Read how photography took off in the mid-1800s when its pioneers developed light-sensitive materials that were capable of captureing an image.
At the heart of photography is the camera, a device that uses lenses to focus the image, a variable aperture to control the brightness of the light and a shutter that can open and close in a precise duration of time. The other component is a light-sensitive medium to capture the image.
In the early 1800’s when much effort went into developing a light-sensitive medium, the camera was nothing new. The camera obscura had existed for centuries. In fact, there’s a high likelihood that you have created a camera obscura.
When there is a solar eclipse it is too dangerous to look directly at the sun without looking through very dark sunglasses. As an alternative, we take a piece of cardboard, punch a hole in it, and project the image of the sun on the sidewalk. As the moon consumes the sun, the projected image shows the image of the crescent sun.
Shining light through a small whole is the principle of the camera obscura. If the light shines on a screen, an upside-down image appears.
The Chinese understood this principle as early as the 4th century BCE knew when they created a sundial with a small hole in the gnomon, the sail-like piece that casts it’s moving shadow on the plate. The hole projected a bright spot on the plate which enabled the Chinese to not only tell the time from the position of the shadow but also the date from the position of the bright spot.
The camera obscura was used to study optics and astronomy in the 16th century. But by 1567, the camera obscura was being used by painters as a drawing aid.
Time passed until explorations into light-sensitive materials in the early 1800s began to produce results.
Continue reading “In the Beginning There Was a Camera but No Film”
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