The Discovery of Photography

[MattKing]

Didn't it emulate painting before it emulated photography?

It probably emulated video at the beginning.
Think of the work that Sirius did with the space effort.

 

[removed account4]

Didn't it emulate painting before it emulated photography?

what are you referring to.. digital image making or chemical photography ?
everything emulated painting first and still does. except for cameraless technique like photograms and photogenic drawing photography is still connected at the hip with painting and always will be. it has drawn its cues from portrait and landscape work since 1839, the only thing the digital realm has done is democratized the whole operation like the brownie camera did in the 1880s. the more things change the more they remain the same.
regarding "video". that has done the same thing. moving pictures are just still images shown in sequence. if you go back and watch the film Hugo you will see nothing has changed in 100 years.
the only things that are purely photographic are certain types of cameraless images, but one might also say they derive inspiration from paint too..

 

[ChristopherCoy]

what are you referring to.. digital image making or chemical photography ?

Digital painting (i.e. Corel etc.) came before the digital camera.

 

[removed account4]

Digital painting (i.e. Corel etc.) came before the digital camera.

maybe for practical purposes it wasn't invented until the 80s (classmate was using photoshop to digitally edit his film photographs in 1988 )
but Kodak invented the digital camera in the 1970s. ... https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/kodaks-first-digital-moment/#
and it seems Xerox / Haloid invented electrostatic photography in the 50s https://www.tomrcarpenter.com/pro
I think these conversations are interesting because most people have no idea that digital photography pulls on several different strings of the photography patchwork quilt, and it makes me wonder at least what photography actually is ...

 

[Alan Johnson]

Imaging developed via the pottery industry in 1802:
Thomas Wedgwood and the invention of photography in a historical context* (hatiandskoll.com)
It's hard to imagine digital photography -1975- originating anytime close to this, the electron was not discovered till late 1890s.

 

[cliveh]

Imaging developed via the pottery industry in 1802:
Thomas Wedgwood and the invention of photography in a historical context* (hatiandskoll.com)
It's hard to imagine digital photography -1975- originating anytime close to this, the electron was not discovered till late 1890s.

I'm not suggesting digital imaging should originate before 1975, but that chemical photography (in imagination) not evolving until after digital. To give a topical analogy, real news evolving after fake news, as opposed to the other way round.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

Non-digital and digital photography are both fake news. Nice try.

https://media2.giphy.com/media/RkzMtKbCKFUY3wYRMy/giphy.gif

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I understand the fundamental extra layer of abstraction/“interpretation” involved in digital image recording (there was a long discussion about this some years ago on this forum), but from a practical perspective it’s all fake, edited etc. etc.

Well yeah.. I mean, the editing commences before the shutter is ever activated.

 

[cliveh]

I don't think you guys understand my original post. It is not about digital v analogue.

 

[AgX]

What I do not understand is why this thread is about a dicscovery, though it should be about an invention.
What is hidden in this approach ?

 

[cliveh]

What I do not understand is why this thread is about a dicscovery, though it should be about an invention.
What is hidden in this approach ?

I think photography is very much about discovery rather than invention. Discovery by experimentation is discovery.

 

[KenS]

Methinks we might be still using a hand-held stick to leave 'indentions' in a damp 'slab' of clay or.. a 'pointy rock' to carve into a 'softer' rock face

Grumpy

 

[markjwyatt]

I think photography is very much about discovery rather than invention. Discovery by experimentation is discovery.

I would propose that invention is applying a discovery or series of discoveries in a unique and practical way.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Digital photography is dead!

 

[cliveh]

I give up, Mods please delete this thread.

 

[markjwyatt]

I give up, Mods please delete this thread.

Are you sirius?

 

[Sirius Glass]

I give up, Mods please delete this thread.

I will stand up and cheer for that. This has been a cluster f* from the start.

 

[markjwyatt]

naaah. the question is like could Tesla have built their sedan if Porsche hadn't built the targa ...

Some of the very early cars were electric. I doubt the Targa depended on that...

 

[BradS]

Physics? Baloney! Its all computers and software these days.

 

[KenS]

Is it not more feasible for photographic discovery to emerge from one area of science rather than a combination? Film photography is a marriage of chemistry and physics, but digital photography is a product of physics. If photography had not been discovered in the 19th century and the first type of photography was digital at a later date, when technology allowed. Then what if? At a later date, a version of photography employing both physics and chemistry was discovered? Would it have more or less relevance? I ask the question as technological advancement may not always be chronological in order and would be interested on the thoughts of others about this question.

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind or.. should you like to know the 'truth' seek out a copy of THIS book

by Naomi Rosenblum Abbeville Press
ISBN # 0-89659-438-6

(Almost 600 pages to find that which you may want/need to know)

Ken

 

[Vaughn]

KenS -- that is just some ideas about what happened, cliveh wants (wanted) to discuss a 'what if' scenerio...a rewriting of photo history. Speculative fiction, so to speak.

To which my answer would be that artists will use any media available for expression, so wet photographic processes would have been developed primarily as an art form, with digital imaging (I doubt the word 'photography' would have been used) being the main 'photographic' imaging method. Wet-process photographers would still be the weirdos.

But digital imaging would have been totally different without the camera/film heritage of PhotoShop, etc. From the onset, it probably would have been used by a much broader artistic community. With no camera/film photography, painting would not have 'died' and painting would have had a much stronger influence of the development and advancement of digital imaging.

My question -- what would the cameras look like in this scenerio without the early design needs of photographic equipment?

 

[cliveh]

KenS -- that is just some ideas about what happened, cliveh wants (wanted) to discuss a 'what if' scenerio...a rewriting of photo history. Speculative fiction, so to speak.

To which my answer would be that artists will use any media available for expression, so wet photographic processes would have been developed primarily as an art form, with digital imaging (I doubt the word 'photography' would have been used) being the main 'photographic' imaging method. Wet-process photographers would still be the weirdos.

But digital imaging would have been totally different without the camera/film heritage of PhotoShop, etc. From the onset, it probably would have been used by a much broader artistic community. With no camera/film photography, painting would not have 'died' and painting would have had a much stronger influence of the development and advancement of digital imaging.

My question -- what would the cameras look like in this scenerio without the early design needs of photographic equipment?

At last an intelligent reply.

 

[Vaughn]

The "Was photography invented or discovered?" is an interesting question...not quite the scope of this thread. Certain properties of chemical reactions were observed (discovered?) and further explored in the hopes of using these discoveries to invent a way to permanently record light. Patents, fame, and hopefully fortune, were the inspirations of the gentlemen scientists/inventors of the early 1800s of Europe. Photography had no hope but to be invented...and its importance and pleasures discovered.

 

[markjwyatt]

The "Was photography invented or discovered?" is an interesting question...not quite the scope of this thread. Certain properties of chemical reactions were observed (discovered?) and further explored in the hopes of using these discoveries to invent a way to permanently record light. Patents, fame, and hopefully fortune, were the inspirations of the gentlemen scientists/inventors of the early 1800s of Europe. Photography had no hope but to be invented...and its importance and pleasures discovered.

A standard western view would be that the laws of nature exist, and all inventions, etc. are inherent in those laws (because no one successfully invents anything that do not comply with those laws). Then again, someone has to use creative human processes to come up with ways to exploit these laws, and we call that invention. So at one level photography was the discovery of various laws, coupling them in a practical way to achieve some goal (or goals), and that process we call invention. I am not sure you can separate discovery and invention.

 

[cliveh]

I would suggest that photography was very much a discovery through experimentation, rather than an invention.