1 / 45

A Short History of Photographic Processes - up to 1900

A Short History of Photographic Processes - up to 1900. by Mike Ware Buxton U3A February 2014 Photo by Mark Osterman. Alhazen’s Camera Obscura ca. 1000 AD. Camera Obscura with Lens ~1550. The Raw Materials of Proto-photography. Sunlight. Silver chloride (Angelo Sala 1612).

kamuzu
Download Presentation

A Short History of Photographic Processes - up to 1900

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. A Short History of Photographic Processes - up to 1900 by Mike Ware Buxton U3A February 2014 Photo by Mark Osterman

  2. Alhazen’s Camera Obscuraca.1000 AD

  3. Camera Obscura with Lens ~1550

  4. The Raw Materials of Proto-photography Sunlight Silver chloride (Angelo Sala1612)

  5. The “Gernsheim Question” (Photohistorians Helmut and Alison Gernsheim) 1000 Camera obscura known with pinhole 1512 (GirolamoCardano) with lens 1610 Silver chloride darkening in sunlight 1839 Announcement of photography “Why was photography not invented long before the early 19th century?”

  6. Tom Wedgwood (1771-1805) Contact-printed images on silver nitrate coated on paper and white leather ca. 1799. Unfixed – none survive? No camera images made Published with H. Davy Royal Institution 1802

  7. Joseph NicéphoreNiépce (1765-1833) Bitumen of Judaea coated on a pewter plate is hardened by light-exposure. Rendered insoluble in oil of cloves. Exposure many hours Ca. 1822-27

  8. Niépce’s Heliographic Process The “First Photograph” 1826 Niepceotype

  9. WilliamHenry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) Inventor of silver halide photography on paper (1834) Chief contributions: Sensitized by excess Ag+ Fixed by excess halide Negative-positive process Collection of National Media Museum RPS Collection

  10. Talbot’s “First Negative” on paper

  11. Talbot’s Working Method“Photogenic Drawing Paper” • Immerse writing paper in ~1% salt for 2 minutes • Blot dry • Brush over with 20% silver nitrate (a 6x excess):AgNO3 + NaCl AgCl+ NaNO3 • Expose for ~10 minutes in sunlight to darkenUV + AgCl(s)  Ag(s) + Cl2(g)↑ • Fix with ~30% salt or ~2% potassium iodide

  12. Photogenic Drawings by Talbot ca 1839 Thiosulphatefixed? Chloride fixed?

  13. Iodide fixed Photogenic Drawing WHF Talbot “AgrostisGigantea” On verso: “H.F. Talbot Photogr. 1839” Paper is J. Whatman Turkey Mill 1838 National Media Museum UK

  14. Sir John F. W. Herschel (1792-1871) Invented ‘Hypo’ fixation in 1839. Based on chemical experiments of 1819 with ‘hyposulphites’ (now thiosulphates) which dissolve silver chloride. Still used in ‘fixer’ today. Portrait, Royal Society 1843

  15. Thiosulphate-fixed Salt Print WHF Talbot “Melrose Abbey” National Media Museum UK

  16. Proto-photography “Prints-out” Sun supplies all the energy of image formation Exposure by direct solar irradiation ~1 minute AgCl(s) + UV  Ag(s) + 1/2Cl2(g)↑ For contact prints: Photogenic DrawingsPrints from engravings and camera negatives Exposures in the camera are very lengthy – lens only captures 1/100 to 1/1000 of the light

  17. Camera Exposure Factors Given only proto-photographic materials: contact exposures take about 1 minute camera exposures (at f/4) take 1-2 hours (at f/11) 10 hours Camera photography is nearly impossible A marginal technology, at best, as Talbot & Daguerre found independently - until they separately discovered different ways of: Development of latent images in silver iodide

  18. Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1789-1851) Daguerreotype Silvered metal plate Iodized with I2vapour to Give coat of silver iodide. Exposed in the camera for a few minutes. Latent Image in the AgI developed with Mercury vapour – Ag/Hg amalgam Ca. 1837. Published 1839

  19. Talbot’s “Waterloo” Paper Annotated “w”: uses silver bromide sensitizer

  20. Photographic Development Talbot in 1840 discovered that gallic acid can “bring out an invisible dormant picture” impressed on silver iodide by very little light The developer supplies the chemical energy His camera exposure times reduced by 100x An extraordinary fluke - not predictable Photography was practice-led: No theory of latent image until the mid-C20th

  21. Gallic acid Developer 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid Oak Galls C6H2(OH)3COOH

  22. Chemistry of Talbot’s Calotype 1) Iodize: AgNO3 + KI  AgI  + KNO3 silver nitrate + potassium iodide  silver iodide + potassium nitrate 2) Excite: Talbot’s “Gallo-nitrate of silver” AgNO3 + acetic acid + gallic acid 3) Expose: Moist or dry ~1 minute @ f/15 4) Develop: “Gallo-nitrate of silver” reduces Ag+ + e- Ag  silver cation + electron  silver atom 5) Fix: KBr (or hot strong thiosulphate) Ag+ + Br- AgBr  silver cation + bromide anion  silver bromide 6) Wax: Less refractive index difference

  23. The “Black Art” of Development “Surely you deal with the Naughty One” Sir John F.W. Herschel (16th March 1841) William Henry Fox Talbot

  24. Outline of Silver Development • Silver halide microscopic crystals suspended in a photographic “emulsion” - a colloidal binder • A small amount of image light striking any crystal sensitizes it - forming a ‘latent image’ - an invisible cluster of ~10 atoms of silver • Developers chemically reduce the sensitized crystals of AgX entirely to grains of Ag metal • A Crystal may contain 10,000,000 AgI, so amplification is 1,000,000 & Exposure becomes • ~ 1 hour ÷ 1,000,000 = 1/300 second

  25. Albumen Print of Buxton UK

  26. Cartoon from ‘Punch’ 1847 Behold thy portrait - day by day, I’veseen its features die; First the moustachios go away, Then off the whiskers fly…

  27. Processes for Camera Negatives

  28. Relative Exposure Times

  29. Chromium-based Printing 1839 MungoPonton (1801-1880) Paper coated with a soluble dichromate is light-sensitive. Chromium(VI) is reduced and hardens organic colloids – gelatin, gum etc Pigments may be bound in to form a photograph. Carbon & gum processes.

  30. Iron-based Printing 1842 Sir John F.W. Herschel Ferric salts of ‘vegetable acids’ – e.g. citric, oxalic, tartaric, are light-sensitive and form ferrous salts. The photoproduct can reduce salts of noble metals (silver, gold, platinum) to an image in the metal. Ferrous can couple with ferricyanide – Prussian blue

  31. Photochemistry of Iron(III) Saltse.g.Citrate, Oxalate, TartrateUV LightFe(III) Salt –> Fe(II) salt ‘ferric’‘ferrous’The Fe(II) photoproduct can:-1. Precipitate a noble metal from its solution2. Couple with ferricyanide –> Prussian blue3. Leave Fe(III) to form inks with gallic acid

  32. Historical Iron-based Processes 1842 Herschel Cyanotype Prussian blue 1842 Herschel ArgentotypeSilver 1842 Herschel Chrysotype Gold 1842 Herschel CelaenotypeMercury 1861 Colas Ferrogallate Iron-gall ink 1873 Willis Platinotype Platinum 1889 NicolKallitype Silver 1916 Willis PalladiotypePalladium

  33. Characteristics of Siderotypes[Iron-Based Printing Processes] • Aqueous sensitizer – no colloidal binder • Plain paper – matte surface texture • No ‘amplification’ – contact printing only • Large format negative required • Sensitive only to UV and blue light • Archival permanence with Pt, Pd, and Au

  34. Chemicals for Cyanotype

  35. Cyanotype from an Engraving

  36. Anna Atkins(1799-1871) Botanical illustrator Sun-printed sea-weeds in Herschel’s cyanotype to make the first book which was illustrated photographically.

  37. Anna Atkins - British Algae

  38. An Aesthetic Blueprint !

  39. “Made in Scotland from Girders”

  40. Scotland’s other National Beverage!Contains 0.002% Ammonium Ferric Citrate

  41. New York Subway - Brooklyn

  42. Prussian blue in art & science

  43. William Willis jr Used sensitivity to light of ferric oxalate to make prints in platinum metal. The most stable and most beautiful photographs ever seen

  44. Commercial Platinotype ca. 1900

  45. “The Artists go on boldly, and are not afraid to be Chemists, the Chemists gain courage and long to be Artists.”The Athenaeum, 1858

More Related