Worth Sharing: Photographic Memory

                                                  My great Grandmother ca 1920

Quite unconsciously this week I fell into looking at old photographs.   There is a shoe box full of photos which Mama gave me a few years ago.  Many are old enough to date back to the 1870's or 1880's, some from WWI and WWII and a few modern day polaroid type photos plus those purchased as a photo package.   As I looked over these faces, both familiar and unfamiliar I wasn't really thinking of the medium of photography.  

But later in the week, I found a most fascinating YouTube vlog that also deals with photographs and I started thinking of the advances we've made in photography over the years.

For many years artists had used an object called a camera obscura to view objects and scenes in a different perspective or to trace objects onto paper for purposes of art.   A few inventors had left some notes made as early as the 13th and 17th centuries that some chemical compounds had a darkening effect when exposed to light.   It was not until the 1800's that three men independently discovered iodine, bromine and chlorine in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Inventor Nicephore Niepce had experimented first with a bitumen (asphalt) process in 1822  called Heliography, but when he experimented with paper silver chloride negatives in the early 1830's, he came nearest the Daguerrotype method of photography.  Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre was a set designer and used a camera obscura in his work.  He became curious about photographic possibilities and was directed to Niepce's work.  In 1829, they  began corresponding.   He and Daguerre used secret codes and each signed a contract insuring that only the two of them would know of the development of their experiments in photographic processes.   

Nicephore Niepce died and his son Isidore inherited the contract.  He and Daguerre signed new contracts, which admitted that the process had been developed as far as they could and that Daguerre 's name alone would be applied to the name of the process used.  This process was 60-80 times quicker than the previous asphalt processing that Niepce  had originally invented.  In 1839 an announcement was made of Daguerre's successful experiments in photography. 

To make the photograph a silver plated copper sheet was polished by the photographer to a mirror finish, treated with silver oxide and the images thereon developed with mercury fumes.  Lighting was key in how long the process took.  Well lit sunny scenes took far less time than darker ones to impart the image onto the sheet.  This was officially the Daguerreotype method of photography.   In 1838, Daguerre took a photo of the Boulevard Du Temple in Paris, France.  This image has the first captured images of a human.  There is a man having his shoes shined in the photograph.  He is in the bottom left.

Niepce and Daguerre had developed a business model to sell the process as stocks but these plans fell through.  The camera and process were patented in England.  The French Government acquired the patents to the method and gave both Isidore Niepce and Daguerre lifelong pensions as reparation. 

Daguerre in 1839

 

Further improvements to this method of photography were made by Robert Beard in England who developed the mirror process of Daguerreotype photography.  In the United States Alexander Woolcott built his own camera following the same method after John Johnson translated Daguerre's transcripts.  It took him just one day to complete the camera.   

There are many more explanations of the process and their development over the years but I shall spare you those details.  It's all fascinating but lengthy.

In the 1850's a new development in the UK resulted in Ambrotype photography and in the 1860's Tintype photography was developed.  

                                          Billy the Kid, William Bonney  example of Tintype photography

In 1888, George Eastman and Henry Strong set up a camera company that used a box like camera and celluloid film.  The first cameras included a 100 photo roll of the film which Eastman had invented.  He and his mother made up the name Kodak.  This camera was the first to make photography publicly accessible to the average citizen and revolutionized the photographic industry because now non-professionals could also make photos.   

The original cost was about $10 which is equivalent to roughly $300 per camera. Once the film was used up, the camera was sent back to company who opened up the box and put in a new roll of film, sending it back to the owner.   The article used for information does not say how the film was developed, but I'm assuming it was developed by Kodak, since they also developed and sold film.  In 1900 they introduced their first Brownie camera meant strictly for the use of children.  The cost then was about $2.

Now we have digital photography which is beautiful and has far more clarity than any of the previously invented methods of photography.  I stumbled upon a rather fun Vlog called Mystery Scoop.   The videos I most enjoyed were historical ones where they took old photographs, colorized and digitalized them using artificial intelligence and you literally can see the image 'come alive' with blinking eyes, soft smiles, nods, turns of head, etc.   It's really fascinating to me how this man has made history come to life.  In another series he does the same with famous portraitures.  You should just see Anne Boleyn smile...Or see what Elizabeth Queen of Scots might look like today!

I've ONLY looked at his photographic series, not any of the rest of his videos so please keep that in mind if you do visit this site.