Introduction to the History of Photography

William Henry Fox Talbot The Haystack  April 1844 salted paper print Printed by Nicolaas Henneman 19 x 22.9 cm; image: 16.4 x 21 cm Purchased 1975 National Gallery of Canada (no. 33487.31)  source: National Gallery of Canada plate from THE PENCIL OF NATURE , London, 1844 by Fox Talbot read it here: Project Gutenberg download it here

[Windmills, Montmartre], 1839 Hippolyte Bayard (French, 1801–1887) Direct positive print 3 3/8 x 3 15/16 in. (8.5 x 10 cm) Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005 (2005.100.32) source: Metmuseum  Hippolyte Bayard French, 1847 Salt print 6 1/2 x 4 13/16 in. source: Getty Hippolyte Bayard: Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man, 1840 (Direct Positive Print) 1840 Hippolyte Bayard ’s (20 January 1807 – 14 May 1887) role as a pioneer of photography, both as a photographer and as inventor, was overshadowed by Daguerre’ s support by the scientific establishment of his time and by the French government’s monetary rewards for his public disclosure of the Daguerreotype process.  Bayard’s commentary of “protest” on his situation as a “forgotten” photographer and pioneer of photography is expressed in one of his most famous and intriguing images the Self-portrait as a drowned man - drowned by indifference and neglect, as he writes to explain the p...

The notion of what we may call an “artless art” was applied at different times, and with different intentions, to photography and the Daguerreotype. The image produced “directly” by nature, bypassing the intervention of the hand of the artist, was the object of amazement at first, and praised for its astounding fidelity of detail: an “art form” therefore that “no painter could ever match”.  The popularization of the daguerreotype as the 19th century progressed, brought about by technical improvements allowing for the mass production of images and specially, for the first time, the mass production of portraits, produced also as a counter-current, a kind of  “over familiarity” with the daguerreotype portrait. And with it, a relative weariness about the repetitious, the unstudied, the narrowly documentary and "vulgar" or commonplace qualities (issues only partially explained by inherent  limitations of the Daguerreotype technique for portraiture, such as exposure time requi...

  Malcolm Daniels, Curator of the Dept of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, talks about the Daguerreotype process source: YouTube

Albert Fernique1841-1898 Album de la construction de la Statue de la Liberté. (published 1883, Paris) source: New York Public Library Digital Collection

Ambrotype photograph by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) from July 21, 1865 depicting Effie Gray Millais, John Everett Millais, and their daughters Effie and Mary at 7 Cromwell Place, signed by Effie Millais. "Alexandra 'Xie' Rhoda Kitchin (September 29, 1864-April 6, 1925) was the favourite photographic subject of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), who photographed her around fifty times, from age four until just before her sixteenth birthday. She was also a notable 'child-friend' of Dodgson. The works they made together, often in tableau form, are commonly known to collectors, curators, and the contemporary artists who are inspired by them as the 'Xie' (pronounced 'Ecksy' - a diminutive form of Alexandra) pictures. " source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kitchin Alice Liddell and her sisters, c.1859 Photo of Alice Liddell by Lewis Carroll. (1858) source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll#The_Photographer

André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (French, 1819–1889) Prince Lobkowitz , 1858 Albumen silver print from glass negative; 7 7/8 x 9 1/8 in. (20 x 23.2 cm) image source: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/infp/ho_1995.170.1.htm André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri The Organ Grinder c. 1853 , salt print 5 7/8 x 4 3/4 in. image source: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=69940&handle=li Multiple-shot camera invented by Desderi image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Appareil_disderi.gif link: Carte-de-visite photography by Robert Leggat

Pierre-Louis Pierson, Countess of Castiglione, c.1860 link: "La Divine Comtesse": Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione, Metropolitan Museum, NY

Re-enactment of the October 16, 1846 ether operation; daguerrotype by Southworth & Hawes. image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Southworth_%26_Hawes_-_First_etherized_operation_%28re-enactment%29.jpg

Newhaven fishwives by Hill & Adamson David Octavius Hill standing at the gate to his studio calotype by Hill & Adamson. source: http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/pp_d/pp_hill_calotypes_of_do_hill.htm David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) and Robert Adamson (1821–1848) Redding the Line (Portrait of James Linton), c. 1846 Scotish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh image source: http://www.kiberpipa.org/gallery/album82/David_Octavius_Hill_and_Robert_Adamson_Baiting_the_Line_1845.jpg David Octavius Hill (1802–1870) and Robert Adamson (1821–1848) "Photograph from the frontispiece of an album dated 1848, showing D O Hill sketching in Greyfriars Kirkyard, watched by the Misses Morris. Other tableaux in the same setting included The Artist and The Gravedigger" source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Octavius_Hill "Many of Hill's portraits were made in the Edinburgh Greyfriars cemetery - nothing is more characteristic of this early period than the way his subjects were at...

Julia Margaret Cameron My Favorite Picture of All My Works. My Niece Julia April 1867 http://www.masters-of-photography.com/C/cameron/cameron_niece_julia_full.html Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Jackson 1867 source: http://www.masters-of-photography.com/C/cameron/cameron_julia_jackson_full.htm l Julia Margaret Cameron Mrs. Herbert Duckworth April 1867 http://www.masters-of-photography.com/C/cameron/cameron_mrs_herbert_duckworth_full.html Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 – 1879) J.F.W. Herschel 1867 source: http://www.masters-of-photography.com/C/cameron/cameron_herschel_full.html Pomona 1872 The Rosebud Garden 1868 Pre-Raphaelite study 1870 Queen Esther before King Ahasuerus 1865 source: http://www.victoriaspast.com/JuiliaMCameron/juliacameron.htm Rossetti, Beata Beatrice, 1863, Tate Gallery Rossetti, Boca Bacciata , 1859 links: Rossetti Archives

Nadar - “ Panthéon Nadar “, lithography, 1853 source: http://home.tele2.fr/thdelamotte/photo_references/nadar/img/pantheon_nadar.jpg Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon , 1820 – 1910) - Self Portrait, 1855 source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nadar_selfportrait.jpg "NADAR élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l'Art" (NADAR elevating Photography to the high level of Art). Lithograph by Honore Daumier , Le Boulevard, 1862. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DR3248_13.jpg Baudelaire photographié par Nadar, 1854 source: Musée d'Orsay Nadar - Sarah Bernhardt 1859 source: http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/sp04/art105-8.html Nadar - George Sand c.1864 Nadar - Rossini 1856 Nadar - one of his first aerial photos of Paris, 1858 source: http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~jeff/115a/jack_slides/nadar1858firstaerialphotoofparis.jpg Nadar by Nadar 1858 source: Google-LIFE Nadar: The right to flight source: Gallica BNF A Nadar photo of Santos-Dumont in one of his (heavier-...