LA – Delving Deeper Into the History of Photography

Question 1)

• Pick three events in the timeline from this week’s lesson History of Photography: An Introduction, and find photographs of the event on the Internet or in the library and write a paragraph explaining the event in more detail. Include your photographs in the description.

Tintype/Ferrotype
Tintype is also known as Ferrotype. It has it’s name «Tintype» because the photography is taken on a thin tin-plate, and it’s also a positive photography and are made quite small in size. You basically apply a solution, called collodion-nitrocellulose, on a plate of metal which is dark lacquered. There exists one dry method to do this, and one wet method. Tintype had it’s days of glory in the mid of the 18th century, but photographers has been preserving the procedure until the day today.

Examples, found on the internet:

Photo: «Two young boys in a goat cart, c.1880, Science Museum Group collection»
Source: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/find-out-when-a-photo-was-taken-identify-ferrotype-tintype/

Photo: «Photographer: Victoria Will | Kristen Wiig at Sundance Film Festival, 2015 | Photo from Victoria Will»
Source: https://filtergrade.com/what-is-a-tintype/

Wet Plate Negatives:

Also known as The Collodion process. A process done to produce a negative photography. It was firstly published in 1851, but was invented three years earlier by F. Scott Archer. In this process they poured collodion onto a cleaned glass plate, and it took only a few seconds before the collodion was set. When it was set it was given light-sensitivity by covering the plate in a solution of silver nitrate. The plate was then placed in the camera, while it still was wet, and therefore it got it’s name «Wet plate negatives».

Example found on the internet:

Photo: «by Hills & Saunders, dated 1872»
Source: http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/gloss10.html

Daguerrotype

Daguerrotype was the first photographic process we know of, introduced in the year of 1839. It’s named after it’s inventor: Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. The process is «simply» enough that to make a permanent picture, you would need a silver iodide coated copper plate to expose it to light in the camera, and then add mercury vapour. To make it all permanent a solution of common salt is added lastly.

Example found on the internet:Photo: «Still Life, daguerreotype by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, 1837; in the collection of the Société Française de Photographie, Paris.Collection de la Société Francaiçe de Photographie, Paris»
Source: https://www.britannica.com/technology/daguerreotype

 

Question 2)

• Go to the library or search on the Internet and find a photograph from the 19th century (taken before 1900). Write a short “think piece” about this photograph. You are free to select any image you would like to write about, as long as the photograph was taken during the 19th century. Examine the photograph carefully and write about what you see and what the photograph makes you think about. Some (but not all) things you could consider are:
  What does the photograph tell you about the photographer?
  What does it tell you about the subject of the image?
  Does the technical quality of the image (or lack thereof) help or hinder the success of the photograph?
  Where did the photographer stand when he or she took this picture?
  How does his or her camera position or angle affect the outcome of the image?
  Why does this picture interest you?
  In short, tell me what you think about the image in your own words. This assignment is to be  posted at to your WordPress blog. The image you are writing about must be included.

Photo: Rochdale Road and Swan Street 1900. Photographer: Samuel Lawrence Coulthurst.
Source: https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.no/2018/01/a-little-bit-about-samuel-l-coulthurst.html

My thoughts about this photo is that it is a photo taken to capture the everyday life on the streets of Manchester. Probably it’s totally random people, just doing what they do every day, and here it looks like they are «shopping» at a market. To be a still image it really captures the reality, and only by looking at it you almost feel like you are there on the streets yourself – I think a reason to that is because it’s taken in eye height, so you basically feel like it’s your eyes looking at this situation. And personally I think that when a viewer just can look at a photography and get «dragged» into it, then it’s a good picture, and that’s why I like this picture right here. At least it’s not a totally boring and posed image, and that immediately draws my attention.

The photographer is standing a bit away from the subjects, like he’s not standing right up in their faces, which I think is good, because then the people probably would’ve acted differently than normal. The photography itself is quite clear, you can even see some of the people’s face expressions, which glows it up even more. In many pictures it doesn’t work out when there are happening too much in the picture, but this is one of the few it actually works out with. The more you look at it, the more you see. And the photographer has really managed to make it exciting to look at, even though it’s simply a photography of as I’ve said; the everyday life.

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