Photography in the United States

Last updated

The practice and appreciation of photographyin the United States began in the 19th century, when various advances in the development of photography took place and after daguerreotype photography was introduced in France in 1839. The earliest commercialization of photography was made in the country when Alexander Walcott and John Johnson opened the first commercial portrait gallery in 1840. [1] In 1866, the first color photograph was taken. Only in the 1880s, would photography expand to a mass audience with the first easy-to-use, lightweight Kodak camera, issued by George Eastman and his company.

Contents

Nineteenth century

Daguerreotype

In 1839, the daguerreotype photographic process invented in France was introduced into the United States by an Englishman named D.W. Seager, who took the first photograph of a view of St. Paul’s Church and a corner of the Astor House in Lower Manhattan in New York City. [1] [2] Painter and inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse had met Louis Daguerre in Paris in the spring of 1839, becoming the first American to see his photographic process and becoming enamored with it as a result. [1] When he returned to the United States later that year, he enthusiastically promoted the daguerreotype while hailing Seager's prototypical image. [2] Morse had painted The Gallery of the Louvre in 1833, and the appeal of the medium of the daguerreotype was an obvious one to him: it was a means of making faithful copies of artworks, in addition to anything else that would be still in front of the slow eye of the camera. [2]

Portraiture

Given the long exposure time initially required to capture an image, sitters had to be immobilized, so buildings and other stationary objects proved to be the most practical to photograph. However, as the photographic chemistry and techniques improved, American inventors were soon winning prizes for innovative techniques at world expositions, establishing the US as a leader in the developing art field. Thus, it became easier to make images of the human subject with this new technique. [2]

At a time when the painted portrait was a luxury few could afford, the daguerreotype arrived with the promise of letting virtually everyone establish a visual self-image, even if it might be only slightly bigger than a large postage stamp. The working-class daguerreotype studios charged 50 cents an image, the equivalent of half a day's labor. It wasn't cheap, but it was far less expensive than a portrait. [2] Not all of the portraits were successful, however. The subject was generally required to sit without moving from between five or ten seconds (at best) and several minutes. The discomfort of having one's head fitted into the frame of an iron positioning apparatus could produce startling results: stony stares, wild-eyed glares, and eyes frightened by the staring lens of the camera. [2] Despite some unflattering images, however, photography was establishing a new standard for visual representation. The portrait's most treasured quality was that it was an exactly corresponding record of what had existed in front of the lens. [2]

In addition to the private aspect of portraiture, there was a public one. Portrait galleries sprang up in urban centers around the country, and the aspiring middle class would go to view the portraits on display. [2] Daguerreotypes of various public figures - often enlarged and hand-colored - would line the walls of these galleries. Viewers would admire and study the images for signs of distinction, substance, and character that they felt the subjects of the portraits represented. [2]

In 2021, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in Washington, D.C., announced the acquisition of a private collection of early photographs, taken between the 1840s and the mid-1920s, with 40 daguerreotypes made by three 19th century African American photographers. The collection includes photographs of African American men and women abolitionists and documents the work of 19th-century African American photographers such as James Presley Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge and Augustus Washington. [3]

The Civil War

On April 15, 1861, Abraham Lincoln called up 75,000 militiamen to put down an insurrection of southern states after Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter on April 12–14, 1861. Mathew B. Brady, one of the preeminent photographers of the day, secured permission from President Lincoln to follow the troops, for what everyone thought would be a short and glorious war. [4] He only saw the first major engagement, The First Battle of Bull Run, and lost his wagons and other equipment in the chaos of the Union defeat. [4] Deciding to forgo any further action himself, Brady instead put together a corps of field photographers who, together with those employed by the Union Army and Alexander Gardner, made the first extended coverage of a war. [4]

The war photographers worked with collodion wet-plate photography, a photographic process invented by the Englishman Frederick Scott Archer. [4] Unlike a daguerreotype, the process produced a negative, which could be replicated. A major complication, however, was that the photographer had only ten minutes from the coating of the plate to the development of the photograph in which to take the picture. One needed a portable darkroom to use it properly. [5] The photographers could only depict such scenes as strategic sites, camp scenes, preparation for or retreat from action, and, on occasion, the grisly aftermath of battle. This was due to the chaotic and dangerous nature of the battlefield. [4]

The beginnings of the consumer camera

With the progression from the collodion process to the dry-plate process, amateur photography was already on the rise in the United States. However, there was the issue of the annoyance of changing the photographic plates between each shot. [2] The lasting solution to this issue was a product introduced by George Eastman in 1884: a flexible, gelatin-coated paper, followed closely by a holder for a 24-frame roll. [2] Soon after this, Eastman introduced Eastman American film, which featured a thin gelatin layer that was removed from the paper backing after development for additional clarity in making prints. [2] In 1888, Eastman's company issued the first easy-to-use, lightweight Kodak camera. It was priced at $25, loaded with a hundred frames, and was almost instantly popular. [2]

When the user had used up all 100 exposures, he or she would simply mail the camera back to Kodak, where the used film was developed and the camera was reloaded with a fresh roll of frames and was then mailed back to the customer along with the previous batch of printed images. [2] In 1889, Eastman's company began producing cellulose nitrate, or celluloid, film, which didn't require the Eastman American film's paper backing. This last innovation paved the way for motion picture film stock. However, it was highly flammable and this material eventually gave way to cellulose acetate. [2]

Notable nineteenth-century photographers

In the nineteenth century, various American photographers started to develop new methods and techniques for photographs. Among others, these include

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photography</span> Art and practice of creating images by recording light

Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing, and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication.

The following list comprises significant milestones in the development of photography technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daguerreotype</span> Photographic process

Daguerreotype was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collodion process</span> Early photographic technique

The collodion process is an early photographic process. The collodion process, mostly synonymous with the "collodion wet plate process", requires the photographic material to be coated, sensitized, exposed, and developed within the span of about fifteen minutes, necessitating a portable darkroom for use in the field. Collodion is normally used in its wet form, but it can also be used in its dry form, at the cost of greatly increased exposure time. The increased exposure time made the dry form unsuitable for the usual portraiture work of most professional photographers of the 19th century. The use of the dry form was mostly confined to landscape photography and other special applications where minutes-long exposure times were tolerable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Daguerre</span> French photographer, inventor of Daguerrotype (1787–1851)

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photography. Though he is most famous for his contributions to photography, he was also an accomplished painter, scenic designer, and a developer of the diorama theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collodion</span> Flammable, syrupy solution of nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol

Collodion is a flammable, syrupy solution of nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol. There are two basic types: flexible and non-flexible. The flexible type is often used as a surgical dressing or to hold dressings in place. When painted on the skin, collodion dries to form a flexible nitrocellulose film. While it is initially colorless, it discolors over time. Non-flexible collodion is often used in theatrical make-up. Collodion was also the basis of most wet-plate photography until it was superseded by modern gelatin emulsions.

Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio, like the familiar letterbox format in wide-screen video.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathew Brady</span> American photographer (c. 1823 – 1896)

Mathew B. Brady was an American photographer. Known as one of the earliest and most famous photographers in American history, he is best known for his scenes of the Civil War. He studied under inventor Samuel Morse, who pioneered the daguerreotype technique in America. Brady opened his own studio in New York City in 1844, and went on to photograph U.S. presidents John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Van Buren, among other public figures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photographers of the American Civil War</span>

The American Civil War was the most widely covered conflict of the 19th century. The images would provide posterity with a comprehensive visual record of the war and its leading figures, and make a powerful impression on the populace. Something not generally known by the public is the fact that roughly 70% of the war's documentary photography was captured by the twin lenses of a stereo camera. The American Civil War was the first war in history whose intimate reality would be brought home to the public, not only in newspaper depictions, album cards and cartes-de-visite, but in a popular new 3D format called a "stereograph," "stereocard" or "stereoview." Millions of these cards were produced and purchased by a public eager to experience the nature of warfare in a whole new way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gelatin silver process</span> Photographic process

The gelatin silver process is the most commonly used chemical process in black-and-white photography, and is the fundamental chemical process for modern analog color photography. As such, films and printing papers available for analog photography rarely rely on any other chemical process to record an image. A suspension of silver salts in gelatin is coated onto a support such as glass, flexible plastic or film, baryta paper, or resin-coated paper. These light-sensitive materials are stable under normal keeping conditions and are able to be exposed and processed even many years after their manufacture. The "dry plate" gelatin process was an improvement on the collodion wet-plate process dominant from the 1850s–1880s, which had to be exposed and developed immediately after coating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enlarger</span> Specialized transparency projector

An enlarger is a specialized transparency projector used to produce photographic prints from film or glass negatives, or from transparencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambrotype</span> Variant of the wet plate collodion process

The ambrotype, also known as a collodion positive in the UK, is a positive photograph on glass made by a variant of the wet plate collodion process. Like a print on paper, it is viewed by reflected light. Like the daguerreotype, which it replaced, and like the prints produced by a Polaroid camera, each is a unique original that could only be duplicated by using a camera to copy it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tintype</span> Photographic process; direct positive image on metal

A tintype, also known as a melanotype or ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal, colloquially called 'tin', coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion. It was introduced in 1853 by Adolphe Alexandre Martin in Paris, like the daguerreotype was fourteen years before by Daguerre. The daguerreotype was established and most popular by now, though the primary competition for the tintype would have been the ambrotype, that shared the same collodion process, but on a glass support instead of metal. Both found unequivocal, if not exclusive, acceptance in North America. Tintypes enjoyed their widest use during the 1860s and 1870s, but lesser use of the medium persisted into 1930s and it has been revived as a novelty and fine art form in the 21st century. It has been described as the first "truly democratic" medium for mass portraiture.

The science of photography is the use of chemistry and physics in all aspects of photography. This applies to the camera, its lenses, physical operation of the camera, electronic camera internals, and the process of developing film in order to take and develop pictures properly.

<i>Carte de visite</i> Type of small photograph with the size of a visiting card

The carte de visite was a format of small photograph which was patented in Paris by photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854, although first used by Louis Dodero.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of photography</span>

The history of photography began with the discovery of two critical principles: The first is camera obscura image projection, the second is the discovery that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or descriptions that indicate any attempt to capture images with light sensitive materials prior to the 18th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the camera</span> Review of the topic

The history of the camera began even before the introduction of photography. Cameras evolved from the camera obscura through many generations of photographic technology – daguerreotypes, calotypes, dry plates, film – to the modern day with digital cameras and camera phones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hand-colouring of photographs</span> Manually applying colour to black-and-white photographs

Hand-colouring refers to any method of manually adding colour to a monochrome photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the image or for artistic purposes. Hand-colouring is also known as hand painting or overpainting.

The conservation and restoration of photographs is the study of the physical care and treatment of photographic materials. It covers both efforts undertaken by photograph conservators, librarians, archivists, and museum curators who manage photograph collections at a variety of cultural heritage institutions, as well as steps taken to preserve collections of personal and family photographs. It is an umbrella term that includes both preventative preservation activities such as environmental control and conservation techniques that involve treating individual items. Both preservation and conservation require an in-depth understanding of how photographs are made, and the causes and prevention of deterioration. Conservator-restorers use this knowledge to treat photographic materials, stabilizing them from further deterioration, and sometimes restoring them for aesthetic purposes.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to photography:

References

  1. 1 2 3 Teicher, Jordan G. (2017-02-22). "The Hidden History of Photography and New York". Lens Blog. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Miles, Orvell (2016). Photography in America (First ed.). New York. ISBN   9780199314225. OCLC   904528804.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. D’Souza, Aruna (2021-08-17). "Smithsonian Acquires Rare Photographs From the First African American Studios". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-08-19.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Photography and the Civil War, 1861–65". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  5. Wood, Gaby (2010-07-07). "Collodion photography: self-portrait in cyanide". ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 2018-12-10.