A History of Photography

A History of Photography: The whole technicality of photography can be broken down into two very simple ideas. One: To capture the light coming from any scene and reflect it on a screen. Two: To capture that reflected scene permanently through a medium.

The first thing to do is to reflect on the screen a long time ago. If a dark square box has a hole equal to the needle’s tip in the front floor and a white screen is placed on the opposite side of the box, that screen captures the front view in reverse. If a glass lens could be placed in the place of the hole, then this picture would be clearer, people knew about it around 1400. But until then. It took more than 400 years to discover the technology to capture this image permanently.

It was discovered in the early 1800’s that when a plate was coated with a ‘light-sensitive’ chemical and reflected there, the different parts of the plate reacted differently depending on the intensity of the light. As a result, the image appeared on the plate. The problem is elsewhere this picture could not be made permanent. Finally, in the early 1800’s, a joint effort by Louis Daguerre and Joseph Niepce created the Daguerreotype process, in which the coating of a light-sensitive compound called silver halide was used as a means of capturing images. However, if I had a hobby of taking pictures, I would have sat in front of the camera for fifteen minutes without shaking my head!

See picture number three. This is also a street photo of Paris taken by Louis Doug. It took approximately ten to twelve minutes for the light to enter the camera to take this picture; As I said before, it took a long time to capture a picture in Dagerotype, because the medium could not be made very light-sensitive even then. The funny thing is, the presence of two people in the picture (notice) Exposing a picture for such a long time usually doesn’t catch anything moving in the picture (a lecture on exposure is coming up), but one of the two was a shoe polisher and the other a customer.  A History of Photography: That’s why they were fairly stable in one place.

Anyway. These basic processes came under control. Then began the development of technology. The daguerreotype was a positive process, meaning that the original image would go straight to the screen, although the exposure time was much longer. As it turned out, the reverse image (i.e. negative) of the image was caught on the screen very quickly. Knowing this, the exposure time decreased a lot, no one had to sit in front of the camera for hours to take a picture. In the late 1800’s, George Eastman invented a kind of film that could be rolled up and rolled into the camera. Diameter! This time the camera has become a matter of human reach, portable. The world-famous ‘Eastman Kodak’ is his company.
Over time, there have been many modifications to the camera and film… small cameras, high-speed cameras, more or less light-sensitive films, and so on. But the basic process is the same. And then? The world has gone digital. I will tell you later how digital cameras work. I am concluding this part of the lecture with the pictures of the first digital camera.

Film process:

Though let’s discuss in detail. Later I found out that I don’t understand much myself, and since I won’t talk much about film photography, as I said before, so why bother and tell me why I will take this risk! In short, let’s talk about the black and white film process:

1. The film is coated with a chemical compound called ‘Silver Halide’.

2. When the light of a scene is focused on this film, the light sensor breaks down through this silver halide reaction and turns into silver. Where there is not much light in the scene, the level of reaction is also very low. And the dark parts do not react, the silver halide remains intact. After the film is taken, the film is called ‘exposed film’.

3. Another chemical solution is used during the development of this ‘exposed’ film, which removes the unaltered silver halide from the film and leaves only the silver. So at the last stage, we get a film where different amounts of silver are deposited based on the intensity of light. The brightly lit parts in the negative will be darkened due to a lot of silver deposits. Now you have to put light through this negative image on the light-sensitive ‘photo paper’. The actual picture will appear on the paper based on the intensity of the light.

Digital process:

The main difference is very simple. While film cameras capture images as the ‘end product’ of chemical reactions, digital cameras capture images as ‘binary data’. That means digital cameras include a small computer that records the intensity of light entering through a lens as a series of binary numbers. So instead of film, digital cameras have an electronic sensor. These sensors are equipped with thousands of tiny ‘cells’ that convert the intensity of light into electronic charge. Since a scene has a different intensity of light, each cell of the sensor will ‘receive’ light of different intensity and as a result, a different amount of charge will be generated in each cell. The ‘Final image’ is created by recording and processing the intensity level of this charge from all the cells. There are basically two types of sensors; CCD and CMOS. The main function of both is the same, but due to the differences in the manufacturing process, CCD gives a much better image quality, but the energy consumption is much higher than that of C-Moss. For this reason, C-MOS sensors are now used in most digital cameras, although CCD sensors are important in astronomy or other research.

The whole thing is more complicated; For example, a ‘bare filter’ is placed on the sensor to capture the color information of different parts of the image. I did not discuss this matter to avoid complications.

Digital cameras are now the mainstay of photography, although many still experiment with film as a hobby. Digital cameras, like any new technology, have not been very enthusiastically accepted by experienced photographers, many have criticized. A History of Photography: But this is like seeing the excellence of technology in one case. In just a few years, the picture quality of these cameras has surpassed that of film. Now almost all new and old photographers take pictures digitally. And why not? As you can see from the picture, it is being deleted if not as expected. The scope of the experiment is endless! In the beginning, the digital image ‘megapixels’ (to be discussed later) were not very large, so it was not possible to print very largely. Now that megapixels and sensor sizes have increased, the technology to enlarge images has also improved. A 30 ft x 30 ft billboard and 8 to 10-megapixel pictures can be painted very well. One by one, companies are stopping making films because of the ongoing digital aggression. Canon, Nikon and other companies are no longer making film cameras. So the world of the present and the future is ready for digital photography, it can be said emphatically.
Photography as a means of expressing creativity:“Dude, there’s no shortage of guitarists. He learns the guitar for two months, then plays the catching ghating, I know, and sings in the tuneless voice. ”“Dude, I see the camera in everyone’s hands. You don’t think so with the camera. I bought one, I will take pictures too. ”“Monir, the craze of the camera is gone. Now everyone wants to buy a bicycle. This is the new fashion. ”Yes. These words are heard from different people at different times. I think you have heard similar comments. But look, there are so many guitarists around, how many can still cry on a guitar like Ayub Bachchu? Once I was watching his guitar work in a concert, I didn’t even try to guess how. Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl is just a picture, yet how does that picture stir the whole world? Or take a picture of the Vietnam War taken by Nick VIII, where a young girl was running for her life in fear of a bomb. The film has been instrumental in shaping public opinion against the Vietnam War.
In my opinion, creativity is the thing that sets us apart from all other animals. And art is a global language that transcends the barriers of all conventional languages ​​(what we call language barriers) to convey a truth, or a message, to all people, regardless of race or country. All people have more or less the practice of creativity; Everyone wants to have a touch of individuality in his work. At one point people realize that the geography barrier cannot be crossed with just the language of the mouth.

I think I know why, the beginning of photography or guitar is relatively easy. The beginning of the painting seems very difficult to me, but many may disagree. It is difficult to excel in these mediums because the beginning is easy. A small part of the whole process of photography is pressing on the camera shutter. The most important part of this process is the photographer’s vision… it’s a combination of your imagination, keenness to find content, and the ability to click at the right moment. And these things can’t be mastered easily, or very quickly if you want to. “Your first 10,000 pictures are the worst you have ever taken,” said Henry Cartier’s Bresson. It can be multiplied by tens of thousands in this digital age, what do you say? Or multiply by one hundred?

So the point is, like all other art forms, photography is a pursuit. It takes time, labour and love. The practice of finding an interesting subject with the eyes is more important than hanging a camera around the neck to acquire the skill of extracting extraordinary frames from a common subject. Once this is mastered, the technical aspects of the camera will be in your hands. If, after understanding all the controls of the camera, you are not able to bring the useful thing to your eyes, then the pictures will be snapshots, without touching your mind.

I don’t know how the words in this section became incoherent. Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person.

Photography Classification (Genre)

This classification is a big confusion for me. Although it seems most helpless to remember the nuances of microbiology, it is very easy to classify photographs! The hierarchy of photography can be viewed from two different perspectives. One is the classification of ‘photographs’. Another is the difference between ‘photographer’ and ‘professional’. Many people confuse these two, so I set them apart.

Types of photographs: Suppose-

* Landscape: Usually a picture of nature, much larger spread. In the picture, the basic elements of nature such as sky, water, sea these things prevail over the animals. Again, many make ‘Urban Landscape’, where the inert elements of the city can also come into the picture.

 Portrait: The main subject of the picture is the man, the human face. Usually, a picture of the face of one or more people, which highlights a particular aspect of their personality.
* Macro: A very close-up detail image. The subject of a macro image can be many things .. from insects to a close-up of a part of an inanimate object. Macros require lenses that can focus very close to take pictures.
* Action: A film that shows a very fast subject. It could be a speeding car or a moment of competition, and so on.
* Still Life: A picture of an inanimate object that creates an atmosphere due to the craftsmanship of light and shadow.
From a professional point of view, there are many types of photography. Fashion, Events, Architectural, Wedding, Sports, Wildlife, Lifestyle… etc. Also popular is street photography, where photographers try to capture candid moments while walking down the street. But one thing to keep in mind. No matter what kind of professional photographer they are, the pictures they take can be anything from landscapes to macros. Just like a sports photographer takes action pictures, he also takes portraits of a player.
Photography in Journalism: (Photojournalism) A history of photography there is no way to deny the importance of photography in the media, especially the print media. For some strange reason, people love to see pictures. As much as a story written across column after column makes an appeal to people, it is far more eye-catching than a small picture.In my opinion, there are two types of photography required in journalism. One is when the picture conveys news more clearly to the reader. And another is when the picture itself tells the story. You will often see in the newspaper that news is given across a short line with a picture. Take the picture below. Isn’t that weird? The appeal of this photo is extremely intense; Maybe a small caption is needed for those who don’t know about the event, otherwise, the caption is not needed either.
There is a fundamental difference between a photojournalist and any other professional photographer. A history of photography we all know that photography is basically an expression of the photographer’s own point of view. All photographers have the freedom to present their “final output” by modifying their own photographs as necessary (or at will). But photojournalists do not have this freedom. The professional responsibility of a photojournalist is to present the actual event in an unaltered state of the picture, no part of the image can be deleted in any way or anything can be added to it after taking the picture. You are a hobby photographer, you put two birds in the sky, that’s your right. But if there are no birds in the sky of the photojournalist, that is the truth, that is what must be shown. I would like to discuss the ethics of photography in a later lecture.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here