NICEPHORE NIEPCE - 1826
... in 1826, having experimented for years with photogravure etching and the heliograph process, niepce took the first photograph from the window of his estate, Le Gras ... using a pewter plate coated with bitumen of Judea, he made an eight-hour exposure of the view of the courtyard and distant countryside ... by any standard it is an unusual photograph, compressing almost a third of a day into a single image, to the point that the movement of the sun during the long exposure illuminated the walls of the buildings on both sides of the courtyard ...
LOUIS DAGUERRE - 1838
... after niepce's death, his partner, louis daguerre, continued experimenting with photography, eventually perfecting a true chemical process using silver iodide for image making, the daguerreotype ... here, in 1838, you see the first photographically recorded image of human beings ... since the exposure was over ten minutes, moving objects such as strolling people, horses, the like, did not register on the film ... in the lower left of the photograph, however, a man has stopped to have his shoes shined ... he can be seen with his foot propped up on the bootblack's box, and also visible is the silhouette* of the bootblack ...
*ironic, perhaps, how that process was made obsolete by photography
EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE - 1878
... in 1878, to scientifically prove the "unsupported transit" hypothesis of how a horse trotted and galloped, with high-speed sequential photography eadweard muybrige showed that the traditional artistic rendition of a the position of a horse's legs was incorrect ...
HAROLD EDGERTON - 1957
... at m.i.t. beginning in the 1930s, harold edgerton, partnered with gjon mili, perfected the photographic slicing of time into smaller and smaller pieces, illuminating a previously unknown universe ...
HAROLD EDGERTON - EARLY 1950s
... until, eventually, using cameras capable of isolating 1/10,000,000,000th of a second of existence, dr. edgerton was able to capture a nuclear explosion only 3/1,000th of a second old ... as dramatic as this seems, take my word that there are other pictures, photographs not available the the public, which in comparison cause even this to seem like a normal snapshot ...
... from its very beginnings photography has fascinated itself with an ability to "stop" time, to see into an existence not accessible to unaided human eyes ... but ...
... but, as intriguing as all this is, and, as well, as valid, the photographer should never forget that while the camera's shutter is superbly effective at almost instantaneously opening and closing, as in the time of niecpe and daugerre it is also equally capable of remaining open for periods of time long enough to capture more than just light ...
OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
OLYMPUS E-P1 PROJECT
"No photographer is as good as the simplest camera."
EDWARD STEICHEN