Thoughts on the Power of Early Photography (From a Mathew Brady Bio)

The start of Chapter 3 in "Mathew Brady: Portraits of a Nation" mentions something that I've pondered a lot. And it shares 3 points that I have brought up in my photography classes for years: the inital importance of early photographs can't be comprehended today; photography was a subtle way to level out different classes of people; and because photography was considered to be more of a "truthful" science, it took a lot of work for it to be accepted as "art:"

Americans in the 1840s and '50s embraced the new and growing art of photography. The availability of images from the most distant places on earth made the world a more knowable place, a revolution in human knowledge comparable to the invention of moveable type or the Internet. But of more immediate personal value was the possibility of having images of yourself and the people you loved fixed forever in a form you could possess and pass on. Suddenly a kind of immortality previously available only to the rich, who could aford to have their portraits paint, or to those with the means to commission a miniature from an itinerant painter, was now within the reach of almost everyone. Even if you could afford a painted portrait, the result would be another person's impression or interpretation of what you looked like. This new medium, it was generally agreed, portrayed you as you really were. At a time when children often did not survive childhood and might be remembered only by a posthumous photo taken of them in burial clothes, or when a son who went out west in search of gold had little hope of communicating with the family he had left behind, or they with him, or a husband went to sea leaving a wife and family whose images he might gaze upon and who themselves could not know when or if he would return, the small daguerreotypes that people in the 1840s and '50s rushed to have made had a value that we can only guess at today.

Wilson also makes an interesting point 2 paragraphs later in the same chapter:

Photography was also among the first examples (along with the telegraph and the railway) of a phenomenon that has become almost commonplace in our time - an advance in technology that transforms rapidly from a state of inconceivable mystery or even magic to something that everyone would and must have access to. In his 1853 dictionary, Noah Webster ended a brief description of the daguerreotype process with "and then the images appear as by enchantment." Photography was at first as surprising as the possibility of wireless telephone communication seemed to us two decades ago, and then as urgent a necessary as the smartphone today.

This book was published nearly a decade ago, so you might change that last sentence to THREE decades ago as Wilson writes about "wireless telephones." But the point still stands.

How Technicolor Changed Movies

This is just a bit of an interesting history of Technicolor, along with 3 "lies" (or just filmmaking tricks) with regards to the Technicolor usage in "The Wizard of Oz:"

Direct Link: youtu.be/Mqaobr6w6_I

Curtains Create Pinhole Camera

There are many instances of pinhole cameras being formed in darkened rooms to project the outside on a far wall. (Abelardo Morell has done work like this for example.) Two days ago, someone on Reddit shared what was happening with their curtains, and it was pretty fun:

That's the street below being projected sort of "accidentally" on his ceiling as a pinhole camera would do. Here's a video of the street below "moving" on his ceiling:

The curtains in my room create a "natural" pinhole camera that projects images of the street below onto my ceiling from r/woahdude

Click here to see it on Reddit if that embedded video doesn't work.

"The Dawn of the Color Photograph"

I've been checking out photo-related books from my local library over the last 14 months. I recently learned about Albert Kahn and his undertaking of hired photographers in the book "The Dawn of the Color Photograph: Albert Kahn's Archives of the Planet" by David Okuefuna.

I had never heard of Kahn or his contribution to the world just after the advent of color photography. Here's a bit about Kahn and this book from BookForum.com:

In 1909, two years after the Lumière brothers invented the Autochrome process, French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn initiated a twenty-two-year project (brought to an end by his ruin in the Great Depression) to photograph the world in color. Known as the Archives de la Planète, this astounding body of work, some seventy-two thousand images, captured life in more than fifty countries, many during moments of profound upheaval. Kahn’s hired photographers sat with French soldiers in the trenches, walked through a Smyrna razed in the Greco-Turkish War, and witnessed Emir Faisal’s campaign to free Arabia from Ottoman control. But the archive is particularly remarkable for its documentation of lands and peoples once little seen by Western eyes. The collection boasts what may be the earliest color photographs of the Taj Mahal and the Egyptian pyramids, as well as striking portraits of Kurdish women in northern Iraq, dancers from the Khmer ballet in Angkor, and itinerant Mongolian hunters on the steppes near the Russian border. But does the past change when we see it in color? In many instances, the vivid palette brings the images closer to our present moment, making the world—and the distance of history—frighteningly small.

His goal wasn't to have his photographers make "art," but more to simply "document" the world. As the book states, the images his photographers produced "were not works of reportage or ethnography, nor an attempt to produce works of art. The aim was simply to record human beings in all their diversity, living humble lives worthy of respect."

Here's a bit about some of Kahn's project from 2007 on BBC Two:

Direct link: youtu.be/nWeU5OexIls

The Evolution of Camera Shutter Sounds

Here's a short video sharing different shutter speed sounds over the years:

Direct link: youtu.be/dukzCYaUTV8

The 3rd one took me back: I had an old TLR that sounded a LOT like that!

Also, I didn't know that TIME Magazine produced a crappy looking SLR at one point.

An Eight Year Long Exposure

Here's an excerpt from a press release from the University of Hertfordshire from last week:

A photograph thought to be the longest exposure image ever taken has been discovered inside a beer can at the University of Hertfordshire’s Bayfordbury Observatory.

The image was taken by Regina Valkenborgh, who began capturing it towards the end of her MA Fine Art degree at the University of Hertfordshire in 2012. It shows 2,953 arced trails of the sun, as it rose and fell between summer and winter over a period of eight years and one month. The dome of Bayfordbury’s oldest telescope is visible to the left of the photograph and the atmospheric gantry, built halfway through the exposure, can be seen from the centre to the right.

Click here to enlarge.

The previously "accepted" record for longest exposure was a Michael Wesely photo that was just over half as long: 4 years and 8 months.

Here's a bit more on Valkenborgh's record-breaking image from the Smithsonian Magazine.

And here's a video by Justin Quinnell showing how to make your own pinhole camera that can hold up for a long exposure:

Direct link: youtu.be/wtZOWEB_wcI


An example of a 6-month exposure from Quinnell.

"Hand-Held" WWII Aerial Camera

Check out this Fairchild K-17 aerial camera from the 1940s:

It's a "hand-held" camera, but it weighs 75 lbs!

It shot 9x9 inch negatives on a 9.5 inch wide roll of film:

Here's a bit from a website about "combat mapping" that mentions how you'd use the K-17:

While these cameras were normally clamped into mounts, a pair of handles and a viewfinder could be fitted to K-17s and K-18s for hand-held operation. What “hand-held” meant is subject to interpretation, as these cameras were not lightweights. With a 200 foot roll of film, the A-5 film magazine used with the K-17 weighed 30 pounds. A complete K-17 with 12″ lens cone and a full magazine weighed about 55 pounds. With a 24″ lens instead of the 12″, the weight climbed to near 75 pounds.

Capturing the Light: Regarding "The Pencil of Nature"

Here's an interesting 2 paragraphs from Capturing the Light as the authors wrote about Talbot and The Pencil of Nature:

In developing the calotype, he had turned to photographing various locations in and around this home at Lacock and then, with the assistance of his Dutch valet Nicolaas Henneman, whom he trained himself, taking the process on the road nad photographing the picturesque architecture of Oxford and Paris. He executed a few portraits and group shots, but, typical of Talbot's reserved nature, it was the landscape and cityscape that attracted his interest. In 1844 he set to work on disseminating the details of the calotype process, by devising a book, to be published in serial form as six individual booklets or fascicles, each containing actual photographic prints from his own calotype negatives. This series was called The Pencil of Nature and its purpose was twofold: first to bring the calotype to the public attention by showing that photographs could be published in book form; and second, to set out and describe the various modes in which Talbot believed that photography in the long term would prove most useful. These included views of architecture; landscapes; still lifes; the cataloguing of scientific objects; genre scenes; and the copying of works of art. He did not include portraiture, no doubt thinking in terms of the scientific rather than personal or recreational use of his process. Perhaps he wished to elevate the calotype above portraiture, which to him seemed the realm of the everyday, jobbing photographer and not that of the artist. Or perhaps Talbot himself had privately recognized that the better results in portraiture were achieved by the daguerreotype, and that it was sensible therefore not to engage in direct competition with it in this respect.

In order to provide the great quantity of pictures that he intended to include in The Pencil of Nature, Talbot worked closely with Henneman, whom he had not promoted to full-time photographer. They set up a printing studio at Reading, about halfway between Lacock and London. Known as the Reading Establishment, it was able to turn out dozens, if not hundreds, of prints every day (certainly in sunny weather) and had no problems producing the images needed for Talbot's book. Sadly though, the series was not a success and in April 1846 Talbot had to abandon it after only six issues, despite a small review in The Times 'earnestly commend[ing] this work to notice of the public'. What remains of The Pencil of Nature, however, is a thing of exquisite beauty. The cover for each fascicle was an intricate image by Owen Jones, an influential designer whose interest in Arabic geometric designs was beautifully combined with neo-Gothic fonts and flourishes to create the distinctive look of the series. Overall it contained twenty-four Talbot calotypes, many of which now are iconic in the history of early photography. The few surviving copies of the entire series today are, of course, worth many thousands of pounds.

Throughout the Capuring the Light, I was struck many times with how insignificant certain "discoveries" or ideas were 170-180 years ago that today we can look back upon and know that those discoveries set us up for where we currently are. Many were brushed under the rug at the time. But I suppose you know what they say about hindsight...

Here's my modern edition of The Pencil of Nature that I just had to purchase:

Overdue Photobooks

I checked out a few photo-related books earlier this year: 2 from my local public library in January, and 1 through inter-library loan at Hamline University in February. Well, then COVID-19 hit, and everything shut down. Just earlier this month (AUGUST!), I got notice that they were all finally due:

My 2 public library books.


The rare Daguerre book via inter-library loan.

They've all been returned, so all is right with the world again.

Here's more on one of those books from my first "monthly challenge" of the year.

Photography: "an invention of the Devil"

Here's another quote that I enjoyed from L. J. M. Daguerre: The Worlds First Photographer and Inventor of the Daguerreotype:

Click to enlarge

Here's the intro to that book if you're interested.

Photographing the Dead

Here's a proposal in The Sacramento Bee from June 7, 1897:

Discovering Light Sensitivity

In some of my recent reading about the history of photography, I came across the mention of something that happened over 100 years before the invention of photography which helped pave the path for photography to come into existence. Here's the only version I could find online in the 1889 publication "The Photographic News: A Weekly Record of the Progress of Photography, Volume 33." It's a bit hard to read, but here it is:

"... possessed by the idea that he can fix the images of the camera."

I loved the opening to the Introduction of L. J. M. Daguerre: The Worlds First Photographer and Inventor of the Daguerreotype:

Click to enlarge

Monthly Challenge 1 of 12: a Book About the Invention of Photography

When my boys were on their Christmas break from school, we stopped by our local library. I perused the art/photography section for a bit as my boys looked for books for themselves. I happened to stumble across something interesting.

I spent January (off and on) reading Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry.

I’d read a chapter or 2 some evenings as my 3rd grader and I unwound for bed:

My wife posted this on Instagram with the caption "Bedtime reading x2."

And I did a bulk of reading (roughly the last 2/3s of the book) on a week-long vacation to Mexico last week:

Reading by the pool.


My wife caught this photo of my son and I reading before heading out to a nice lunch.


Reading in the lobby of our hotel (after enjoying a pina colada and Diet Coke).


Working on my syllabus and doing some reading in the hotel lobby, overlooking the Pacific and Ixtapa Island.

The two authors (Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport) had the credentials to tackle this topic. Watson is the curator of the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey (where Henry Fox Talbot worked through his experiments to help create his first photographic image), and is a lecturer for DeMontfort University in Leicester. And Dr. Rappaport is a New York Times bestselling author and historian specializing in the years 1837 - 1918, which is a fitting time period if one would like to discuss the genesis of photography.

They kept this from being simply a dry history book as they continually jumped the Channel to go from Talbot to Daguerre - England to France - as they at first independently worked through their own photographic processes. It was an easy and informative read with a lot about these mens' personal lives as well.

Henry Fox Talbot was an educated scholarly man. He kept rigid journals (well labeled, of course) of his experiments and interests of all sorts. He kept and documented his correspondences with friends and family. Although he seemed quite introverted, he was a member of Parliament for a stint, as that's what "people of his stature" were expected to do.

Louis Daguerre, on the other hand, was a moody artist. He worked in fits of (stereotypical artistic) passion, rarely taking notes of what he was doing. He was an outgoing, charismatic, flashy self-promoter. As I read Capturing the Light, I could see him in a top hat running a 3-ring circus. He seemed to have a large personality.

Seeing how these very 2 different men came together (unwillingly at times) to create some of the first photographic images the world had seen was quite entertaining and very insightful.

And I didn't know that Niepce was so close to this charge of inventing photography when he suddenly passed away. He and Daguerre had only recently started working hand-in-hand before Niepce's death, and Niepce had made great strides. (Daguerre did the right thing and vowed to uphold Niepce's name and gave Niepce's family a cut of his government pension from his "status" as the father of photography.)

Here's one of the entries that was shared in Capturing the Light from one of Talbot's notebooks:

Nitrate of Silver

Wash a sheet of paper with it. Place a leaf and fennel or other complicated form upon it. Press it down with a pane of glass - when blackened with the sunshine place it in something that will alter it's property of blackening - qu. Prussiate of potash? Sulp. Acid. Mur Soda. Carb. Soda.

Instead of the leaf try several bits of coloured glass - thus a silhouette might be taken, especially in a dark room.

The book continues about this entry, mentioning Talbot's exemplary record-keeping: "... we in fact know the exact date when the idea of photography first dawned on him. It was some time during the afternoon of Saturday 5 October 1833 at the Villa Melzi on the shores of Lake Como. That short, simple notebook entry of only seventy-seven words contains the germ of an idea that would be the basis of numerous experiments taken up by Talbot throughout 1834 which led him to the development of his own distinctive process of photogenic drawing."

Two chapters later when Watson and Rappaport described Talbot making his first photographic image - as he painted a salt solution onto paper and sensitized it repeatedly with a solution of silver nitrate and made his famous image of the latticed window - I *swear* I got goosebumps and then re-read those pages over again.

I know that I'll be referencing things I learned in this book in my classes, and I'll be sharing stories from this book. I also know that I'll be posting quotes and interesting quips from this book here on my blog for the next many months. And it's also inspired future reading: I have Talbot's The Pencil of Nature heading my way as I write this, Talbot's record of his correspondences are all online and I'd love to dig through those, I'm looking for for Speculating Daguerre which has become a collector's item, and I have a digital version of Opticks by Isaac Newton ready to read (well, that one will be a dry read, so I honestly only expect to skim it).

There was one small thing that I had a little problem with: Talbot seemed to often be painted as getting short-changed or slightly cheated especially later on throughout the timeline. It was hard to know how much of that notion was totally true, or if it was because one of the authors is the curator at the Talbot Museum and would have built a natural affinity towards Talbot. It sometimes felt that Watson was being too soft or overly-gentle towards Talbot's situation. But that might not be the case - maybe it was completely warranted and I'm just looking into it too far.

Anyway, it was a fantastically fun, educational, and historical read. And I'm glad I stumbled across it at my local library.

That's my entry for January's "monthly challenge" - click here to read my 2020 monthly challenge thoughts.

Photos from CVA's History

CVA Legacy had a great slideshow of images from throughout the history of the College of Visual Arts that they had looping at the CVA Reunion back in July. (Click that last link for lots of photos from that reunion.) I went through the slideshow and narrowed NEARLY 600 PHOTOS down to less than 200. It’s still a lot, so get ready to scroll. I’ve been working on this post for the last few months. (Some of these are photos I made while doing some “student life documentation” for the admissions office.) Here's some I'd love to share, in no particular order:

Some sort of orientation project.


Fresh faces.


The big 3D plastic thing that CVA did for a few years at orientation.


Lynda in the foreground.




I can't tell who's on the left, but then it's Rachel, Rosie, Anne, and Carmen.


One of me teaching in 302! (I think that's Alaina and Alexandria in the foreground.)


Meeting with Anne White in the back of Ninas.


Shark and Chloe down in the printmaking classroom.


Print exchange / holiday potluck?




Prize drawing winners.


John Marshall (head of photography) talking with freshmen. (And look... a Munsell color book!)






A pic of Aaron Dysart from around my days at CVA.


After some student event (in the Photo Studio).


Some (quality) student reps for admissions.










Above the entrance to the CVA rooms in Blair.


The student lounge area transformed into a mini gallery.






Printmaking classroom before my time (is that Jeremy Szopinski in the front left?).


Prepping for the senior show in the gallery.


Figure drawing critique.


Dufresne!


Heads of departments from around 2011/2012 I’d guess
(based on Jessica being there for fashion, but John still being there for photo).








Party in the side yard.




Adorable.




I may have taken this photo. Joe A and Paul B in the Grotto building.


Another one that could be mine: Joe, Graham, and Nick.


Some old Macs! Look: Zip drives!


No one knew it at the time, but this would be the last round of foundation students the school would ever see.




Neil T, Val F, Jeremy S, Shannon B, a guy I don't know, Heidi P, and Jada.


New York trip?


A late 90s/early 2000s trip with Karen W and Julie.


Some students at the University Club.


Valentine’s card making in the printmaking classroom.




My pic: the “40’s Ball.”




The CVA Triathlon Club! We all did the Chicago Lakes Triathlon in 2009!


Midway Bowl! Now leveled for the soccer stadium.








This was some visual pun about “being exposed to art.” That’s Nancy D by the CVA sign.


Photographer friends just a year or 2 ahead of me.




Jake, Tyler, and Brie at Halloween.








Congresswoman Betty McCollum talking at CVA.


2011-ish?


My graduating class in 03 (that’s me giving a thumbs up in the middle). RIP Meat and Aaron.


2009?


Again 2009?


Room 101 many years ago.




Thought this was 101 at first, but it’s a different fireplace. I think it’s computer lab 302.


Computer lab 301 back when it was a drawing studio.




That same room from 3 pics above.


Yeah, I think this is 302 before computers went in there. That’s Barb S’s computer office to the back.

UPDATE: (11/12/18, 7 pm) I posted a link to this on Facebook last week, and long-time CVA printmaking professor Maria Santiago left some insightful comments on some of those spaces above that I thought were 302 but may have been at the back of the 2nd floor before some walls were up. Here's part of the new info:

Colleen was the gallery director who I worked for as a freshman at CVA.






School founder Lowell Bobleter in the back yard.


Before the “College of Visual Arts” it was the “College of Associate Arts.”


Old view of the lobby.








The “crappy” little computer lab (304?) when it was a small gallery-like space.


Room 102 (always my favorite room) with drawing/drafting tables.


The printmaking classroom when it looked like a semi-gross bingo hall.


Summit 3rd floor before adding a wall to make lab 301. Here,
it would be open to the “common area” by the stairs.


The sculpture studio (garage) being used for some 3D/clay work.




An old darkroom before my time. Maybe where the old color lab
was in Summit? (The letterpress room when CVA closed?)


My fav 102. Open to what I’ve only known as being John Dufresne’s office in the back.

These next 11 photos are from Caroline Houdek-Solomon as she documented the last days of CVA:

Setting out computer paraphernalia in 302 in order to sell.


The tiny computer lab sans computers.
(Same view as the mini gallery shot about 10 photos above.)


The high bridge from Barb S’s computer office on the 3rd floor.


Lab 301.


102 with the partition down between 102 and 101. (Student mailboxes to the left.)


The vault hidden in the paneled walls of 102. The story was always that
this was for the fine silverware and china when Summit was a single family home.


A peek inside. Student records and other boring things.


The basement lounge.


The old darkroom sinks.


Nancy D in the background.


Someone tried to rip the shield off the wall.


Back to some old photos.


Matthew J being a sculpture studio tech.


Note the guy on the 2nd floor.






Some CVA posters. The left 2 were always my favorites!

Here are a few more from Caroline at the “CVA Wake” from early summer 2013 when CVA officially closed:

Someone stole the shield.




Kolean speaking at the wake.




A final goodbye from a lot of former students.




Back to some old photos again: another shot of CVA photographers from the late 90s.


Possibly a photo of mine: Belva and Osamu.


Also possibly mine: photo buddy Heidi on the right.
(Cole’s prints on skateboard’s in the background. I *think* those were Cole’s.)


Working on the light table outside of the darkroom when it was in the basement of Summit.




Another one that could be mine: buddy Andy T in our drawing II class.


Tom T was the president when I was a student. This could be my “new student orientation” in 99.


I don’t know this space. Possibly before the school moved to Summit.


Somewhere on the 3rd floor maybe? Before some walls were put up / moved?
Or the back of the 2nd floor before some walls were put up?


Lighting in the side yard.




“SAA” shield when it was School of Associated Arts. I didn’t know there was a
shield before the mosaic shield I knew about since the 90s!


School founder Bobleter with students on the front step.


Bobleter.


This has been SUPER overgrown since before I started at CVA, but “the back 40”
as we called it used to be a huge garden. That willow tree is still there, and
so are some of the foundations for these small garden buildings.


View of the old garden from outside of the sculpture studio.




In 102, looking through to 101 before there was a false wall built there.






The front classroom on the 2nd floor. Old car on Summit Ave out the window.






Sweet 7-Up bottle next to the stairs in Summit.




I LOVED those Beseler 23Cs!! They were fantastic enlargers, and easy to maintain / align.


Nancy D and Joe LaF on the front office.


President Tom Triplett (note Rolodex and Zip Disk).


Possibly a photo of mine: I remember those photos and those big orange things hanging in the stairway.


Again, possibly mine. From my days at CVA.


This photo reeks of the 90s.


I forget the guy’s name on the left, but he’s with Belva and Cadex.
Outside of the printmaking studio in the Summit basement.




When the front classroom (NE corner) was the photo studio / classroom.
Note the dry mount press in the background. (Loved that press.)


Another one that might be mine: from my color theory class. Dena, Christina, Eric, and Keith’s Dad.


Before Tom T, Chris Cabella was the CVA president (right).




The hair. The fingerless gloves. The bracelets. The large sweater. I love this.


The front/back of a CVA card. I had many of these over the years.
(Like “thank you” notes from my work study bosses or things like that.)


The Western building with the Library behind it.


In the Library. Mary Beth’s name on the right.


Dena and Erik (?) studying in Summit. Most likely my photo.


Not sure what this is for, as there’s an odd combo of CVA faculty and staff:
Val J, Carol Z, Pam V, Phil O, and president Ann L. (Possibly LMI back there too.)






Val and Phil, with 2 presidents in the middle: Ann Ledy and Joe Culligan.


Phil O, John D, John M, and Pam V in the big drawing classroom.




Western with the Blair Arcade and Nina’s in the background.




Western from the Library.


The ugly Grotto building (used 2001 through closing in 2013 for some drawing and 3D classes).




Photo critique with John M.




An odd self portrait that someone CVA had their hands on. It was a color temp test
for a weekend “documenting art” workshop I was teaching in the Western Building.


Aaron D doing totally safe and normal things on the table saw.


Figure drawing teacher Dan B on the far right.


The admissions crew (around 2003?). This is amazing. Possibly the best thing to come out of CVA.
THEE Lynn T, Adam S, Britt U, and Betsy C.


Out the back/side door from the basement.


New student orientation for my class! Brett E in red, and Brian L (best man in my wedding) with the goatee.


Joe LaF and Lynn T at orientation. Vanessa sitting on the steps.


Nick Z with some CVA posters.




One of the front offices before they were packed with cubicles.


More nudity in 301.


301.


Ema T in 301.


Matt V? I can’t tell. In the big Western drawing room.


Bobleter running an edition of one of his prints.






Cadex.


I think this was my 3D class. That’s Denise T on the right.


Looking down to the driveway outside of the sculpture studio. Beyond that is the overgrown “back 40.”


The 3rd small computer lab.


Caro L, one of my roommates for a year.


Matt in my drawing II class.


A classic shot of Summit (the Watson P. Davidson House).

Again, here are a few photos from the CVA Reunion back in July.

Long Live CVA.