(The shortest verison I was able to create)
So we started this shcool unit with it’s logical birth, history.
But alow me to begin with a conclusion: Photography doesn’t have just one story but serveral that converged, although their starting point had it’s origin in mutiple country with distinct influences.
“But someone has to have been the first, someone had to beat someone else to it”. Well, oppinions diverge on this matter. But let’s all agree that photography needs 3 things, and only these 3 to exist:
- Light
- Object
- Photosensitive material
So, since that light and objects exist since the dawn of time. We can say that photography started by him who created photosensitive material to print on, thus recording what we see has it is, and not the first camera holder has you would think.
This is why the history of photograpy always shifted between assuming the documental value of images, as a way to just record reality and the way in wich diferente ages put their artistic toe into it, throughout the experience of creating something.
Having said this, there were countless experimental attempts to find photosensitive materials to produce what were originally called “photogenic drawings” meaning drawing created by light. These attempts pre-dated the existance of cameras and pretty much worked by: coating commonly available materials such as glass, metal, paper and even leather with light-sensitive chemicals.
The first chemically photographic process can be considered a photogram.
Important names in the history of printing
Johann Heinrich Schulze (1687-1744) – German physicist and professor of anatomy and medicin, found that silver nitrate in a jar, when left exposed to sunlight, turned dark on the side facing the window. After exposure, if the bottle was shaken, fresh silver nitrate replaced the exposed material near the glass surface. Schultze first demonstrated that this action was caused by light and not by heat. Schultze’s experiment failed to result in a permanent image because exposure to light continued to change the unfixed silver.
Thomas Wedgewood (1771-1805) – Chemist, physicist and son of the potter and industrialist, Josiah Wedgewood. By experimenting with chemicals in his father’s shop was able to produce only temporary images. He is known to have produced designs on leather, glass and ceramic items. Wedgewood called these images “sun prints” a term that has survived until today. His work also failed to produce permanent images due to his inability to fix the image.
A speculative attribution to Wedgwood in 2008 was later retired. Although this is a controversial matter, it is one of the first photograms in history.
“No attempts have been made to prevent the uncolored parts of the copy or profile from being acted upon by light have yet been successful”
Thomas Wedgewood
“The copying of a painting, or the profile, immediately after being taken, must be kept in an obscure place. It may indeed be examined in the shade, but, in this case, the exposure should be only for a few minutes, by the action of candles or lamps, as commonly employed it is not sensibly affected.”
Humphrey Davy
Joseph Nicephere Niepce, in France, in 1824 created a recorded image of a drawing by coating a sheet with Bitumen of Judea, a type of asphalt. By exposing through the drawing, and washing off the soft unexposed asphalt resulted in a photogram copy of the drawing. Niepce continued to explore ways to improve his process without significant success. He abandoned the concept and experiments and later worked with Louis Jaques Mande Deguerre on the Daguerreotype process.
The photography took 8 hours of exposure to sunlight.
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) – English scientist and mathematician, while traveling in Italy in the early 1830’s used a camera lucida (a portable camera obscura) to draw nature and because of the difficulties in detailing various subjects, he decided to investigate the use of photography as a way to capture the details.
Talbot began investigating the properties of silver salts in mid-1834 and in 1835 and part of the process was to expose to sunlight until an image appeared, followed by washing the print in salt solution under low level of light, resulting in a relatively permanent image.
Talbot used the term Calotype from the Greek “calos” meaning beautiful” to describe these images. Talbot was the first person to expose sensitized paper in a camera. Since film was unknown at the time, Talbot oiled the paper to make it transparent and this “negative” was used to produce a positive by contact printing through the oiled paper. Talbot is considered the first person to create a photographic process that produced a negative that could be converted into a positive image.
He was also the first to manage to fix his photograms, in the salted paper, so his photogram images were the first to survive to this day.
We also owe a great deal to Anna Atkins (1799-1871). Anna, was born in Kent and spent her childhood in the presence of many of the leading English chemists. She helped her father in scientific endeavors. Also, Herschel and Talbot were friends of Anna’s father and thus Anna knew early on about the cyanotype and Talbot processes for creating images. Anna later used the process of making cyanotypes to produce detailed images of botanical specimens, he then used these to illustrate her book entitled “British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions”. This was the first book that was illustrated using photography.
Printed and published Part I of “British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions” in 1843 and in doing so established photography as an accurate medium for scientific illustration.
She learnedn cyanotype and photogenic drawings cooresponding with Fox Talbot and John Herschel. Herschel was a scientist, inventor and astronomer. He invented the cyanotype in 1842 by observing the photosensitivity of ferric salts. He also discovered that sodium thiosulfate would “fix” images and essentially stop images from fading with further exposure to light. The cyanotype became an important and popular method for producing images during the 19th and 20th centuries because of the ease of coating the paper with photosensitive solution and because the image can be developed using water.
The cyanotype process is very permanent and many of the photograms produced in the mid-1800s survive today.
As the method was perfected throughout time, it started to be used has a mein of art. In this fase i should like to give some final, but special attention to one who was one of the biggest influences in one of my all times favourite photographer.
Man Ray (1890-1976) – This american was one of the founders of the Dada movement (anti-art, ilogical and absurd), alogside with Michael Duchamp. In 1921. In Paris he comes across surrealismo (wich had a strong influence on Freud psicoanalisis, has enphatised the role of the subconsciente in creative activities) and becomes influente in the movement. Man Ray developed lots of experimental works, in techniques such as: Sabatier efect, photograms, multiple exposures and original techniques in photosensitivity and photographic prints.
The process and evolution of photograms is fascinating and experimental, so is it’s own process. Despite the interest, more than everything, the history just made me very curious on how to actually make a photogram or a sun print. Because, the concept seems rather simple, but the time that took for it to develop must require some skills wich i do not, yet, have.
References
Godinho, Maria Margarida A.f. Medeiros M. (2016). Fotogramas : Ensaios sobre fotografia. 1st ed. Lisboa : Documenta, 2016. 224 p. Powered by Pure, Scopus & Elsevier Fingerprint Engine™ © 2019 Elsevier B.V.
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