Nicephore Niepce
-He was one of the fathers of photography; he was also
French. In 1825 he captured the first photograph. He is also famously known for
making the first internal combustion engine. Niepce also served in the military
under Napolean Bonaparte. Niepce was basically a brilliant French inventor that
attempted to discover a lot of things.
Louis Daguerre
-He was a French artist that is well known for his invention
of the daguerreotype process of photography. Daguerreotype photography is
basically positive made on a silver copper plate. He is also proclaimed as one
of the fathers of photography. He teamed up with Niepce but in 1833 Niepce
died. Daguerra then continued experimenting with photography and that is how he
came up with the daguerreotype process.
Henry Fox-Talbot
-British photographer that invented the calotype process.
This process used paper that was coated with silver iodide. It was a long
process, it usually took around 1 hour for the picture to be taken so there would
be an acceptable negative. If these photographs were exposed to light then they
would run the risk of changing. He attempted to find ink that would not fade as
fast, but he didn’t complete that objective before he died.
Hippolyte Bayard
-This man claimed to be the first person to invent
photography before the other French: Niepce and Daguerre. He invented his own
process known as direct positive printing. His process involved exposing silver
chloride paper to the light, this exposure would then turn the paper completely
black. The next step was to soak it in potassium iodide before the exposure to
the camera; afterwards, it was washed in a bath of hyposulfite of soda and
dried. This process was pretty fast at the time, it took around 12 minutes as
opposed to Henry’s process of 1 hour.
Julia Margaret
Cameron
-Julia became famous when, Helmut Gernsheim wrote a book
about her work. She was first interested in photography when her daughter gave
her a camera for her birthday. In Julia’s photography she attempted to
photograph beauty…in her book she wrote, “I longed to arrest all the beauty
that came before me and at length the longing has been satisfied.”
Lady Clementina Hawarden
-Lady Clementina was a noted portrait photographer. She had
ten children and turned to photography while she lived with her husband. They
later moved to London and she set up a studio in her home, so she started
taking it more serious. Today there is a collection of her portraits in a
museum in London (Victorian and Albert Museum)
Nadar
-Nadar was born in Paris, France. He was the first person to
take aerial pictures. Not only that but he pioneered the use of artificial
lighting in photography, he did this by working at the Catacombs in Paris.
Unlike many of these other photographers, Nadar lived a long live; he lived for
89 years.
Gustave Le Gray
-Has been named the most important photographer in the 19th
century. He was originally being trained to become a painter however he then
crossed over to photography. He later became a famous portraitist. He also did
work for Napoleon III
Diane Arbus
-Diane was Jewish and lived in New York. Her family was
wealthy and they owned an apartment store on Fifth Avenue. Diane was initially
hired as a photographer by her father to make advertisement for their store;
this is the time when she became interested in photography. In NY she also
taught photography. Furthermore, she decided to end her life by slashing her
wrist she was only 48 years old.
Susan Sontag
-Susan was an American writer and filmmaker. She was often
photographer and her image became popularized. One of her most famous writings
was, “On Photography” where she explained her views on photography in a
capitalist society. “Sontag says
that the individual who seeks to record cannot intervene, and that the person
who intervenes cannot then faithfully record, for the two aims contradict each
other.”
