The History of Photography Beatriz Pereira

“SELFIE” MUCH MORE THAN A PICTURE

Beatriz Pereira Nº: 4 9ºB

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY This was the first photograph ever taken, and surprisingly it still exists.

It was taken in France, in 1826, by Joseph Nicéphore Niépee.

Also this photograph took 8 hours of exposure time.

Nicéphore Niépee wasn´t even a photographer, he was actually an inventor.

The image shows us the view from an upstairs window at Niépee's estate (an extensive area of land that someone owns).

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Camera obscura (13-14th century) Camera Obscura is basically a dark, closed space in the shape of a box with a hole on one side of it. The hole has to be small enough to make the camera obscura work properly. The light that comes through a tiny hole transforms and creates an image in the wall of the box. The image was upside down and of course without quality.

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Negative to Positive (1814) The cons about the camera obscura is that they cannot be reproduced, because each one is a unique image. The ability to create prints came thanks to the work of Henry Fox Talbot, an English botanist (expert/student of the scientific study of plants), mathematician. Talbot displayed paper to light using a silver-salt solution, exposing the paper to light.

The background became black and then the subject was rendered in gradations of gray. Which in nowadays we call a negative image. Talbot also made contact prints, reversing the light and shadows to create a detailed picture. Years later he perfected this paper-negative process and called it a calotype, in Greek "beautiful picture."

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Instant Photography (1948) It was invented by Edwin Herbert Land, an American inventor and physicist. He was already known for the way he used light-sensitive polymers in eyeglasses to invent polarized lenses. In 1948, he created his first instant-film camera, the Land Camera 95. In the next decades, Land's Polaroid Corporation refined blackand-white film and cameras that were fast, cheap, and sophisticated. Polaroid introduced color film in 1963.

Other film manufacturers, like Kodak and Fuji, made their own versions of instant film in the 1970s and '80s.

But Polaroid was always the dominant brand.

In 2010, the Impossible Project began making films using Polaroid's instant-film formats, and in 2017, the company rebranded itself as Polaroid Originals.

Old Polaroid Recent Polaroid

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Digital Cameras (1980) By 1980s, lots of companies were working on digital cameras. One of the first to show a good prototype was Canon, which showed a digital camera in 1984. But by 2004, digital cameras were outselling film cameras, and digital was now dominant.

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Selfie (1836, 2002) In 1839, Robert Cornelius, which was an American inventor, produced a daguerreotype of himself, ending up being one of the first photographs of a person.

However, the word selfie started to be used in an Australian online forum, on 13th September of 2002.

A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, usually taken with a smartphone which can be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick.

Social media helped a lot to spread the word selfie, with hashtags in photos that people shared and posted.

Also now the selfies have improved a lot, because people always try to find the perfect angle, make-up and light, to always look good.

And like for everything, selfies also have some dark stories behind it, people have already died just trying to look good in the photo, or have the perfect angle, since 2011 to 2017, 259 people have already died taking a selfie.

First selfie ever (1839)

Recent selfie

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

This is an old picture of Montijo, in 1903.

This is a recent picture of Montijo.