Early, Early Photograhy – Can’t Help But Be Creepy

“If This Is What It’s About, I Don’t Want It.”

Giphantie: Prediction of the Invention of PhotographyIn 1760, decades before the invention of photography, French author Charles-François Tiphaigne de la Roche predicted its invention.

In a story titled Giphantie (yes, an anagram of his name), Tiphaigne de la Roche wrote about a race of secret supermen in an imaginary wonderland who could fix a reflected image onto a canvas coated with a sticky substance!

World’s First Photograph

The grainy picture above is the world’s first photograph called “View from the Window at Le Gras” (circa 1826), taken and developed by French photographer pioneer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. He called this process “heliography” or sun drawing – it certainly was a long process: the exposure time was about 8 hours.

Link | Nicéphore Niépce [wiki] | Niepce

World’s First Daguerreotype Although daguerreotype [wiki] was not the first photographic process to be invented, it was the first commercially viable process (earlier techniques required hours and hours of successful exposure and therefore weren’t suitable for taking people’s photos). This technique was developed by French chemist Louis Daguerre [wiki], with collaboration with Niépce (see above). The daguerreotype above, titled “L’Atelier de l’artiste” was probably the world’s first daguerreotype, made in 1837. In 1839, the French government acquired Daguerre’s French patent and announced his invention “a gift free to the world” – but simultaneously, Daguerre had acquired patents abroad, where he stringently controlled the use of daguerreotype. And just like with any technology, the first adopters turned out to be erotic photography [wiki, nsfw - obviously]. Posing for a daguerreotype wasn’t trivial: because the exposure time is about 15 minutes, the subject’s head had to be held still with a clamp!

World’s First Human PortraitIn 1839, Robert Cornelius, a Dutch chemist who immigrated to Philadelphia, took a daguerreotype portrait of himself outside of his family’s store and made history: he made the world’s first human photograph! Robert Cornelius [wiki]

You’re looking at Dorothy Catherine Draper, sister of NYU professor John Draper and model for the first daguerreotype portrait of a woman in the United States in 1839. She was the first woman to be photographed with her eyes open!

World’s First Photomontage

In 1858, Henry Peach Robinson [wiki] made the world’s first photomontage by combining multiple negatives to form a single image.

Robinson’s first and most famous composite photo, called “Fading Away”, was a composition of five negatives. It depicted a girl dying of consumption (or tuberculosis), and quite controversial as some objected to the morbid subject of the photo.

World’s Oldest Surviving Aerial Photo The first aerial photo was taken by Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, better known as Nadar [wiki], in 1858, using a tethered balloon over the Bievre Valley, France. Unfortunately, Nadar’s aerial photos were lost – so the oldest surviving aerial photo, shown here, was that of Boston in 1860, taken by James Wallace Black [wiki], also using a balloon.

Carte-de-visite

In the late-1850s in Europe, Andre Disdéri popularized photos-as-calling-cards called carte-de-visite.

Carte-de-visite became popular and Disdéri became famous when French ruler Emperor Napoleon III en route to Italy with his army, stopped by his studio to pose for a photograph! (Never mind that the story might be apocryphal, it was still a good story!)

Because it is cheap to produce, carte-de-visite was mass produced for the public and became a huge fad in the Victorian era.

This carte-de-visite is of an interesting character called Eugen Sandow, dubbed the first modern bodybuilder who gained fame in late 1800s.

Do All of a Galloping Horse’s Hooves Leave the Ground?

In 1872, Eadweard Muybridge, a British-born photographer, was hired by Leland Stanford (who later founded the university), to settle a question (some people say a $25,000 bet) whether there was a point in a horse’s full gallop where all four hooves were off the ground.

Muybridge arranged 12 cameras alongside a race track and attached a string to the camera switches across the track. When the horse ran through the string, it triggered the shot. The series of photographs showed that indeed, all four hooves leave the ground when the horse is in full gallop.

Muybridge went on to develop systems and techniques to photograph motion of people and animal.

Eadweard Muybridge [wiki]

World’s First Color Photograph

The oldest known color photograph was taken by Louis Ducos du Hauron in 1872. The photo is of a view of Angouleme in Southern France.

World’s First Underwater PhotoThe first underwater camera system was developed by French scientist Louis Boutan in 1893. The image on the left was the world’s first underwater photography – the model was so excited that he held the identification plate upside down! Link | Another Link

Mammoth Camera In 1900, George R. Lawrence built this mammoth 900 lb. camera, then the world’s largest, for $5,000 (enough to purchase a large house at that time!) It took 15 men to move and operate the gigantic camera. The photographer was commissioned by the Chicago & Alton Railway to make the largest photograph (the plate was 8 x 4.5 ft in size!) of its train for the company’s pamphlet “The Largest Photograph in the World of the Handsomest Train in the World.” Link

World’s Most Expensive Photo You’re looking at Edward Steichen’s photo of a pond in Long Island, New York, in 1904. Don’t laugh: this rare print has set the world record for most expensive photograph, sold for $2.9 million in February 2006! BBC Article | Edward Steichen [wiki]

Thousands Posed for Mole and Thomas’ War Photos

In 1918, photographers Arthur S. Mole and John D. Thomas took a photograph of 30,000 military officers and men at Camp Custer, Michigan. A special 70-foot tower was built for this purpose.

Mole and Thomas actually specialized in taking these types of photographs – they took a total of 10 photos where thousands of soldiers were posed to form giant, living, symbols of the USA, including a portrait of Woodrow Wilson, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, the Marine Corps emblem, and more.

Link

Found On Neatorama