Photography is being elevated with each new step in innovation. Technology opens up doors for new opportunities. With new technology readily available, photography is able to be manipulated in order to attain its goal. With the addition of Photoshop there are positive benefits for the public as well as negative. Animation and other industries employing this program are able to create new worlds and exploit imagination in order to successfully edit and design unheard of subjects. However, this usage becoming more and more mainstream adds to the negative downside of this program for its unrealistic expectations. Individuals, both male and female, utilize photography now for a status symbol in order to attain instant gratification for their successes. The negative feedback Photoshop brings in terms of a before and after photo alters the individuals perception of themselves. They soon become obsessed with the idea of how they look, but how they look to the world. It’s a crazy phenomenon to experience, nonetheless to watch happen around you. I believe if Photoshop wasn’t advertised as much as it is with editing photos and blurring flaws, the world would allow itself to have more self-respect. The people who feel they aren’t worthy enough to expose their perfect imperfections can finally see the beauty they offer. Although this may be the dream, photography is a growing industry and editing photos is along for the line. I see more and more programs being readily accessible as technology improves for individuals at home to edit their photos and send them out to the world. In an environment currently occupied by the idea of unrealistic expectations we are in for a rude awakening. I saw we take a look back at photography’s earliest investors and learn a few things about the simplicity of capturing a moment.
Tag: Photography
Has Photoshop Gone too Far?
Altering bodies is becoming more and more prevalent within the fashion industry. Celebrities and models who are featured on magazine covers are beginning to lash out at such companies who they believe are editing their images. For example, the Huffington Post wrote about Kate Winslet and Brad Pitt, two of Hollywood’s well-known individuals, standing up against these types of edits. Kate Winslet stood against GQ Magazine for digitally altering parts of her body. These edits made her much more thin than she is. Brad Pitt stated that he asked for no retouching on his cover for W magazine and he even hand selected his photograph, Chuck Close. Chuck Close is a photographer that is well-known to expose skin flaws and not retouch his photos by any means. More and more people whether celebrities or models or not, are seeing the flaws in this program and are curious how this could affect the future off photography. If you only rely on a program to get the perfect shot, is there such thing as taking the photos any more. A photographer should aim for getting the right picture as she or he is taking it, not the other way around. Photography is a sacred art that is being interrupted by the potential of an outside helper, Photoshop. However, Photoshop can provide methods to be able to create magical wonderlands and aid industries that focus not on retouching photos and manipulating them, but on the creation of a new world. Only time will tell though how much the public will lean toward the creation of something versus the edit.
The Beginning of Photoshop
Photoshop was established in 1987. John and Thomas Knoll, the founders of this program, was working at the time with Industrial Magic and Light, the special effects branch for Lucasfilm. They derived this idea from Adobe Illustrator which was already established by Adobe. The Knoll brothers sold the program to Adobe and it blew up massively. Personal computers were running this program individually by the early 1990s. The software took off and photoshop became a more diverse industry allowing different fields to use it. For example these can include but aren’t limited to: publishing, medicine, film, web design, advertising, engineering, and architecture.
The Legendary George Eastman
If you don’t know who George Eastman is, well, he’s the Kodak founder. In 1888, Eastman derived the idea of the supple base where glass plates were replaced with celluloid rolls.
All these years there was something missing: color. All the developments of photography were in the mechanisms to take the actual photo. Eventually members of the photography community began to experiment with the concept of color. These first attempts were tried by Edmond Becquerel in 1848. Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor also joined the color game in 1851 and with his usage of the silver plate coated with the silver chloride solution used so heavily was able to reproduce colors to the image directly. However, this process was not very easy to control. Louis Ducos du Hauron in 1869 made the very first color photograph by using light decomposition in the primary colors (red, yellow and blue). He used this process three separate times and each with a different filter color. Eventually the positives that were developed Hauron dyed with the corresponding color of the filter.
In 1891 Gabriel Lippman discovered a way to obtain photos with colors one one singular plate. For this invention, Lippman was honored the Nobel prize in 1906. Also in 1906, the concept of mono plating colors was able to be done by any average Joe. The Lumière brothers added to this plating process, by having trichromatic synthesis. They accomplished this feat by having different microfilters with their primary colors.
Next, the chromogens. In 1911, R. Fisher developed the chromogens which gave color in photography a whole new level. In 1935 Agfacolor films utilized the trichromatic principle. They did these with three superimposed layers of blue, green, and red. These colors were layered with a sensitivity individual to each color invented. This is the premise behind why images then had color. Colors reproduction then caused improvements in lens to be made in order to transmit these colors in an efficient manner.
Finally in 1935, L. Mannes and L. Godowsky, made this process even better. Today’s color in film is exponentially more sophisticated based on the developments made by Agfacolor and Kodachrome.
The Perfect Combo of Maddox and Bennet
Richard Maddox, an Englishman, sought to join the industry of photography in 1871 after the usage of collodion became public. Instead of repeating past steps, Maddox developed a method that allowed gelatin to be used instead. This idea was developed by Maddox, but edited and finally sent off into the world by Charles Bennet. Bennet discovered that the plates covered in gelatin were able to reach a relatively high sensitivity at 32 degrees Celsius. These gelatin and bromide mixture plates were able to be stored until used and then their exposure time exceeded no more than a second. This discovery by Bennet allotted for devices to make their way into cameras that could take in light at a rate of 1/100th or 1/1000th of a second. In 1880, the high sensitivity of these plates made the notion to evaluate this intensity a new beginning for the field of photography.
No More Paper for You
Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor had enough with the idea that photographs needed to be developed with the aid of paper. Instead in 1847 he devised a method where glass could be used instead. The new solution of Silver Bromide as discovered by Hippolyte Fizeau would adhere to the glass. Then, this solution would be mixed with albumen, otherwise known as egg whites. The images were much sharper than earlier in time forcing the industry to then consider developing lenses with higher definition capabilities.
Another man by the named of Scott Archer made new develops in this field of developing with glass. Instead of the new albumen solution, Archer utilized collodion as a new solution. Collodion has is considered to be the base of gun-cotton. The black and white images that developed because of this gun-cotton base were very high quality. Such quality was unheard of. The collodion unfortunately needed to be “humid” while on the plate and the process of developing must begin right after the exposure to light began.
The Black Sheep of the Family
Hippolyte Fizeau was a French physicist who was expected to follow family footsteps as a right of passage. Unfortunately for his family, he went his own path when he witnessed Daguerre debut his prototype for the world. He even had a few comments of the device. Fizeau believed that the subject should not have to sit for 30 minutes awaiting an image if a portrait were to be taken. He wanted the subject to be able to have their photo taken and it be developed within the same span of time that it already takes just to take the photograph. Beginning in 1841, Fizeau developed a new technique for photos to be developed by replacing the solution of silver iodide with silver bromide. Now with this switch portraits were able to be created by the speed of light.
The Ode to Sir John Frederick William Herschel
Photographic fix-baths are a method in which the image created can be corrected with the usage of a chemical solution. This solution can attributed to Sir John Frederick William Herschel. A well-renowned British astronomer, Herschel already made a name for himself when he discovered the planet Uranus in 1792 in England. His movement into the world of photography was well after his astronomy career and his very short career in law. In 1839, after the creation of the daguerrotype Herschel devised a way o fix photographs that plagued so many of his colleagues before him. His method involved dipping the images that were messed up into a sodium hypo sulfite bath. This “bath” is still used today in photographic-fix baths. Herschel after his discovery began writing more and more about the art of photography and even gave photography its name. Photography is derived from Greek words meaning “light” and “writing.” He was so amazed by the processes of developing photos that he even began to experiment in machines that would be able to develop photos. For example, in September of 1839, Herschel experimented with printing photos on glass and he was successful with doing so. His methods and passion for the topic are largely argued to have inspired many other pioneers who set to follow and hopefully surpass his footsteps.
The Continuation of Silver Chloride
William Henry Fox Talbot began his pathway in photography in 1834. It wasn’t until 1839 when Jacques Mandé Daguerre created his daguerrotype that he began to take more of an interest in the subject. In 1841, Talbot contacted the patent office to have his prototype patented. He named it the calotype. The calotype was one of the first negative-process machines that permitted the copying of the same image multiple times. This was possible by having a translucid negative wax on the silver chloride paper. A second sheet of paper was then covered in the same silver chloride solution and when exposed to the translucid negative the final result was then developed.
The Introduction of Photos to Paper
Skip ahead to 1839 and a man named Hippolyte Bayard (1801-1887) was next in line to create a useful technique for the technology behind photographs. Another Frenchman, amongst the many before him, Bayard devised a way to have images be placed directly on piece of paper. His process was relatively simple, a sheet of paper would be covered in a solution of silver chloride where it then would be blackened by light. After this, the paper is exposed to the camera device where a solution of silver iodide sensitizes the image. This exposure lasts roughly between 30 minutes to 2 hours. His friend, Jacques Mandé Daguerre, who invented the daguerrotype is known to have convinced Bayard to not submit his findings of his new inventive process of handling images. In 1840 however, he argued his case and this surge of passion for photography an be regarded as one of the first political-esque protests regarding the subject.
The corpse which you see here is that of M. Bayard, inventor of the process that has just been shown to you. As far as I know this indefatigable experimenter has been occupied for about three years with his discovery. The Government, which has been only too generous to Monsieur Daguerre, has said it can do nothing for Monsieur Bayard, and the poor wretch has drowned himself. Oh the vagaries of human life…!
Hippolyte Bayard (http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1840/hippolyte-bayard-french-1801-1887/)
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