purchase a camera fully loaded with a 100 exposure roll of film, shoot the pictures, and send the camera back to Kodak for development of the film and prints, and reloading the camera with fresh film. Their advertising slogan was, “You press the button and we do the rest!” This was the beginning of vernacular, snapshot photography. Kodak’s Brownie cameras were more lightweight, smaller, and portable. The original photographs were round, due to the mask on the interior back of the camera to hold the medium format film flat in place.
+++++
Stereographic or Stereoscopic Photography:
Stereographic Photography was widely popular in the last half of the 19th century up until 1930. The image was made with a stereo camera outfitted with two lenses approximately eye’s width apart. The two images were printed side by side, and when viewed in a stereoscope viewer, they appeared three dimensional. Just as your brain converges the information of the two eyes to convey depth perception, the viewer also relies on that brain function to convey the two separate images (each from a slightly different angle) into one. They were primarily albumen prints.
In 1939, the Sawyer Photographic Company introduced the Viewmaster Viewer, a portable device into which you inserted a circular card with seven pairs of left and right eye images, that you could advance with a click, to see a combined stereo image made with the newly available Kodachrome film. It was wildly popular.
+++++
Panorama Photographs:
Panorama Photographs were created to replicate the view we might experience when looking an open landscape before us. The format is typically about twice the length of normal photograph proportions. This elongated photograph was accomplished in most cases with camera that has a single lens on a pivot and an opposing curved film plane, with an open thin slit masking front of it. As the lens rotates, a series of vertical “lines“ of information is recorded along the film over the longer total exposure, creating an undistorted, continuous image, if the camera is positioned level to the ground plane.
+++++
Magic Lantern Slides and Projectors:
Early Magic Lantern Slides were hand painted or used decals on the glass surface. Light (from candles or oil lamps) was projected through them in a lantern to create a large image on a wall or screen. Early lanterns date back to the 1600’s and were used as drawing aids.
The first photographic Magic Lantern Slides, called hyalotypes were created in 1848 in Philadelphia. They were printed on glass from negatives and sealed for protection in handling. Originally in black and white, color was later added with improving technology. This format was popular in parlor and public presentations in the late 19th century. Magic Lantern Slides and Projectors were the precursors of the modern transparent positive 35mm slides, and carousel projectors used throughout the 20th century.
Color Processes:
Early Hand Applied:
From the very beginning of the medium photographers offers hand applied coloring to black and white images. Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes often have blush applied on cheeks and gold applied on jewelry in photograph.
Photographers also offered “touch up” work done on images, with ink added to the pupils of eyes, and drawn-in hair on washed out highlight areas of a portrait. At times, lines were also scratched into a negative to create a similar effect.
Crayon Portraits:
In the second half of the19th century, “Crayon Portraits” were offered to clients. In this method prints were lightly exposed and developed with only a faint hint of the portrait, and then subsequently embellished into full aesthetic form with a charcoal and/or pastel overlay drawing. The resultant image became a hybrid of both photographic and hand-drawn effects. Since the images could be projected with a solar enlarger, and not simply contact printed, a new range of scaled sizes in the late 19th century became possible.
In later years Color Processes were developed utilizing both additive and subtractive filters in layers of exposure and printing/displaying.
Additive:
While experiments with color projections occurred in the late nineteenth century, by mixing images made with additive filtration, and dye sensitizing of black and white transparencies, The first Autochrome (direct positive color slides) photographs were invented in 1902-3, by the Lumiere Brothers (known for their motion picture film/camera invention). They utilized three different exposures with three different filters (red, violet, green) on a black and white, silver-based emulsion).
Subtractive:
In the 1930’s, at Kodak, the Chromogenic (Kodachrome) Process in photography was invented using layers of yellow, magenta and cyan in a gelatin emulsion of silver. For prints, during developing, the dyes are released where needed based on the exposure, and the silver is removed. This process is still in use today, but is steadily being overtaken by the increasingly more ubiquitous digital print process.
+++++
Polaroid:
Polaroid instant film was introduced in 1947 by Edwin Land and his company, Polaroid. He was recognized as the father of instant black and white photography, using a release, pull and peel method. In 1972, the first Instant color, automatic ally processed print SLR (single lens reflex) camera was introduced by Polaroid: the SX-70. And then in 1987, the Autofocus 660 instant camera became a camera of choice for many general consumers. The instant process was wildly successful with consumer markets. The later advent of digital imaging, and the ease and immediacy that it offered, soon reduced the market for instant physical photographs in the late 20th century.
+++++
Digital Process:
In 1975 the first digital camera prototype was created in a lab to make digital images a on a screen. But was not yet available to the public. In 1987, the first iteration of Photoshop was created. Within two years it was licensed to Adobe and distributed as Photoshop 1.0. It was a program for editing images that was so advanced for the time, that there were no dedicated, publicly available digital cameras, scanners, printers, or digital specific paper yet made, to take full advantage of its deep, post production capabilities.
Early images were saved on floppy disks with limited storage capacity, and printed on simple available computer paper. It would be years until the sophistication of the program could be matched by available digital hardware. Kodak introduced the DC210, its first digital camera, in 1999. By the late 1990’s-early 2000’s Digital Photography was on its way to transforming how we make and view photographic images, overtaking traditional film.
With the advent of digital phones in the last twenty years for capturing and storing images, the fate of the photographic physical object has come into question as an artifact. How will memories be stored, retrieved, and shared has become the 21st century’s primary cultural building question.
+++++
Franz Nicolay
May 2024
The derivation of the word photography is “to draw with light,” In that pursuit a couple of inventions predated photographs as we know it. The first was the camera obscura (dark room), a device first used by artists in the Renaissance era hundreds of years before, to aid in perspective drawing. One simply traced over a projected image, suspended on a ground glass. The second was the Pantagraph and the Physionotracey, utilized in silhouette shadow drawings and cutouts, accurately reducing the scale in proportion.
Heliograph
In 1814-5 the first photograph was made by Joseph Nicéphore Niepse. He discovered that asphalt was sensitive to light and hardened when exposed. A solvent would wash the unexposed areas away. He called his early experiment a Heliograph.
+++++
Daguerreotype
The Daguerreotype, announced in France in 1839, was a direct positive process, marking the popular emergence of photography as a documentary/historical recording medium of life.
The process began with a copper plate coated and polished with silver, and fumed with iodine to make it light sensitive. It was then developed with heated fumes of mercury, and fixed in place with sodium thiosulfate.
The image was a one-of-a-kind object, and was the actual plate in the camera obscura that was exposed to light. It then had to be sealed from air behind glass to keep it from tarnishing.
+++++
Salted Paper Print & Calotype
Also in 1839, in England, William Henry Fox Talbot Introduced what he called the Photogenic Drawing process on paper. He coated paper in salt water, and then added a layer of silver nitrate to make it light sensitive. After exposure, he resoaked the photogram image in extra salty water to dilute the unexposed silver chloride in the fibers of the paper, which could then be washed out.
Later, he used a fixer to allow the paper negative to become fully permanent, from which repeated positives could be produced, In Talbot’s original form it was called the Salted Paper Print. He then improved the process and emulsion speed by switching to silver iodide and created the latent image Calotype negative in 1840, using gallic acid as a developer to make it visible, thus issuing in the long-standing photographic negative/positive process we have utilized for close to 200 years. He created a paper negative first, and then printed a paper positive from that negative. Reproduction of multiple, identical photographs was introduced to the world.
It was a softer, repeatable image embedded in the paper fibers, whereas, the daguerreotype was a crisper, singular image on the top surface of metal.
+++++
Cyanotype
In 1840, Sir John Hershel created a simple, non-silver, process called Cyanotype. Combining two salts of iron together (potassium ferrocyanide & ferric ammonium citrate) and exposed to sunlight for exposure, a contact printed image could be produced by running to exposed image under running water, creating a blue toned image. Th e first photographically illustrated book was created using this process. Botanist, Anna Atkins, made photogram negative images of plants for this publication. Since the process of developing was very simple, it was very popular with amateurs, especially in the late 1800’s. It continues to be used today!
+++++
Platinum Process
In 1873, William Willis and Alfred Clements created the Platinum Print process, which offered a beautiful look to images that contained an extended, neutral
tonal range embedded in a matte paper surface, which also appealed to photographers who desired a more “fine art,” interpretive, soft look to their photographs. It fit into the Pictorialist wave of image-making, popular at the time, noted for its “impressionistic,” romantic look. Platinum (and later palladium), is a noble light sensitive metal, and made it an expensive process with which to work, which limited its use and affordability. Platinum images are very permanent and see very little change in tonality over extended periods of time.
+++++
Wet Collodion Negative:
In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer invented a process to create a transparent negative on glass, from which, Ambrotypes or Tintypes could be made. Collodion was a thin syrupy solution to which a small amount of potassium iodide was added. It was then placed in a silver nitrate bath, after which a compound of light-sensitive silver iodide was created. The wet plate was then put inserted into the camera for exposure, and subsequently developed, washed, dried, and coated with a protective layer of varnish. From this glass negative, an ambrotype or tintype could be made.
Ambrotype
An ambrotype is a collodion image on clear glass with a black cloth backing, or a a collodion image on a dark red glass plate (ruby ambrotype) Each backing turns the negative into a positive. They are typically displayed in hard cases for protection, as were daguerreotypes.
Tintype
A tintype was a direct positive image printed on a collodion coated, thin, iron plate, utilizing the collodion process. They were quick, lightweight, and inexpensive to make. They were usually coated with a varnish for protection.
+++++
Albumen Prints
Albumen Silver Prints were invented in 1850, by Louis Désiré Blankquart-Evrard, and quickly became the most prolific photographic process from 1850-1890. A piece of paper is immersed in a solution of salt and beaten egg-whites, and when dry, it is then floated in a silver nitrate solution, thus combining to make silver-chloride photographic emulsion. The image created is a printing-out process, requiring no development other than exposure to UV light. The image is then fixed in place to keep it from continuing to darken by a hypo bath (sodium sulfate) before its final washing.
The image is suspended in the emulsion above the paper contributing to the hard and sharp image quality, distinctive of albumen prints. As the albumen deteriorates over time, the highlights take on a yellow tint. Many CDV’s and Cabinet cards were made using this printing process.
+++++
Cartes de Viste (CDV):
Cartes de Viste or CDVs (visiting cards) were popular from mid 1850 trough the 1870’s. They were small, cheap and easily reproduceable ambrotypes from a wet-collodion negative, mounted on thin card stock. They capitalized on the popular, traditional calling card used and exchanged when visiting friends and associates. They replaced daguerreotypes because multiple copies could be made, and they were lightweight and unbreakable. Shortly thereafter, tintypes along with CDVs served this purpose, as an inexpensive and accessible photograph portrait, now available to the masses. CDVs were especially popular during the Civil War years, as a way for soldiers to connect with loved ones back home. Early 1860’s CDV’s included tax stamps on the back, used by the government to raise money for the war effort. CDV’s might be considered a vintage precursor, in its use, to our electronic, social media.
+++++
Cabinet Cards:
In the mid 1870s CDV’s began to give way to the larger format (3x larger than CDVs) Cabinet Cards. They were also primarily albumen prints (and later, gelatin silver prints) mounted on thicker card stock, and better suited to for display in your parlor. The larger format offered more details with props, could be retouched, and were easier for viewing at a distance. They became the primary style until the end of the 19th century, when they lost ground to board mounted images, and growing interest in snapshot photography.
+++++
Board Mounted Photographs:
Near the last decade of the 19th century into the 20th century, photographers were looking for different presentation options for showcasing their work beyond the standard sizes. Board Mounted Photographs were their solution. An expanded ability to enlarge images also demanded fresh approaches for displaying their work and protecting the image. Black and gray board were the most popular value selections for boarders, both large and small. They were also easily framed for hanging, for more presence.
+++++
Pigment Process:
Chromium salts (potassium dichromate) were experimented with as another source of light sensitivity. Gum Bichromate (Mango Ponton, 1839, color layering) and Carbon (monotone) Printing processes utilized this material mixed into a colloid matrix (like gum arabic) with pigment added (early color layering). The colloid hardened black with light exposure, The darker the black value, the thicker the exposed and hardened colloid. The non-hardened, unexposed particles were then washed away in warm water. The highlight values became simply the white of the paper backing; making an image print with slight relief, when viewed closely from the side.
Carbon Prints
Joseph Swan introduced improvements to the pigment-added option processes, coating surfaces with a gelatin, containing pigment and sensitized with chromium salts.
++++++
Photo Mechanical Process:
Woodbury Print
In 1864, Walter Woodbury created a NON-photographic emulsion, solely pigment printing process. He created a cast mold in sheet lead, from a shallow bas-relief gelatin negative, whose gelatin depth was proportional to the amount of exposure it had received. The cast plate was subsequently inked, and then printed on a sheet of paper that was lain upon that inked casting, under extreme pressure in a press, similar to a wood engraving process. It made for a smooth, continuous tone image with a very slight relief, and was quickly utilized in commercial book publishing. It was eventually replaced by collotype or halftone printing processes by the end of the 19th century.
+++++
Gelatin Silver Process
Gelatin Silver Process became ubiquitous in the late 19th throughout the entire 20th century, for its greater light sensitivity and ease of handling. It was a one-step, smooth photo emulsion that combines silver nitrate with bromide in one mixed gelatin emulsion, saving time during the photo shoot. In the 1880’s, dry plates (on glass) of precoated emulsion were manufactured so that exposures with a latent image could be made in the field, and then later developed in a darkroom at the photographer’s convenience. This was the first developing out process of an exposed image. The used film could store the invisible information after the exposure, and a developing bath in the later darkroom process would make the latent image visible to the eye. Many earlier processes required a two-step coating process, and a printing out process of developing photographs.
Silver Gelatin print processes were the mainstay of photography for well over 125 years, until the early 2000’s, when digital photography took over the commercial market as the primary form of making photographs. Gelatin Silver is now considered an historic process, though still practiced today.
Snapshot Photography:
In 1888-9 George Eastman introduced the first Kodak camera utilizing his invention of roll film, a silver-based emulsion on a flexible paper, and then gelatin, base. This put photography in the hands of ordinary people for the very first time. They could purchase a camera fully loaded with a 100 exposure roll of film, shoot the pictures, and send the camera back to Kodak for development of the film and prints, and reloading the camera with fresh film. Their advertising slogan was, “You press the button and we do the rest!” This was the beginning of vernacular, snapshot photography. Kodak’s Brownie cameras were more lightweight, smaller, and portable. The original photographs were round, due to the mask on the interior back of the camera to hold the medium format film flat in place.
+++++
Stereographic or Stereoscopic Photography:
Stereographic Photography was widely popular in the last half of the 19th century up until 1930. The image was made with a stereo camera outfitted with two lenses approximately eye’s width apart. The two images were printed side by side, and when viewed in a stereoscope viewer, they appeared three dimensional. Just as your brain converges the information of the two eyes to convey depth perception, the viewer also relies on that brain function to convey the two separate images (each from a slightly different angle) into one. They were primarily albumen prints.
In 1939, the Sawyer Photographic Company introduced the Viewmaster Viewer, a portable device into which you inserted a circular card with seven pairs of left and right eye images, that you could advance with a click, to see a combined stereo image made with the newly available Kodachrome film. It was wildly popular.
+++++
Panorama Photographs:
Panorama Photographs were created to replicate the view we might experience when looking an open landscape before us. The format is typically about twice the length of normal photograph proportions. This elongated photograph was accomplished in most cases with camera that has a single lens on a pivot and an opposing curved film plane, with an open thin slit masking front of it. As the lens rotates, a series of vertical “lines“ of information is recorded along the film over the longer total exposure, creating an undistorted, continuous image, if the camera is positioned level to the ground plane.
+++++
Magic Lantern Slides and Projectors:
Early Magic Lantern Slides were hand painted or used decals on the glass surface. Light (from candles or oil lamps) was projected through them in a lantern to create a large image on a wall or screen. Early lanterns date back to the 1600’s and were used as drawing aids.
The first photographic Magic Lantern Slides, called hyalotypes were created in 1848 in Philadelphia. They were printed on glass from negatives and sealed for protection in handling. Originally in black and white, color was later added with improving technology. This format was popular in parlor and public presentations in the late 19th century. Magic Lantern Slides and Projectors were the precursors of the modern transparent positive 35mm slides, and carousel projectors used throughout the 20th century.
Color Processes:
Early Hand Applied:
From the very beginning of the medium photographers offers hand applied coloring to black and white images. Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes often have blush applied on cheeks and gold applied on jewelry in photograph.
Photographers also offered “touch up” work done on images, with ink added to the pupils of eyes, and drawn-in hair on washed out highlight areas of a portrait. At times, lines were also scratched into a negative to create a similar effect.
Crayon Portraits:
In the second half of the19th century, “Crayon Portraits” were offered to clients. In this method prints were lightly exposed and developed with only a faint hint of the portrait, and then subsequently embellished into full aesthetic form with a charcoal and/or pastel overlay drawing. The resultant image became a hybrid of both photographic and hand-drawn effects. Since the images could be projected with a solar enlarger, and not simply contact printed, a new range of scaled sizes in the late 19th century became possible.
In later years Color Processes were developed utilizing both additive and subtractive filters in layers of exposure and printing/displaying.
Additive:
While experiments with color projections occurred in the late nineteenth century, by mixing images made with additive filtration, and dye sensitizing of black and white transparencies, The first Autochrome (direct positive color slides) photographs were invented in 1902-3, by the Lumiere Brothers (known for their motion picture film/camera invention). They utilized three different exposures with three different filters (red, violet, green) on a black and white, silver-based emulsion).
Subtractive:
In the 1930’s, at Kodak, the Chromogenic (Kodachrome) Process in photography was invented using layers of yellow, magenta and cyan in a gelatin emulsion of silver. For prints, during developing, the dyes are released where needed based on the exposure, and the silver is removed. This process is still in use today, but is steadily being overtaken by the increasingly more ubiquitous digital print process.
+++++
Polaroid:
Polaroid instant film was introduced in 1947 by Edwin Land and his company, Polaroid. He was recognized as the father of instant black and white photography, using a release, pull and peel method. In 1972, the first Instant color, automatic ally processed print SLR (single lens reflex) camera was introduced by Polaroid: the SX-70. And then in 1987, the Autofocus 660 instant camera became a camera of choice for many general consumers. The instant process was wildly successful with consumer markets. The later advent of digital imaging, and the ease and immediacy that it offered, soon reduced the market for instant physical photographs in the late 20th century.
+++++
Digital Process:
In 1975 the first digital camera prototype was created in a lab to make digital images a on a screen. But was not yet available to the public. In 1987, the first iteration of Photoshop was created. Within two years it was licensed to Adobe and distributed as Photoshop 1.0. It was a program for editing images that was so advanced for the time, that there were no dedicated, publicly available digital cameras, scanners, printers, or digital specific paper yet made, to take full advantage of its deep, post production capabilities.
Early images were saved on floppy disks with limited storage capacity, and printed on simple available computer paper. It would be years until the sophistication of the program could be matched by available digital hardware. Kodak introduced the DC210, its first digital camera, in 1999. By the late 1990’s-early 2000’s Digital Photography was on its way to transforming how we make and view photographic images, overtaking traditional film.
With the advent of digital phones in the last twenty years for capturing and storing images, the fate of the photographic physical object has come into question as an artifact. How will memories be stored, retrieved, and shared has become the 21st century’s primary cultural building question.
+++++
Franz Nicolay
May 2024
TYPES of CAMERAS
Camera Obscura: The Camera Obscura (darkened chamber) was utilized in the latter sixteenth century and beyond as a drawing tool to help with perspective illusions. It had a simple lens through which the light passed through, which was reflected on a mirror at 45degrees to a ground glass above, which would trap the suspended light rays as a visible image. Tracing paper was used to copy the projected image with clear proportions. Thus, the basic principles of a camera were utilized for centuries before the invention of photography, and a permanent image, based on recorded light onto a sensitive substrate.
The Pinhole Camera is the simplest of camera types. It is lens-less. Light rays stream thought the tiny opening on the face of the camera and are deposited on the back film plane as circles of resolution. The smaller the hole the sharper the circles of resolution on the film plane. Since light travels in a straight line, the image is reversed on the film plane. the image is recorded upside down, and backwards left to right.
View Cameras: The View camera is both the most direct and most complex/versatile/cumbersome professional camera that is made. It was in used for many decades in the early years of photography. Light enters the lens, and is deposited directly on the film plane with no intervening prisms or mirrors to correct the orientation of the image. The image is focused in on the ground glass opposite the lens and then is replaced with the sheet film holder to make the exposure. The image is recorded on the film plane upside down and backwards. With the view camera, you can make specific adjustments to the height, tilt angle, and horizontal shift of the lens, with respect to the receiving ground glass, altering the image shape recorded on the film plane.
Rangefinder Cameras: The Rangefinder camera type is what most simple and inexpensive film cameras are. They have a viewfinder for framing, and a separate, yet parallel, lens for recording the exposure. Because of this design, exact framing of your subject is more challenging, especially at close range. Most consumer-grade cameras were built as rangefinders. Specialty cameras are often built in this way as well, for ease of construction and cost (panorama cameras, most Polaroids, etc.).
Stereoscopic Cameras: In an effort to reproduce a three-dimensional effect in photography, Stereoscopic Photography was developed and popularized in the second half of the 19th century. The unique binocular vision was created by creating a camera with two lenses positioned eye’s with apart, each capturing the exposure of a common subject from slightly different angles, just as your eyes do. When printed side by side, and viewed through a stereoscope, your brain recombines the two images as three dimensional.
One of the most commercially successful stereographic companies were the Kilburn Brothers from Littleton, NH. They introduced the curved card to increase the 3-D effect in the late 1870’s, which was soon adopted by most other companies soon thereafter. In this exhibition we showcase Sandwich’s own, A.B. Hoag, who created beautifully composed stereo images right here in town. The View Master Viewer of the mid-late 20th century, was a modern commercial device that worked on the same principles of binocular vision.
Press Cameras: The Speed Graflex (a field based, portable, view camera) was popular in the early to mid-20th century with photojournalists, because it retained a large format sheet negative for sharpness, yet was relatively portable, and could be hand-held, because of faster film speeds for shorter exposures. It also could be fitted with a flash attachment, when needed in low light field conditions.
Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) Cameras: In the mid-20thcentury, press cameras gave way to the twin lens reflex camera, which was smaller, more portable, and utilized roll film for more exposures for easier handling, yet still provided a medium format film (2 ¼” square images) for professional sharpness. The upper lens was used for focusing and the lower lens for recording the image on the film plane. “Reflex” refers to the mirror employed in the upper chamber to correct for upside down images in earlier cameras when focusing. It did Not correct, however, for left/right reversals of image viewing in the viewfinder. And since there were two lenses (one for viewing and composing, and one for recording), what you saw was not always what you recorded on the film, especially at close range.
Single Lens Reflex (SLR) Cameras: The last half of the 20th century saw the growing popularity among professional photographers of the Single Lens Reflex Camera, which added a pentaprism to the viewfinding path, It placed the mirror in front of the film plane, so that when focusing, you framed exactly what your film would record. As you pressed the shutter, the mirror flipped out of the way to expose the path to the film plane. The pentaprism also corrected for left/right reversal when focusing. SLR‘s also offered interchangeable lenses, lighter weight, and through-the-lens light meter reading. SLR’s became ubiquitous in the last three decades of the 20th century.
Panorama Cameras: Panorama Photographs were created to replicate the view we might experience when looking an open landscape before us. The format is typically about twice the length of normal photograph proportions. This elongated photograph was accomplished in most cases with camera that has a single lens on a pivot and an opposing curved film plane, with an open thin slit masking front of it. As the lens rotates, a series of vertical “lines “of information is recorded along the film over the longer total exposure, creating an undistorted, continuous image, if the camera is positioned level to the ground plane.
Polaroid Cameras: Polaroid instant film was introduced in 1947 by Edwin Land and his company, Polaroid. He was recognized as the father of instant black and white photography, using a release, pull and peel method. In 1972, the first Instant color, automatic ally processed print SLR (single lens reflex) camera was introduced by Polaroid: the SX-70. And then in 1987, the Autofocus 660 instant camera became a camera of choice for many general consumers. The instant process was wildly successful with consumer markets. The later advent of digital imaging, and the ease and immediacy that it offered, soon reduced the market for instant physical photographs in the late 20th century.
Digital / DSLR, Phone, and Mirrorless Cameras: In 1975 the first digital camera prototype was created in a lab to make digital images a on a computer screen. But was not yet available to the public. In 1987, the first iteration of Photoshop was created. Within two years it was licensed to Adobe and distributed as Photoshop 1.0. It was a program designed for editing electronically captured images that was so advanced for the time, that there were no dedicated, publicly available digital cameras, scanners, printers, or digital-specific paper yet made, to take full advantage of its deep, post production capabilities.
Early images were saved on floppy disks with limited storage capacity, and printed on simple available computer paper. It would be years until the sophistication of the program could be matched by available digital hardware. Kodak introduced the DC210, its first digital camera, in 1999. By the late 1990’s-early 2000’s Digital Photography was on its way to transforming how we make and view photographic images, overtaking traditional film in popular use by the masses.
DSLR cameras were a logical shift in evolution from film SLR’s retaining the optical viewfinder of the mirror and pentaprism functionality for viewing/framing, while replacing the film plane with electronic image sensors to record the digital image.
Newer Mirrorless Cameras utilize an electronic viewfinder (EVF) allowing the photographer to electronically preview the image directly from the image sensor. This allows for a lower weight camera, and one that is more stable for longer exposures and incredibly fast image bursts as well. I-Phone Cameras (and the like) are similar to mirrorless cameras (MILC: mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras) only in the sense that they use electronic image sensors to capture visual information, but don’t have the versatility in being able to change lenses, nor have as sophisticated lenses.
With the advent and popularity of digital I-Phones in the last twenty years for capturing and storing images, the fate of the photographic as a physical object, has come into question for average consumers. How memories will be stored, retrieved, and shared has become the 21st century’s primary culture-building question. Will the ephemeral image stored in “the cloud” eventually lose it connection to the tangible memory infusing artifacts we know as photographs?
Kodak & Brownie Cameras
Snapshot Photography: In 1888-9 George Eastman introduced the first Kodak Camera utilizing his invention of roll film, a silver-based emulsion first on a flexible paper, and then on a gelatin, base. This put photography in the hands of ordinary people for the very first time. They could purchase a camera fully loaded with a 100 exposure roll of film, shoot the pictures, and send the camera back to Kodak for development of the film and prints, and reloading the camera with fresh film. Their advertising slogan was, “You press the button and we do the rest!” This was the beginning of vernacular, snapshot photography. Kodak’s Brownie cameras, introduced in 1900, were more lightweight, smaller, and portable. It featured a removable film container eliminating the need to return the camera with each roll of film ready for developing and printing. The early original photographs were round, due to the circular mask on the interior back of the camera to hold the medium format film flat in place.
With simple, inexpensive cameras, flexible film, and available commercial processing, photography was at long last placed in the hands of non-professionals. The advent of consumer, vernacular, Snapshot Photography was born. Film speeds were faster, allowing for the capture of movement. Cameras were more lightweight, and were able to be taken out of the studios into the field. The ease of making many images of an event, suggested to consumers that everyday events were also worthy of preserving, not just the monumental occasions. People with limited means were now also able to afford simple cameras and film processing.
The democratization of photography was complete.
Vernacular photography blossomed and thrived throughout the entire 20th century. Snapshot photography continues to this day, in the form of digital photography using I-Phone cameras, and the like, and shared through electronic social media.
Toy (Holga/Diana) Cameras: Toy film cameras like the Holga (1980’s) and the earlier Diana camera (1960’s) were created as an inexpensive and (optically poorer) alternative to higher priced cameras. Artists embraced their limitations for expressive content, and they gained a foothold in experimental circles for decades to come. They are rangefinder cameras, with simple lenses, whose resultant images are sharp in the center, and fall off dramatically towards the edges of the frame, creating a dream-like look.
The Pinhole Camera is the simplest of camera types. It is lens-less. Light rays stream thought the tiny opening on the face of the camera and are deposited on the back film plane as circles of resolution. The smaller the hole the sharper the circles of resolution on the film plane. Since light travels in a straight line, the image is reversed on the film plane. the image is recorded upside down, and backwards left to right.
View Cameras: The View camera is both the most direct and most complex/versatile/cumbersome professional camera that is made. It was in used for many decades in the early years of photography. Light enters the lens, and is deposited directly on the film plane with no intervening prisms or mirrors to correct the orientation of the image. The image is focused in on the ground glass opposite the lens and then is replaced with the sheet film holder to make the exposure. The image is recorded on the film plane upside down and backwards. With the view camera, you can make specific adjustments to the height, tilt angle, and horizontal shift of the lens, with respect to the receiving ground glass, altering the image shape recorded on the film plane.
Rangefinder Cameras: The Rangefinder camera type is what most simple and inexpensive film cameras are. They have a viewfinder for framing, and a separate, yet parallel, lens for recording the exposure. Because of this design, exact framing of your subject is more challenging, especially at close range. Most consumer-grade cameras were built as rangefinders. Specialty cameras are often built in this way as well, for ease of construction and cost (panorama cameras, most Polaroids, etc.).
Stereoscopic Cameras: In an effort to reproduce a three-dimensional effect in photography, Stereoscopic Photography was developed and popularized in the second half of the 19th century. The unique binocular vision was created by creating a camera with two lenses positioned eye’s with apart, each capturing the exposure of a common subject from slightly different angles, just as your eyes do. When printed side by side, and viewed through a stereoscope, your brain recombines the two images as three dimensional.
One of the most commercially successful stereographic companies were the Kilburn Brothers from Littleton, NH. They introduced the curved card to increase the 3-D effect in the late 1870’s, which was soon adopted by most other companies soon thereafter. In this exhibition we showcase Sandwich’s own, A.B. Hoag, who created beautifully composed stereo images right here in town. The View Master Viewer of the mid-late 20th century, was a modern commercial device that worked on the same principles of binocular vision.
Press Cameras: The Speed Graflex (a field based, portable, view camera) was popular in the early to mid-20th century with photojournalists, because it retained a large format sheet negative for sharpness, yet was relatively portable, and could be hand-held, because of faster film speeds for shorter exposures. It also could be fitted with a flash attachment, when needed in low light field conditions.
Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) Cameras: In the mid-20thcentury, press cameras gave way to the twin lens reflex camera, which was smaller, more portable, and utilized roll film for more exposures for easier handling, yet still provided a medium format film (2 ¼” square images) for professional sharpness. The upper lens was used for focusing and the lower lens for recording the image on the film plane. “Reflex” refers to the mirror employed in the upper chamber to correct for upside down images in earlier cameras when focusing. It did Not correct, however, for left/right reversals of image viewing in the viewfinder. And since there were two lenses (one for viewing and composing, and one for recording), what you saw was not always what you recorded on the film, especially at close range.
Single Lens Reflex (SLR) Cameras: The last half of the 20th century saw the growing popularity among professional photographers of the Single Lens Reflex Camera, which added a pentaprism to the viewfinding path, It placed the mirror in front of the film plane, so that when focusing, you framed exactly what your film would record. As you pressed the shutter, the mirror flipped out of the way to expose the path to the film plane. The pentaprism also corrected for left/right reversal when focusing. SLR‘s also offered interchangeable lenses, lighter weight, and through-the-lens light meter reading. SLR’s became ubiquitous in the last three decades of the 20th century.
Panorama Cameras: Panorama Photographs were created to replicate the view we might experience when looking an open landscape before us. The format is typically about twice the length of normal photograph proportions. This elongated photograph was accomplished in most cases with camera that has a single lens on a pivot and an opposing curved film plane, with an open thin slit masking front of it. As the lens rotates, a series of vertical “lines “of information is recorded along the film over the longer total exposure, creating an undistorted, continuous image, if the camera is positioned level to the ground plane.
Polaroid Cameras: Polaroid instant film was introduced in 1947 by Edwin Land and his company, Polaroid. He was recognized as the father of instant black and white photography, using a release, pull and peel method. In 1972, the first Instant color, automatic ally processed print SLR (single lens reflex) camera was introduced by Polaroid: the SX-70. And then in 1987, the Autofocus 660 instant camera became a camera of choice for many general consumers. The instant process was wildly successful with consumer markets. The later advent of digital imaging, and the ease and immediacy that it offered, soon reduced the market for instant physical photographs in the late 20th century.
Digital / DSLR, Phone, and Mirrorless Cameras: In 1975 the first digital camera prototype was created in a lab to make digital images a on a computer screen. But was not yet available to the public. In 1987, the first iteration of Photoshop was created. Within two years it was licensed to Adobe and distributed as Photoshop 1.0. It was a program designed for editing electronically captured images that was so advanced for the time, that there were no dedicated, publicly available digital cameras, scanners, printers, or digital-specific paper yet made, to take full advantage of its deep, post production capabilities.
Early images were saved on floppy disks with limited storage capacity, and printed on simple available computer paper. It would be years until the sophistication of the program could be matched by available digital hardware. Kodak introduced the DC210, its first digital camera, in 1999. By the late 1990’s-early 2000’s Digital Photography was on its way to transforming how we make and view photographic images, overtaking traditional film in popular use by the masses.
DSLR cameras were a logical shift in evolution from film SLR’s retaining the optical viewfinder of the mirror and pentaprism functionality for viewing/framing, while replacing the film plane with electronic image sensors to record the digital image.
Newer Mirrorless Cameras utilize an electronic viewfinder (EVF) allowing the photographer to electronically preview the image directly from the image sensor. This allows for a lower weight camera, and one that is more stable for longer exposures and incredibly fast image bursts as well. I-Phone Cameras (and the like) are similar to mirrorless cameras (MILC: mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras) only in the sense that they use electronic image sensors to capture visual information, but don’t have the versatility in being able to change lenses, nor have as sophisticated lenses.
With the advent and popularity of digital I-Phones in the last twenty years for capturing and storing images, the fate of the photographic as a physical object, has come into question for average consumers. How memories will be stored, retrieved, and shared has become the 21st century’s primary culture-building question. Will the ephemeral image stored in “the cloud” eventually lose it connection to the tangible memory infusing artifacts we know as photographs?
Kodak & Brownie Cameras
Snapshot Photography: In 1888-9 George Eastman introduced the first Kodak Camera utilizing his invention of roll film, a silver-based emulsion first on a flexible paper, and then on a gelatin, base. This put photography in the hands of ordinary people for the very first time. They could purchase a camera fully loaded with a 100 exposure roll of film, shoot the pictures, and send the camera back to Kodak for development of the film and prints, and reloading the camera with fresh film. Their advertising slogan was, “You press the button and we do the rest!” This was the beginning of vernacular, snapshot photography. Kodak’s Brownie cameras, introduced in 1900, were more lightweight, smaller, and portable. It featured a removable film container eliminating the need to return the camera with each roll of film ready for developing and printing. The early original photographs were round, due to the circular mask on the interior back of the camera to hold the medium format film flat in place.
With simple, inexpensive cameras, flexible film, and available commercial processing, photography was at long last placed in the hands of non-professionals. The advent of consumer, vernacular, Snapshot Photography was born. Film speeds were faster, allowing for the capture of movement. Cameras were more lightweight, and were able to be taken out of the studios into the field. The ease of making many images of an event, suggested to consumers that everyday events were also worthy of preserving, not just the monumental occasions. People with limited means were now also able to afford simple cameras and film processing.
The democratization of photography was complete.
Vernacular photography blossomed and thrived throughout the entire 20th century. Snapshot photography continues to this day, in the form of digital photography using I-Phone cameras, and the like, and shared through electronic social media.
Toy (Holga/Diana) Cameras: Toy film cameras like the Holga (1980’s) and the earlier Diana camera (1960’s) were created as an inexpensive and (optically poorer) alternative to higher priced cameras. Artists embraced their limitations for expressive content, and they gained a foothold in experimental circles for decades to come. They are rangefinder cameras, with simple lenses, whose resultant images are sharp in the center, and fall off dramatically towards the edges of the frame, creating a dream-like look.
