In my daily blog I want to talk about the philosophy of photography and my thoughts on certain relevant issues. This blog will never be anything other than photography, there is other place to think and discuss those matters. Here is a place for art and my musings. Today's musings have to deal with individualism in the world of modern art. In a world driven by egotism and personal image art has largely started to reflect that. Artist create grandiose images that say very little about themselves as a artist and are more of grinded images in the sense that they are crowd pleasers. I am by no mean's innocent of that, everyone gives up a little artistic freedom to make art more marketable. But that doesn't mean that we should ever stop innovating as content creators. We should make art that inspires other to action or to try their hand at a new craft. Art should be framed by words so as to drive a narrative of your creation. The beautiful thing is anyone can look at a piece of art and find something different tp love or dislike, but when you express your thoughts and feelings to accompany the art people understand art as a extension of you. As always that's simply my opinion but I think people are ready for a refresh in the way we consume works of art. JT the Bird
The History, From Chemical to Digital, Prt.2
Last week i discussed how the first commercial photo processes were created, first the daguerreotype process as well as the calotype process. The daguerreotype process was printed onto polished metal whereas the calotype produced a type of early negative. Since the very first photo was taken people and scientist have been questing to give their photos color. The problem was that since pictures were created by long exposures the color was very light sensitive and even under dim light the colors would soon dissipate. The first color photograph that had color that did not fade or was considered durable was taken by Thomas Sutton in 1861 for Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. His idea was to take three identical exposures with a blue, red and green filter which would after be projected through the identical corresponding color projection film . This was comparable to a modern day foveon type of sensor, which instead of a mosaic type filter being overlayed onto a sensor the foveon has three varying colored silicon layers that translate all light into a sensor. The problem with that way of creating color was that it was very inaccurate and didn't provide very clear details.
The next major invention in the world of color photography was the autochrome plate. The autochrome plate was truly revolutionary in the world of photography as it created accurate color using a mosaic pattern using dyed starch grains to create a color photograph. It is basically the same process that the bayer type sensor uses to create images now. The autochrome was created by the Lumiere brother in France and marketed in 1917 and was in use till the 1930's when the first color film was invented and put into general use. The process was done by separating variously dyed starch grains by size and organizing them onto a glass sheet that was covered in adhesive. To make the mosaic more conducive to light transmission the plate was then pressed with over 5 tons of weight to flatten and align the pattern. To put into prospective how many starch grains were required, the was 5,000,000 gpi (grain per inch) ratio used to produce the autochrome plate. Even with all these advances in technology there was no way that was fast enough to capture quick shots or to make handheld photography viable.
The last major innovation in the advances toward modern color photography was colored film and advent of Kodak's widely popular #1 model. The camera came with a 100 shot roll of film pre-loaded, the idea was to take 100 shots and return the camera to the factory to have the film exposed and a new roll of film loaded into the camera to use. With Kodak's popularity increasing and being a cultural phenomena at the time it allowed for Kodak to work towards creating a colored film which was finally debuted in 1935 and truly revolutionized the industry it was known as Kodachrome. It captured red, green and blue colors in 3 layers of emulsion, and with this process colors like magenta and cyan are captured in the layers. While Kodak would popularize film and colored film in general it wasn't until 1913-1915 that 35mm cine film became popular for use in still photography.
While the 35mm format had been around since 1908 the format didn't achieve it's legendary status until 1925 when Leica released the ur-leica camera body which used 35mm film natively. This soon spawn several competitors like Contax and Ziess. The competition between these 3 companies jump started the photography industry and led to the eventual development of notable brand such as Canon, Nikon, and Fuji. All this innovation and the war of competing technology led to the Reflex type camera. With the advent of the Reflex patterned camera the industry soon advanced towards digital media. Which I will discuss in detail in the next blog post. Thanks for sticking around and listening to what i believe to be a fascinating history of photography. Full reviews and sample photos from the Panasonic Gx8, Sigma Sd Quattro and Sd Quattro h, FujiFilm X-Pro 2, and Olympus Tg-4 are upcoming along with lens reviews from each ecosystem.
The History, From Chemical to Digital. Prt 1 of 3
Part of the reason I became interested in photography is the science of it and the history that has accompanied the process of going from chemical to digital photography. The first year that photography became viable commercially was in 1839, It was the development of the deguerreotype process by Louis Deguerreo that truly made photography doable and repeatable as before this process it was a hit and miss science. With the D.P. process it only took minutes to process a exposure and it was surprisingly clear and crisp for the time all things considering.
"To make a daguerreotype, the daguerreotyp-ist would polish a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish, treat it with fumes that made its surface light sensitive, expose it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; make the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; remove its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment, rinse and dry it, then seal the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure." (excerpt from Wikipedia).
This process actually created in a sense a 3-D image as the picture appeared to float on the surface of the of the metal creating a feeling of realism that is hard to capture even now. For more then twenty years this process was the only way to make photograph reliably.
The next real innovation in photography was actually several hundred years in the making. Angelo Sala in 1614 observed that silver nitrate blackened when exposed to sunlight but was dismissed by his peers. It wasn't until 1717, 103 years later, that Johann Heinrich Schulzes a professor accidentally learned about making a image imprint when he left a piece of silver nitrate on his window seal and observed a white line surrounded by blackened silver nitrate. Upon examination he found a thread hanging in his window that would have cast a shadow effectively not exposing part of the silver nitrate. William Henry Fox Talbot would be the man to harness this process to create what we know as a calotype.
"The light-sensitive silver halide in calotype paper was silver iodide, created by the reaction of silver nitrate with potassium iodide. First, "iodised paper" was made by brushing one side of a sheet of high-quality writing paper with a solution of silver nitrate, drying it, dipping it in a solution of potassium iodide, then drying it again. At this stage, the balance of the chemicals was such that the paper was practically insensitive to light and could be stored indefinitely. When wanted for use, the side initially brushed with silver nitrate was now brushed with a "gallo-nitrate of silver" solution consisting of silver nitrate, acetic acid and gallic acid, then lightly blotted and exposed in the camera. Development was effected by brushing on more of the "gallo-nitrate of silver" solution while gently warming the paper. When development was complete, the calotype was rinsed, blotted, then either stabilized by washing it in a solution of potassium bromide, which converted the remaining silver iodide into silver bromide in a condition such that it would only slightly discolor when exposed to light, or "fixed" in a hot solution of sodium thiosulphate, then known as hyposulphite of soda and commonly called "hypo", which dissolved the silver iodide and allowed it to be entirely washed out, leaving only the silver particles of the developed image and making the calotype completely insensitive to light. The calotype process produced a translucent original negative image from which multiple positives could be made by simple contact printing. This gave it an important advantage over the daguerreotype process, which produced an opaque original positive that could only be duplicated by copying it with a camera." (Excerpt from wikipedia)
The calotype could have been far more popular then it was at the time but due to Talbot's patent on the process it slowed down adoption very drastically as he would sue willly nilly anyone who used the same process. Even with his legal aggression the calotype still forms the basis for modern film photography.
The desire for pictures arose in the Industrial age from middle class workers and from the rich and wealthy who didn't like to wait or have the time for a oil painting to be completed and delivered. With a photo using the daguerreotype method the picture could be had in just a few hours with prices ranging from 50 cents to over 10 dollars. Doesn't sound like much but if you factor in inflationthat would be 15 dollars to almost 300 dollars per shot. Since it was so hard to produce and store daguerreotype prints eventually people started to turn to calotype photography due to the fact that negatives could be used to produce multiple prints.
That is all for today guys, tomorrow I will discuss how color came into popular use and how the first transportable cameras came about. But as for today have a wonderful evening and a great day !
Sincerely, The BIrd.
Start of a Journey
This website and the ideas have been in development for quite a while now.I wanted to be sure i would have a audience to discuss an art form that I am passionate about. That art is photography, the original meaning of photography meant to write or draw with light, to be able to see the changes and still be able to participate in a century old art is something I love. I am by no means a expert but one day i hope to have helped people understand photography and their gear a little better while still producing beautiful art along the way. This blog will include everything from gear reviews to travel reviews in relation to photography. Photography has such a wide spectrum of inclusion now it wouldn't be fair to not try to understand all the different forms and uses of it. My goal is to never have a equipment bias regardless of how much money I personally shelled out or didn't. I want to be honest in all things. Please feel free to help me along in my journey it is for you the reader after all. Depending on the success of this blog and whether I can continue to be a professional photographer and reviewer I may start a YouTube channel to provide a visual element to my adventures and reviews. As in all things I will give you my best and do my best to be informed and updated. The reason I have named the account Bird is the Name is that I feel like a bird hopping from idea to idea, and I have always chased freedom and I think that with photography and travel you can attain a certain kind of freedom. So now that you understand what I am trying to do, maybe you'll help me along the way to becoming successful. Thank you in advance and have a wonderful 2017. Sincerely, The Bird