FOUR PHOTOGRAPHY FACTS YOU DIDN'T KNOW

Photography is the technology of creating images on a light sensitive medium by way of recording an electromagnetic radiation.Over the ages, photography has become a form of art, and people used it for different purposes, including manufacturing, science, business, recreation, mass communication and hobby. The science of photography has a history of its own.

In as much as we love taking photos, Let's have a look at seven facts about the history of photography that you must know:

Photo credits elijah Karungu 

1.The first selfie ever

Selfies are all the craze these days they dominate the today's Internet. People wink, pout, and give different expression in the camera to click their own pictures. But do you know who clicked the world's first selfie? It was Robert Cornelius: He was a chemist and a photography enthusiast from Philadelphia, USA. He had set up his camera in the back part of his family store. He removed the lens cap and ran into the frame to capture his own photograph. The image capturing process took around one minute, after which he went back to cover the lens. On the photograph's back side, he wrote 'first light picture ever taken'. Clicked in 1839, this first ever selfie is over 175 years old.

Photo credits elijah karungu

2.The first colored photo
No one wants a black and white photo anymore let's find out the first colored photograph when was it taken. 
The first ever colored photograph was taken in 1861 by a popular physicist from Scotland, named James Clerk Maxwell. He was already famous for his contributions in electromagnetism, and he used this photograph in one of his lectures. It was a set of 3 black and white photographs captured through red, green and blue color filters. Because it was quite imperfect and unimpressive, it soon was forgotten. Later, Charles Cros and Louis Ducos du Hauron made viewing of photographs possible without projecting them. They even used this method to create full color paper prints.

credit elijah karungu

3. The oldest still existing photograph

Its well known as a throw back we all love throw backs but have you considered how and when was the first TBT TAKEN and how it looks like. The oldest photograph that still exists, was created in 1826-27 by Joseph Niepce. He used a polished pewter sheet, which he rendered light sensitive by applying a thin coat of bitumen. This is a naturally produced petroleum tar, which he dissolved in lavender oil, applied on the pewter surface and left it to dry. After exposure in the camera for around 8 hours, the bitumen got hardened. As the unhardened portions were not removed using a solvent, a positive image was left. To actually see the plain image, one had to lit the plate and view it in such a manner that the bitumen looked light and metal looked dark. Later, he refined this process, after which the image viewing became easier and the exposure times were significantly reduced.

Taken 1826

 4.Introduction of photography as an art form

It was Alfred Steiglitz who introduced photography to the masses as an art form. He was an American modern art promoter and photographer who ran an art movement and made photography a part of people's everyday life. He had a passion for photography and owned a number of art galleries in New York, with an aim to introduce European artists to the public. He recognized photographers as artists, and started Photo-Secession.

Its of great importance to recognize this facts as they have made photography what it is today. 

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

         THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

         For the many photography is just a word that describes the art of taking photos, i cannot lie most people do not understand how far and what just photography means. In this case am going to take you through a brife story of photography.

                                              HISTORY

The history of photography has roots in remote antiquity with the discovery of two critical principles, that of the camera obscura image projection and the fact that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light, as discovered by observation. Apart from a very uncertain process used on the Turin Shroud there are no artifacts or descriptions that indicate that anyone even imagined capturing images with light sensitive materials before the 18th century. Around 1717 Johann Heinrich Schulze captured cut-out letters on a bottle of a light-sensitive slurry, but he apparently never thought of making the results durable.

Around 1800 Thomas Wedgwood made the first reliably documented, although unsuccessful attempt at capturing camera images in permanent form. His experiments did produce detailed photograms, but Wedgwood and his associate Humphry Davy found no way to fix these images.

photography and photos.

In the mid-1820s, Nicéphore Niépce first managed to fix an image that was captured with a camera, but at least eight hours or even several days of exposure in the camera were required and the earliest results were very crude. Niépce's associate Louis Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced and commercially viable photographic process.

 In the mid-1820s, Nicéphore Niépce first managed to fix an image that was captured with a camera, but at least eight hours or even several days of exposure in the camera were required and the earliest results were very crude. Niépce's associate Louis Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced and commercially viable photographic process.The daguerreotype required only minutes of exposure in the camera, and produced clear, finely detailed results.The details were introduced as a gift to the world in 1839, a date generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.

The metal-based daguerreotype process soon had some competition from the paper-based calotype negative and salt print processes invented by William Henry Fox Talbot. Subsequent innovations made photography easier and more versatile. New materials reduced the required camera exposure time from minutes to seconds, and eventually to a small fraction of a second; new photographic media were more economical, sensitive or convenient, including roll films for casual use by amateurs. In the mid-20th century, developments made it possible for amateurs to take pictures in natural color as well as in black and white.

 The commercial introduction of computer-based electronic digital cameras in the 1990s soon revolutionized photography. During the first decade of the 21st century, traditional film-based photochemical methods were increasingly marginalized as the practical advantages of the new technology became widely appreciated and the image quality of moderately priced digital cameras was continually improved. Especially since cameras became a standard feature on smartphones, taking pictures (and instantly publishing them online) has become an ubiquitous everyday practice around the world.

Photo credits Ricky Nderitu.

 Am hoping that you have understood that photography was one of the most important inventions of the 20th centuary, photos in the present days have come with a big heat making the world a better place to be they keep memories that one cannot afford to lose.

 Next we will be lookig at The Past and Present of Photography Technology.