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What is Photography? Here is a little concept and history.

Are you interested in the art of Photography but do you still need to
know what is it for real?.
Photography is the science, art, application and practice of creating durable images by recording light or
other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of
a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.
Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-
sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. With an electronic image sensor, this produces
an electrical charge at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for
subsequent display or processing. The result with photographic emulsion is an invisible latent image, which is
later chemically “developed” into a visible image, either negative or positive depending on the purpose of the
photographic material and the method of processing. A negative image on film is traditionally used to
photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or
by contact printing.
Photography is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing (e.g., photolithography) and business, as
well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass
communication.
A little Photography History:
The history of photography has roots in remote antiquity with the discovery of the principle of the camera
obscura (a dark room) and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. As far
as is known, nobody thought of bringing these two phenomena together to capture camera images in
permanent form until around 1800, when Thomas Wedgwood made the first reliably documented although
unsuccessful attempt. In the mid-1820s, Nicéphore Niépce succeeded, but 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 photographic process, which required only
minutes of exposure in the camera and produced clear, finely detailed results. It was commercially introduced
in 1839, a date generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography.
The oldest surviving photograph of the image formed in a camera was created by Niépce in 1826 or 1827.It
was made on a polished sheet of pewter and the light-sensitive substance was a thin coating of bitumen, a
naturally occurring petroleum tar, which was dissolved in lavender oil, applied to the surface of the pewter
and allowed to dry before use. After a very long exposure in the camera (traditionally said to be eight hours,
but now believed to be several days), the bitumen was sufficiently hardened in proportion to its exposure to
light that the unhardened part could be removed with a solvent, leaving a positive image with the light areas
represented by hardened bitumen and the dark areas by bare pewter. To see the image plainly, the plate had
to be lit and viewed in such a way that the bare metal appeared dark and the bitumen relatively light.
In partnership, Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône and Louis Daguerre in Paris refined the bitumen process,
substituting a more sensitive resin and a very different post-exposure treatment that yielded higher-quality
and more easily viewed images. Exposure times in the camera, although substantially reduced, were still
measured in hours.
The daguerreotype proved popular in response to the demand for portraiture that emerged from the middle
classes during the Industrial Revolution. This demand, which could not be met in volume and in cost by oil
painting, added to the push for the development of photography.
Roger Fenton and Philip Henry Delamotte helped popularize the new way of recording events, the first by his
Crimean war pictures, the second by his record of the disassembly and reconstruction of The Crystal
Palace in London. Other mid-nineteenth-century photographers established the medium as a more precise
means than engraving or lithography of making a record of landscapes and architecture: for example, Robert
Macpherson‘s broad range of photographs of Rome, the interior of the Vatican, and the surrounding
countryside became a sophisticated tourist’s visual record of his own travels.
In America, by 1851 a broadside by daguerreotypist Augustus Washington was advertising prices ranging from
50 cents to $10. However, daguerreotypes were fragile and difficult to copy. Photographers encouraged
chemists to refine the process of making many copies cheaply, which eventually led them back to Talbot’s
process.
Ultimately, the photographic process came about from a series of refinements and improvements in the first
20 years. In 1884 George Eastman, of Rochester, New York, developed dry gel on paper, or film, to replace the
photographic plate so that a photographer no longer needed to carry boxes of plates and toxic chemicals
around. In July 1888 Eastman’s Kodak camera went on the market with the slogan “You press the button, we
do the rest”. Now anyone could take a photograph and leave the complex parts of the process to others, and
photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie.
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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 reduced the required camera exposure time from minutes to seconds and eventually to a small
fraction of a second; introduced new photographic media which were more economical, sensitive or
convenient, including roll films for casual use by amateurs; and made it possible 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.

Introduction to Photograph
Introduction

How often do you get excited to see a good photograph? Whether it is of your child
playing or that of a picture taken in a picnic or a marriage party, we all get interested to
see and appreciate a good photograph. A photograph helps us to recall our past and
makes us nostalgic. Do you realize how the camera works? What are the different types
of camera? In this unit we will introduce you to the basic concept of ‘Photography’. This
is the first unit of the full course on ‘Introduction to Photography’.
After a thorough study of this unit you will have developed an adequate understanding
of the concept of Photography. Here we will discuss various types of camera and the
differences between the still and movie photography. We will also discuss the different
concepts of composition and exposure in photography with all its characteristics and
aspects.
We hope that this unit will open up to you the exciting world of photography in a
completely new light. So let us begin our journey into this world by understanding the
meaning of the word ‘photography’ from the point of view of a professional visual
communicator. While studying this unit try to focus on the fundamentals, as this unit
will be the beginning of a new way of looking at photographs!

Learning Objectives

CONCEPT OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Communication became one of the basic needs of our lives. Without communication,
what ever may be the process, we can not survive in a society. To express the idea,
emotion we use different types of communication channels, like air for any type of
interpersonal or group communication, technology based mass media to disseminate
information to the heterogeneous public, which includes newspaper, television, radio,
photographs like visual communication. Visual communication has a different appeal to
influence all categories of people, whether it may be a photograph published in the
newspaper or moving images. Photography is a universal means of communication and
a valuable tool in many fields. From the moments of a family event to the Big Bang
picture or a satellite picture of the moon or the earth, photograph can record not only
that human being see, but also so many subjects, which are beyond our range of vision.
Though we usually discuss that photography is the process of making pictures by means
of the action of the lights, means it is a scientific invention, but the most important
point is that, it is not only a science but also a major art form.
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Photography – Basic Idea

“If photography is used merely as a technical process to record some visual fact, it is an
appendage to science. However, if it is used as an expression of emotions that’s
personal to each individual…it becomes art.” - Peter Rose Pulham. Pulham, one of the
great photographers in the world, wanted to say that photography is not only a
technology to record a situation, but it is an art that can record the emotion and
expression of the nature with the help of this scientific technology. We can define
photography as a method of recording the image of an object by the action of light, or
related radiation, on a sensitive material. Literally photography means writing with light.
The word photography has been derived from the Greek words photos means “light”
and graphos or graphein means “to draw”. The term is generally accepted as referring
to any method of producing a visible image by the action of light.

The use of the term photography was suggested and also first used by the scientist Sir
John Fredrrick William Herschel (1792-1871) in a letter dated 28th February, 1839 to
Willium Henry Fox Talbot (1800- 1877).

The term photography usually refers to the formation of optical images projected by a
lens in a camera onto a film or other material carrying a layer of light-sensitive silver
salts and the duplication and reproduction of such images by light action (printing); in an
extended sense it also includes the formation of images by certain invisible radiations
(ultraviolet and infrared rays) and images recorded in other sensitive materials not
containing silver by means of chemical or physical processes or both.

The forerunner of the camera was the camera obscura, a dark chamber or room with a
hole (later a lens) in one wall through which images of objects outside the room were
projected on the opposite wall.

In 1839, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre announced the first commercially successful

photographic process, the daguerreotype. Two years later William Henry Fox Talbot
patented his negative-positive calotype process, which became the forerunner of
modern photographic processes. After that the wet collodion process was developed in
1851 and by dry plates in 1871. George Eastman, the young dynamic entrepreneur
introduced flexible films in 1889. Since then, the light sensitivity (speed) of films has
been greatly improved, and the quality of film emulsions has become so fine that prints
many times larger than the size of the film can be made. Colour photography, expensive
and complicated in the 19th century, has been so refined that it is nearly as easy as
black-and-white photography. Technical improvements in the camera have transformed
it from a bulky, cumbersome apparatus to a compact, sophisticated device that is often
small enough to fit in a pocket.

And finally the photography became popuar among the general people and handy
camera used by them with the entrepreneurial activities of George Eastman. The
Eastman Kodak Company was born in April 1880, when Eastman began the manufacture
of dry photographic plates for sale at Rochester. The young company faced a total
collapse once when dry plates with dealers went bad. Eastman recalled them and
replaced with a good product. Making good on those plates took our last dollar- he said.
But what we had left was more important- reputation.
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In his words, in an attempt to make the camera as convenient as a pencil, Eastman

invented the flexible film to replace the bulky plates. In 1988, the Kodak camera was
introduced and the slogun was very much important as well as interesting. It was- you
push the button, we do the rest. The Kodak brand name was registered in 1888 and was
recently been rated as the fourth most well known brand globally.

Photography – Types of Camera

The word Camera has been derived from Latin, which stands for a room, a light proof
dark room. Basically a camera is just a light tight box with a small hole in it. In fact is
relatively simple to build a camera using a cardboard box, some black tape and some
tinfoil or a small piece of aluminiun from a drinks can. Unfortunately, pinhole cameras-
that is what they are called- are not particularly sophisticated and your mates won't be
to happy when you ask them to keep perfectly still for 20 minutes while you capture
that party atmosphere with the box your shoes came in. Cameras can be classified a
number of ways; for example,
a) Types of Camera based on function:
1. Still
2. Movie
b) Types of Camera based on technology:
1. Analog
2. Digital
c) Types of Camera based on format:
i) Still
Range finder (RF)
Single lens reflex (SLR) (Now Digital SLR cameras are very much popular among the
photographers)
ii) Movie
Celluloid
Video

Finding the nodal point in a RF and SLR camera is slightly different. In brief, the
difference between the RF and SLR camera is in the preview mode. In the RF camera the
image previewed and the image captured are not the same. The amount of image
information is different around the edges. In the SLR camera both the image previewed
and the image captured are identical; in computer jargon the SLR camera is a
"WYSIWYG" camera. RF camera differences occur because the preview and captured
image optical paths are different. The RF camera shows two optical paths - one into the
lens for image capture and one into a preview window.

Paul Wotel, says that as a technology, analog is the process of taking an audio or video
signal (in most cases, the human voice) and translating it into electronic pulses. Digital
on the other hand is breaking the signal into a binary format where the audio or video
data is represented by a series of "1"s and "0"s. Simple enough when it's the device—
analog or digital phone, fax, modem, or likewise—that does all the converting for a
person. Analog technology has been around for decades. It's not that complicated a
concept and it's fairly inexpensive to use. But the disadvantage is analog signals have
size limitations as to how much data they can carry. On the contrary, the beauty of
digital is that it knows what it should be when it reaches the end of the transmission.
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That way, it can correct any errors that may have occurred in the data transfer. So,
clarity is the main advantage in the digital process. In most cases, we can get distortion-
free sound and clearer TV pictures in this technology. Celluloid is a colourless flammable
material made from nitrocellulose and camphor and used to make photographic film. It
is developed in 1869 as the first synthetic plastic material, which is made of a colloid of
cellulose nitrate (nitrocellulose) plasticized with camphor, it is tough, cheap to produce,
and resistant to water, oils, and dilute acids. Most of the feature films are made with the
use of this celluloid film. The main advantage of the celluloid film is that the sharpness
and the quality of the picture is not comparable. On the other hand, video is a new
format for recording a moving image. It is a series of framed images put together, one
after another, to simulate motion and interactivity. A video can be transmitted by
number of frames per second and/or the amount of time between switching frames.
The main advantage of this format is that we can immediately watch what we have
taken. But in the celluloid format we can not watch the recorded image immediately.

Photography – Still and movie photography

As we have discussed in the earlier sub sections, photography is the process and art of
recording pictures by means of capturing light on a light-sensitive medium, such as a
film or an electronic sensor. Still photography is a method of recording permanent
images in a photographic material or in a light-sensitive paper or in a memory by the
action of light projected by a lens in a camera. It was developed in the 19th century
through the artistic aspirations of two Frenchmen, Nicéphore Niepce and Louis-Jacques-
Mandé Daguerre, whose combined discoveries led to the invention of the first
commercially successful process, the daguerreotype (1837). In addition, two
Englishmen, Thomas Wedgwood and William Henry Fox Talbot, patented the negative-
positive calotype process (1839) that became the forerunner of modern photographic
technique. Photography was initially used for portraiture and landscapes. In the 1850s
and '60s, Mathew B. Brady and Roger Fenton pioneered war photography and
photojournalism. From its inception, two views of photography predominated: one
approach held that the camera and its resulting images truthfully document the real
world, while the other considered the camera simply to be a tool, much like a
paintbrush, with which to create artistic statements.

Parts of a still camera

To take a still photograph we need a still camera, what ever it may be range finder or
SLR. According to Liz Masoner, a renowned freelance photographer, we can devide the
parts of the camera into mainly two parts – one is camera body and the other is the
lens. First of all let us discuss the camera body.

The camera body is the most basic part of a camera. It is the box that holds the film and
the camera controls. The lens is either built-into the body or attaches to the body. The
body also houses a battery that powers the shutter, flash, light meter, and other
controls. There are generally rings to connect a strap to the camera for easy carrying as
well. A camera body consists of the following parts-

Len- The lens is a part of the camera (or an attachment for the camera) that focuses
light into the body and onto the film. The aperture is also contained within the lens.
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Film Compartment-In film cameras, there is a compartment in the back of the camera to
hold the film. This compartment has a space for the film canister, sprockets to guide the
film across the exposure area, a pressure plate to tighten the film, and a take up reel to
wind the film.

Viewfinder- The viewfinder is the hole in the back of the camera that a photographer
looks through to aim the camera.

Shutter- A solid piece of plastic or metal inside the camera that prevents light from
reaching the film or digital sensor.

Shutter Release- The shutter release is a button that raises a shutter inside the camera
for a specified amount of time to allow light to expose the film.

Shutter Speed Control- It is the point on the camera where anybody can set the amount
of time the shutter will remain open.

Film Speed Control-The film speed control allows to calibrate the camera's meter to the
film speed for an accurate exposure reading.
F-Stop Control- The F-Stop controls allow to set the size of the aperture within the lens.

Flash- A flash is a device used in photography that produces an instantaneous flash of

artificial light. Most cameras now include a built-in flash.

Hot Shoe Mount:-hot shoe mount is a point on the top of most SLR cameras where an
external flash can be connected.

Lens Ring Mount- On cameras that allow interchangeable lenses, there is a metal ring on
the front of the camera where the lens will attach.

A movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of

photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single
snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame".
This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played
back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames
per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures
together to create the illusion of motion. A video camera is a portable, hand-held
camera resembling a movie camera but recording on videocassettes for playback on a
television set. In a video camera, there is a provision of sound recording simultaneously
with the visual. So, in a video camera microphone, speaker, LCD screen are added with
the camera body.

Activity

Visit a photo-shop nearer to you and watch different types of cameras. If you have a
range finder camera, then compare with a SLR camera, what other facilities are there
and how it is different from your range finder camera.
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Self-Assessment Questions (SAQs) -1

1. What do you mean by Photography? Answer within 50 words.

2. What is the difference between analogue and digital camera? Answer within 100
words.

3. What is a lens? Answer within 50 words.

4. Fill in the blanks of the following --

i) SLR stands for --------------------
ii) A ----------------------------is an application that enables to see on the display screen
exactly what will appear when the document is printed.
iii) Literally photography means ---------------------
iv) The term photography was first used by the scientist ----------------------------------------
v) The forerunner of the camera was the --------------------
Check your answers which are given in the end of the lesson.

COMPOSITION AND EXPOSURE

Composition and exposure are two important parts of photography. A person has to do
two things when taking a photograph. Composition and exposure. In a simple word, the
exposure stands for the technical part of photography and the composition expresses
the artistic viewpoint of a photographer. Photography is full of rules and to get us
started I have invented one of my own.
We can call this the Compose and Expose Rule. To make life simple compose and expose
rhyme so it is easy to remember. A photographer should compose first and expose
second that is the rule. Let us discuss these two concepts-

Composition

Composition is the creative or artistic tad where a photographer arranges all of the
elements of his picture within the frame or viewfinder to produce what should hopefully
be a pleasing composition.
There are three basic ways to arrange the elements within the composition:
• A person has to physically move objects relative to each other. Only really works with
still life photography.
• A person has to tell people to move relative to each other or other objects.
• A person has to move the most effective way to control your composition is to alter
your viewpoint.
In the book Photography for the Beginners, Alok Chandra Roy wrote that a beginner,
with little or no artistic idea, may often face problem how to arrange or "compose" the
various elements of subject of interest within the camera view - finder to obtain the
most pleasing picture.
Roy, in his book suggested some points, which are advisable for the beginner -
1) Keep your subject of interest away from the four edges of the picture, or it will look
very odd.
2) Keep the subject just away from the geometrical centre of the picture. otherwise it
gives a dull and very formal effect in the picture.
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3) Allow more space in front of the subject than behind it. In a portrait, there should be
more space in the direction of person looking. A moving subject should be shown
moving in to the picture and not moving out of it. As far as possible these methods are
to be applied when taking photograph. It is always easier to avoid an unwanted subject
by changing of view point or camera angle.
Always try to keep in your mind, while taking photograph, nothing should get more
importance than your subject of interest in the picture.

Exposure
We have taken a look at the creative or artistic tad of taking photographs –
composition. Now we will have a look at the science tad, i.e. - exposure. Exposure is the
scientific and mechanical tad where a photographer exposes his film to light through the
lens of the camera. Exposure simply means allowing light to strike the film. The tricky
part is to know how much light you need and how to control the amount of light
reaching the film. A photographer has to control the exposure by allowing light to pass
through the aperture for a given amount of time. Apertures and shutters are used to
control the exposure. If a photographer allows to pass more than enough light then the
picture may be burned, which is known as over exposed and the reverse is the under
exposed. So, the adjustment of the appropriate aperture and shutter speed is very much
sensitive matter. Now question is that, on what factors, aperture and shutter speed
depend upon? Ashok Dilwali, in his book All About Photography, says that, the choice of
the combination of aperture and shutter speed depends upon three factors. These are –
1. Hand held or tripod mounted: when a tripod is used, a small aperture and low shutter
speed give image sharpness with better depth of field.
2. Subject in motion: if the subject is moving, a large aperture with fast shutter speed is
necessary.
3. Sharpness of details: if this is important, a combination of small aperture with slow
shutter speed is essential.
Already we have discussed about the basic concept on exposure and threre we have
used so many terms like aperture, f-numbers, shutter speeds etc. Let us briefly discuss
what these are –
Aperture and f-numbers The aperture is just a hole whose size can be varied to allow
more or less light to pass through it. The size of apertures are expressed in f-numbers.
Aperture range may look like this: f 1.4; f 2; f 22; f 32
Shutter and Shutter Speeds The shutter prevents light from reaching the film until the
moment of exposure, when it opens for a predetermined time allowing light passing
through the lens aperture to reach the film.
Film speed A film's sensitivity is known as its ' speed' and is expressed as an ASA/ISO
number.
Depth of Field Depth of field is a phrase that defines a measure of distance that spans a
distance ahead of and behind a subject focused on; and, within that distance the image
is fairly sharp.
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Activity
Open the pages of a daily newspaper and watch carefully the photographs published
there. Notice what type of photographs the newspaper is carrying and how the
photographs are composed, means from what angle the photograph is taken, what is
the main subject, how it is different from a general photograph, brightness and
sharpness of the photograph and finally the news value, which is carried by the
photojournalist.

Self-Assessment Questions (SAQs) -2

1. What do you mean by exposure of a photograph? Answer within 50 words.

2. What is aperture? What are the functions of aperture? Answer within 100 words.

3. Fill in the blanks of the following --

i) Exposure is the--------------------------tad.
ii) Composition is the-----------------------------------tad where a photographer arranges all of
the elements of his picture within the frame
iii) A photographer should------------------first and-------------------------second that is the
rule.
iv) A film's sensitivity is known as its-------------------------and is expressed as an ASA/ISO
number.
Check your answers which are given in the end of the lesson.

WRITING AND EDITING CAPTIONS FOR STILL PHOTOGRAPHY

It is true that a picture or a photograph can express a thousand of words. But some time
a text is needed to make a photograph more meaningful. So, we need a caption to
explain the meaning of a photograph. In a simple manner we can define the term
Caption as a textual representation that refer to information identifying a picture or
illustration. Let us discuss briefly how to write and edit a good caption for a photograph.

John D. Simmons, Staff Photographer, The Charlotte Observer, offers some advice to
write and edit good captions. According to him, “good captions are more than just the
subject's name and what's going on in the photo. In fact, if all you do in your caption is
explain the activity in the photo it has little or no value to the reader. Good captions
incorporate the five W's: Who, What, Where, When and Why. You can occasionally
throw in "How" if the photo is so technically complicated and interesting that the reader
might wonder how it was made. Good captions are spelled correctly. Good captions are
factually accurate. Good captions leave the copy editors with few questions. Good
captions not only enhance your standing in the newsroom but also the photo
department's standing. Good captions are essential to the credibility of the newspaper
and its standing in the community.”

The following are some important points which should follow to write and edit a photo
caption.
The five W's and How: Five Ws- Who, What, Where, When, Why and one H- How. These
are use for a basic information about the story. It is a fundamental concept in
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journalism, which is used to prepare a news story. Even for a photo caption, a person
should construct the sentence incorporating these questions.
Accuracy: It is another important point that must be keep in mind while writing a
caption. The person has to make sure the facts he has given in the caption are accurate
or that he can quote a source or the subject. If he gets a call from the copy desk about a
conflict with the reporter's information it always feels good to be able to say that the
quoted the subject or that the name has been checked.

Self-Assessment Questions (SAQs) -3

1. What is a caption? Answer within 20 words.

2. What are the five Ws and one H?

Check your answers which are given in the end of the lesson.

Spelling: A caption is basically a sentence or may be two. A spelling mistake can create
problem to express the meaning of the caption. There is no shame in asking someone
else how to spell a word. Overall, spelling is essential but maybe the most important to
make the credibility.
Edit the Captions: A caption writer should always reread the captions. He should identify
the subjects from left to right and by a physical description whenever possible. A
physical description can be of their clothing or expression.
A great caption has added value and are well written. To write a good caption one has
to know the journalistic concepts and he should develop the skill like a journalist.
Secondly he should be a writer. He has to use the language with an utmost care and the
language should be flourishing. The ultimate goal for all of us is to write great captions,
it must be accurate, have useful information for added value and be a good read.

Activity
Open the pages of a daily newspaper and watch carefully the photographs published
there. Now read the captions and try to prepare some different captions, which will be
appropriate from a readers’ point of view.

SHOTS AND CAMERA MOVEMENT FOR MOVIE

In contrast of the still photography, where single snap shots are captured by a still
camera at a time, in the movie photography, a camera person has to take a series of
images. Here, in the movie photography a snap shot is known as a frame. Generally, we
know that to establish a shot we have to record at least 3-5 seconds, which includes
more than 72 frames. A movie photographer should know about the most important
concepts of the subject like shots, camera movements etc. Let us discuss the basic
concepts of shots and the movements of the movie camera.
Shot

All pictorial material recorded by a camera is shot. According to Oxford Dictionary, shot
is a scene in a film or movie that is filmed continuously by one camera. In film making,
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the shot is the equivalent, in writing terms, of a word a phrase, a sentence or a

paragraph. The director of a movie shots film; each shot is the length at which a camera
works continuously from a stationary and a moving position.
There are mainly eight shots, which are known as basic shots.
These are -
1. Extreme Long Shot (ELS):
An extreme long shot is the widest, most comprehensive and view possible of a location
or event. It is a very wide field of view in which the camera takes in the entire playing
area. The principal subject or subjects are small in relation to the background and tend
to compete with the surroundings for the viewer’s attention.

2. Long Shot (LS):

It is slightly closer field of view than the extreme long shot. But the subject remains
dominated by the much larger background area. Usually it is a wide and distant
perspective orients viewer to overall setting and surroundings.

3. Mid Long Shot or (MLS) Long Mid Shot:

The image size in MLS is shorter than long shot. If our subject is a person, and if he is
standing with a background then the mid long shot is up to the knee or in between the
knee and the feet from above.

4. Mid Shot (M/S):

This is the most frequent shot used in T.V. news and any kind of television interactive
programme, the one that best captures the action. It defines any camera perspective
between long shot and close up, whereby subjects are viewed from medium distance.

5. Mid Close-up (MCU):

In MCU the image size is up to the chest of a person from above. It is also commonly
used in TV news especially in case at statements, interviews and speeches. Generally the
name and the title captions are super imposed (Below-super B/S) against this shot.
6. Close-up (CU):
Close-up is very much popular among the general mass also. It is mainly used for
interviews. Here the subject becomes the primary focus of interest within the shot. Only
a small portion of the background is visible. In this shot we see just the head and
shoulder of the interviewee or the interviewer.

7. Big Close-up (BCU):

The image size in BCU is the face, i.e. the force-head and the chin of a person. During
interviews it may be used. While the person is in a state of deep emotion or thinking.
8. Extreme Close-up (ECU):
In this shot the camera goes even closer, i.e. the shot is even tighter, sometimes to
show only a particular part of the body organ, such as, the eyes or the lips or the fingers.

Camera Movement

As the basic criterion of video is 'Moving pictures', the camera has to move. There are
generally two types of cameras movements. One is to change the place of the camera
 12

itself. Means the entire camera and pedestal can be moved about. The second type of
camera movement is to move the camera without displacing the camera itself. The
camera head alone moves atop its stationary pedestal.

1. PAN:
Pan is the horizontal camera pivot right to left or left to right, from a stationary position.
It follows a subject, re-directs viewer's attention from one subject to another, shows
relationship between subjects, and scam subjects too large to fit into one shot. The pan
operations are used to show two horizontal frame of reference and continuity. It’s not
advisable to use pan operation frequently in TV news for editing problems, but
sometimes it is used to show several VIP's on the dies.
A pan should have a definite starting point and a definite ending point. Sometimes you
can have a subject look in the direction of the pan and then execute the camera move to
reveal to the viewer what the subject sees. If it is neither possible nor desirable, be sure
to have definite starting and stopping points fixed in your own mind so the pan
movement will be decisive and direct.

2. TILT:
Tilt is the movement of the camera on its vertical axis, down or up, from a stationary
position. When the camera is moved upwards, it is tilt-up and the reverse is tilt-down. It
follows movement, contrasts differences in size between two subjects or gives viewer
point of view sense of a subject's height.

3. PEDESTAL:
The vertical movement of the camera up or down as the centre-telescoping column of
the pedestal is raised or lowered. The pedestal control on a camera changes its point of
view just as what any one can see from his sitting position and then stand up to look
around.

4. ZOOM:
In zoom operations, only the lenses of the camera moves. Actually Zoom is variance of
focal length, bringing subject into and out of close-up. Lens capability permits change
from wide-angle to telephoto or vice-versa in one continuous move. The use of the
zoom control to continuously vary the camera lens’s field of view.
A zoom lens gets its name from its ability to move closer to or farther from the subject
being photographed. 'Zoom out' means the opposite move further away or to 'wider'
from the subject. Zooms are rarely used in TV news, because they are difficult, isn't
impossible to edit. Most zooms can be eliminated by stopping the camera, reframing
the shot and then restarting the camera.

5. TROLLEY or TRUCK:
Trolley or truck is the movement of the camera itself; it is the movement of the place.
Means it is the lateral movement of the camera on its pedestal. What is trolley? Actually
it is a small vehicle with wheels that can be pushed or pulled on a track along and is
used for carrying things like the whole recording system and also the cameraman.

6. DOLLY:
Dolly is a low platform on wheels for moving heavy objects like a camera. Dolly
movement is the movement of the camera on its pedestal either toward or away from
 13

the subject or scene. When it is goes to close of the subject by the camera it’s called
Dolly in and the reverse is Dolly out.

7. ARC:
Actually arc is the part of a circle or a curved line. This movement is the combination of
a dolly and a trolley, the arc is a semicircular movement of a camera and its pedestal.

8. CRANE:
A crane is the movement of the camera atop the long arm of a crane. Crane is a tall
machine with a long arm, used to lift and move materials and other heavy objects. The
camera crane is a huge mounting device with four pairs of wheels on a base and a large
arm extending outward.

Activity
If you are a regular viewer of television news channel and an entertainment channel,
then try to identify the shots used in the both channels. What are the basic shots and
camera movements are used by the news channel and what are the shots and
movements are utilized by the entertainment channel.

Self-Assessment Questions (SAQs) -4

1. What is a shot? Name the basic shots of a movie camera. Answer within 50 words.
2. What is the difference between Trolley and PAN movements? Discuss within 100
words.
Check your answers which are given in the end of the lesson.

Glosarry

Photography : A process or art of producing images of objects on paper or other

material by the chemical action of light.
Aperture : A device that controls amount of light admitted
Celluloid : Flammable film base made of cellulose nitrate
SLR : Single Lens Reflex camera. A camera, usually with interchangeable lenses, where
anybody can look through the lens giving the most accurate focal and framing control.

Practice Test
1. What is a shot? What are the basic shots of a movie camera? Discuss with illustration.
2. Explain the importance of the movement in movie camera. What are the basic
movements? What are the differences between Trolley and PAN, Dolly and Zoom?
3. What is a caption? What are the rules and regulations to write a good caption?
4. What do you mean by Photography? What is the difference between analogue and
digital camera?

Answers to SAQs

SAQ-1.
1. Photography as a method of recording the image of an object by the action of light, or
related radiation, on a sensitive material. Literally photography means writing with light.
 14

The word photography has been derived from the Greek words photos means “light”
and graphos or graphein means “to draw”.
2. The difference between analogue and digital camera is as a technology, analog is the
process of taking an audio or video signal (in most cases, the human voice) and
translating it into electronic pulses. Digital on the other hand is breaking the signal into a
binary format where the audio or video data is represented by a series of "1"s and "0"s.
Simple enough when it's the device—analog or digital phone, fax, modem, or likewise—
that does all the converting for a person.
3. The lens is a part of the camera (or an attachment for the camera) that focuses light
into the body and onto the film. The aperture is also contained within the lens.
4. Fill in the blanks of the following –
i) SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex
ii) A WYSIWYG is an application that enables to see on the display screen exactly what
will appear when the document is printed.
iii) Literally photography means writing with light
iv) The term photography was first used by the scientist Sir John Fredrrick William
Herschel.
v) The forerunner of the camera was the camera obscura.
SAQ-2.
1. Exposure is the scientific and mechanical tad where a photographer exposes his film
to light through the lens of the camera.
2. The aperture is just a hole whose size can be varied to allow more or less light to pass
through it. The size of apertures are expressed in f-numbers.
3. Fill in the blanks of the following –
i) Exposure is the scientific and mechanical tad.
ii) Composition is the creative or artistic tad where a photographer arranges all of the
elements of his picture within the frame
iii) A photographer should compose first and expose second that is the rule.
iv) A film's sensitivity is known as its ' speed' and is expressed as an ASA/ISO number.
SAQ-3
1. Caption is a textual representation that refers to information identifying a picture or
illustration.
2. Five Ws- Who, What, Where, When, Why and one H- How.

SAQ-4
1. All pictorial material recorded by a camera is shot.
There are mainly eight shots, which are known as basic shots. These are - extreme long
shot, long shot, Mid Long Shot, Mid Shot, Mid Close-up, Close-up, Big Close-up and
Extreme Close-up.

2. The difference between Trolley and PAN movements is the pan changes the
horizontal point of view from atop a stationary pedestal or tripod. The trolley or truck
actually moves the camera, establishing a new shooting angle, which results in a much
different view of the subject or scene photographed.

Photography

EARLY DEVELOPMENT
 15

The first attempts to capture an image were made from a camera obscura, used
since the 16th century. The device consists of a box or small room with a small
hole in one side that acts as a lens. Light from an external scene passes through
the hole and strikes the opposite surface inside where it is reproduced upside-
down, but with color and perspective preserved. The image is usually projected
onto paper adhered to the opposite wall, and can then be traced to produce a
highly accurate representation.
Using the camera obscura as a guide, early photographers found ways to
chemically fix the projected images onto plates coated with light sensitive
materials. Moreover, they installed glass lenses in their early cameras and
experimented with different exposure times for their images. View from the
Window at Le Gras is one of the oldest existing photographs, taken in 1826 by
French inventor Joseph Niepce using a process he called heliograpy (“helio”
meaning sun and “graph” meaning write). The exposure for the image took eight
hours, resulting in the sun casting its light on both sides of the houses in the
picture. Further developments resulted in apertures– thin circular devices that are
calibrated to allow a certain amount of light onto the exposed film. Apertures
allowed photographers better control over their exposure times.
During the 1830’s Louis Daguerre, having worked with Niepce earlier, developed
a more reliable process to capture images on film by using a polished copper
plate treated with silver. He termed the images made by this process
“Daguerreotypes”. They were sharper in focus and the exposure times were
shorter. His photograph Boulevard du Temp from 1838 is taken from his studio
window overlooking a busy Paris street. Still, with an exposure of ten minutes,
none of the moving traffic or pedestrians (One exception. See if you can find it!)
stayed still long enough to be recorded.

At the same time in England, William Henry Fox Talbot was experimenting with
other photographic processes. He was creating photogenic drawings by simply
placing objects (mostly botanical specimens) over light sensitive paper or plates,
then exposing them to the sun. By 1844 he had invented the calotype; a
photographic print made from a negative image. In contrast, Daguerreotypes
were single, positive images that could not be reproduced.
Talbot’s calotypes allowed for multiple prints from one negative, setting the
standard for the new medium. Though Daguerre won the race to be first in
releasing his photographic process, Talbot’s negative to positive process would
eventually become the dominant process.

IMPACT ON OTHER MEDIA

The advent of photography caused a realignment in the use of other two-

dimensional media. The photograph was now in direct competition with drawing,
painting and printmaking. The camera turns its gaze on the human narrative that
stands before it. The photograph gave (for the most part), a realistic and unedited
 16

view of our world. In its early beginning, photography was considered to offer a
more “true” image of nature because it was created mechanically, not by the
subjective hand of an artist. Its use as a tool for documentation was immediate,
which gave the photo a scientific role to play. The sequential,
instantaneous exposures by Eadweard Muybridge helped to understand human
and animal movement, but also highlighted that photography could be used to
expand human vision, imaging something that could not be seen with the naked
eye. The relative immediacy and improved clarity of the photographic image
quickly pitted the camera against painting in the genre of portraiture. Before
photography, painted portraits were afforded only to the wealthy and most
prominent members of society. They became symbols of social class distinctions.
Now portraits became available to individuals and families from all social levels.

Photography as an Art

It wasn’t long before photographers recognized the aesthetic value of a

photograph. As a new medium, photography began the march towards being
considered a high form of art. Alfred Stieglitz understood this potential, and as a
photographer, editor and gallery owner, was a major force in promoting
photography as an art form. He led in forming the Photo Secession in 1902, a
group of photographers who were interested in defining the photograph as an art
form in itself, not just by the subject matter in front of the lens. Subject matter
became a vehicle for an emphasis on composition, lighting and textural effects.
His own photographs reflect a range of themes. The Terminal (1892) is an
example of “straight photography”: images from the everyday taken with smaller
cameras and little manipulation. In The Terminal Stieglitz captures a moment of
bustling city street life on a cold winter day. The whole cold, gritty scene is
softened by steam rising off the horses and the snow provides highlights. But the
photo holds more than formal aesthetic value. The jumble of buildings, machines,
humans, animals and weather conditions provides a glimpse into American urban
culture straddling two centuries. Within ten years from the time this photo was
taken horses will be replaced by automobiles and subway stations will transform
a large city’s movement into the twentieth century.

Photojournalism and photography’s many subject placements

Photography is a medium that has multiple subject placements. It is used as an

art medium, in journalism, in advertising, the fashion industry, and we use it to
personally document our lives. It is one, if not the most, pervasive form of
documentation in the world. These multiple subject placements make it a
complex phenomena to analyze.
The news industry was fundamentally changed with the invention of the
photograph. Although pictures were taken of newsworthy stories as early as the
1850’s, the photograph needed to be translated into an engraving before being
printed in a newspaper. It wasn’t until the turn of the nineteenth century that
newspaper presses could copy original photographs. Photos from around the
world showed up on front pages of newspapers defining and illustrating stories,
 17

and the world became smaller as this early mass medium gave people access to
up to date information…with pictures!
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to
tell a news story and is defined by these three elements:

Timeliness — the images have meaning in the context of a recently published

record of events.

Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate

representation of the events they depict in both content and tone.

Narrative — the images combine with other news elements to make facts
relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level.
As visual information, news images help in shaping our perception of reality and
the context surrounding them.
Photographs taken by Mathew Brady and Timothy O’Sullivan during the
American Civil War (below) gave sobering witness to the carnage it produced.
Images of soldiers killed in the field help people realize the human toll of war and
desensitize their ideas of battle as being particularly heroic.
Photojournalism’s “Golden Age” took place between 1930 and 1950, coinciding
with advances in the mediums of radio and television.
Dorothea Lange was employed by the federal government’s Farm Security
Administration to document the plight of migrant workers and families dislocated
by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression in America during the
1930’s. Migrant Mother, Florence Owens Thompson, Nipomo Valley,
California is an iconic image of its hardships and the human resolve to survive.
Like O’Sullivan’s civil war photos, Lange’s picture puts a face on human tragedy.
Photographs like this helped win continued support for president Franklin
Roosevelt’s social aid programs.

Modern Developments

Edwin Land invented the instant camera, capable of taking and developing a
photograph, in 1947, followed by the popular SX-70 instant camera in 1972. The SX-70
produced a 3-inch-square-format positive image that developed in front of your eyes.
The beauty of instant development for the artist was that during the two or three
minutes it took for the image to appear, the film emulsion stayed malleable and able to
manipulate. The artist Lucas Samaras used this technique of manipulation to produce
some of the most imaginative and visually perplexing images in a series he
termed photo-transformations. Using himself as subject, Samaras explores ideas of
self-identity, emotional states and the altered reality he creates on film.
 18

Polaroid SX-70 Instant Camera. Licensed through Creative Commons

Digital cameras appeared on the market in the mid 1980s. They allow the capture and
storage of images through electronic means instead of photographic film. This new
medium created big advantages over the film camera: the digital camera produces an
image instantly, stores many images on a memory card in the camera, and the images
can be downloaded to a computer, where they can be further manipulated by editing
software and sent anywhere through cyberspace. This eliminated the time and cost
involved in film development and created another revolution in the way we access
visual information.

Digital images start to replace those made with film while still adhering to traditional
ideas of design and composition. Bingo Time by photographer Jere DeWaters (below)
uses a digital camera to capture a visually arresting scene within ordinary surroundings.
He uses a rational approach to create a geometric order within the format, with
contrasting diagonals set up between sloping pickets and ramps, with an implied angle
leading from the tire on the lower left to the white window frame in the center and
culminating at the clock on the upper right. And even though the sign yells out to us for
attention, the black rectangle in the center is what gets it.

In addition, digital cameras and editing software let artists explore the notion of staged
reality: not just recording what they see but creating a new visual reality for the
viewer. Sandy Skogland creates and photographs elaborate tableaus inhabited by
animals and humans, many times in cornered, theatrical spaces. In a series of images
titled True Fiction Two she uses the digital process – and the irony in the title to build
fantastically colored, dream like images of decidedly mundane places. By straddling
both installation and digital imaging, Skoglund blurs the line between the real and the
imagined in art.

The photographs of Jeff Wall are similar in content—a blend of the staged and the
real, but presented in a straightforward style the artist terms “near documentary.”
 19

Photography

Lens and mounting of a large-format camera

Other names- Science or art of creating durable images

Types- Recording light or other electromagnetic radiation

Inventor- Thomas Wedgwood (1800)

Related-Stereoscopic, Full-spectrum, Light field, Electrophotography, Photograms,

Scanner

Photography is the art, application and practice of creating durable images by recording
light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image
sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It
is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing (e.g., photolithography), and
business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational
purposes, hobby, and mass communication.[1]

Typically, a lens is used to focus the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real
image on the light-sensitive surface inside a camera during a timed exposure. With an
electronic image sensor, this produces an electrical charge at each pixel, which
is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or
processing. The result with photographic emulsion is an invisible latent image, which is
later chemically "developed" into a visible image, either negative or positive depending
on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of processing. A negative
image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a
paper base, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or by contact printing.

Etymology

The word "photography" was created from the Greek roots φωτός (phōtos), genitive of
φῶς (phōs), "light"[2] and γραφή (graphé) "representation by means of lines" or
"drawing",[3] together meaning "drawing with light".[4]

Several people may have coined the same new term from these roots
independently. Hercules Florence, a French painter and inventor living in
Campinas, Brazil, used the French form of the word, photographie, in private notes
which a Brazilian historian believes were written in 1834.[5] This claim is widely reported
but is not yet largely recognized internationally. The first use of the word by the Franco-
Brazilian inventor became widely known after the research of Boris Kossoy in 1980. [6]

The German newspaper Vossische Zeitung of 25 February 1839 contained an article

entitled Photographie, discussing several priority claims – especially Henry Fox Talbot's –
 20

regarding Daguerre's claim of invention.[7] The article is the earliest known occurrence of
the word in public print.[8] It was signed "J.M.", believed to have been Berlin
astronomer Johann von Maedler.[9] The astronomer Sir John Herschel is also credited
with coining the word, independent of Talbot, in 1839.[10]

The inventors Nicéphore Niépce, Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre seem not to have
known or used the word "photography", but referred to their processes as
"Heliography" (Niépce), "Photogenic Drawing"/"Talbotype"/"Calotype" (Talbot) and
"Daguerreotype" (Daguerre).[9]

History

Precursor technologies

Photography is the result of combining several technical discoveries, relating to seeing

an image and capturing the image. The discovery of the camera obscura ("dark
chamber" in Latin) that provides an image of a scene dates back to ancient China. Greek
mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid independently described a camera obscura in the
5th and 4th centuries BCE.[11][12] In the 6th century CE, Byzantine
mathematician Anthemius of Tralles used a type of camera obscura in his
experiments.[13]

The Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (965–1040) also invented a camera obscura
as well as the first true pinhole camera.[12][14][15] The invention of the camera has been
traced back to the work of Ibn al-Haytham.[16] While the effects of a single light passing
through a pinhole had been described earlier,[16] Ibn al-Haytham gave the first correct
analysis of the camera obscura,[17] including the first geometrical and quantitative
descriptions of the phenomenon,[18] and was the first to use a screen in a dark room so
that an image from one side of a hole in the surface could be projected onto a screen on
the other side.[19] He also first understood the relationship between the focal point and
the pinhole,[20] and performed early experiments with afterimages, laying the
foundations for the invention of photography in the 19th century.[15]

Leonardo da Vinci mentions natural camera obscura that are formed by dark caves on
the edge of a sunlit valley. A hole in the cave wall will act as a pinhole camera and
project a laterally reversed, upside down image on a piece of
paper. Renaissance painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical
rendering in color that dominates Western Art. It is a box with a hole in it which allows
light to go through and create an image onto the piece of paper.

The birth of photography was then concerned with inventing means to capture and
keep the image produced by the camera obscura. Albertus Magnus (1193–1280)
discovered silver nitrate,[21] and Georg Fabricius (1516–1571) discovered silver
chloride,[22] and the techniques described in Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics are capable
of producing primitive photographs using medieval materials.[23][24]
 21

Daniele Barbaro described a diaphragm in 1566.[25] Wilhelm Homberg described how

light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694.[26] The fiction
book Giphantie, published in 1760, by French author Tiphaigne de la Roche, described
what can be interpreted as photography.[25]

Around the year 1800, British inventor Thomas Wedgwood made the first known
attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive
substance. He used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. Although he
succeeded in capturing the shadows of objects placed on the surface in direct sunlight,
and even made shadow copies of paintings on glass, it was reported in 1802 that "the
images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in
any moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver." The shadow images eventually
darkened all over.[27]

Invention

The first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French
inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from
it.[28] Niépce was successful again in 1825. In 1826 or 1827, he made the View from the
Window at Le Gras, the earliest surviving photograph from nature (i.e., of the image of a
real-world scene, as formed in a camera obscura by a lens).[29]

Because Niépce's camera photographs required an extremely long exposure (at least
eight hours and probably several days), he sought to greatly improve
his bitumen process or replace it with one that was more practical. In partnership
with Louis Daguerre, he worked out post-exposure processing methods that produced
visually superior results and replaced the bitumen with a more light-sensitive resin, but
hours of exposure in the camera were still required. With an eye to eventual
commercial exploitation, the partners opted for total secrecy.

Niépce died in 1833 and Daguerre then redirected the experiments toward the light-
sensitive silver halides, which Niépce had abandoned many years earlier because of his
inability to make the images he captured with them light-fast and permanent.
Daguerre's efforts culminated in what would later be named the daguerreotype process.
The essential elements—a silver-plated surface sensitized by iodine vapor, developed
by mercury vapor, and "fixed" with hot saturated salt water—were in place in 1837. The
required exposure time was measured in minutes instead of hours. Daguerre took the
earliest confirmed photograph of a person in 1838 while capturing a view of a Paris
street: unlike the other pedestrian and horse-drawn traffic on the busy boulevard,
which appears deserted, one man having his boots polished stood sufficiently still
throughout the several-minutes-long exposure to be visible. The existence of Daguerre's
process was publicly announced, without details, on 7 January 1839. The news created
an international sensation. France soon agreed to pay Daguerre a pension in exchange
for the right to present his invention to the world as the gift of France, which occurred
when complete working instructions were unveiled on 19 August 1839. In that same
 22

year, American photographer Robert Cornelius is credited with taking the earliest
surviving photographic self-portrait.

In Brazil, Hercules Florence had apparently started working out a silver-salt-based paper
process in 1832, later naming it Photographie.

Meanwhile, a British inventor, William Fox Talbot, had succeeded in making crude but
reasonably light-fast silver images on paper as early as 1834 but had kept his work
secret. After reading about Daguerre's invention in January 1839, Talbot published his
hitherto secret method and set about improving on it. At first, like other pre-
daguerreotype processes, Talbot's paper-based photography typically required hours-
long exposures in the camera, but in 1840 he created the calotype process, which used
the chemical development of a latent image to greatly reduce the exposure needed and
compete with the daguerreotype. In both its original and calotype forms, Talbot's
process, unlike Daguerre's, created a translucent negative which could be used to print
multiple positive copies; this is the basis of most modern chemical photography up to
the present day, as Daguerreotypes could only be replicated by rephotographing them
with a camera.[30] Talbot's famous tiny paper negative of the Oriel window in Lacock
Abbey, one of a number of camera photographs he made in the summer of 1835, may
be the oldest camera negative in existence.[31][32]

In France, Hippolyte Bayard invented his own process for producing direct positive
paper prints and claimed to have invented photography earlier than Daguerre or
Talbot.[33]

British chemist John Herschel made many contributions to the new field. He invented
the cyanotype process, later familiar as the "blueprint". He was the first to use the
terms "photography", "negative" and "positive". He had discovered in 1819 that sodium
thiosulphate was a solvent of silver halides, and in 1839 he informed Talbot (and,
indirectly, Daguerre) that it could be used to "fix" silver-halide-based photographs and
make them completely light-fast. He made the first glass negative in late 1839.

In the March 1851 issue of The Chemist, Frederick Scott Archer published his wet
plate collodion process. It became the most widely used photographic medium until the
gelatin dry plate, introduced in the 1870s, eventually replaced it. There are three
subsets to the collodion process; the Ambrotype (a positive image on glass),
the Ferrotype or Tintype (a positive image on metal) and the glass negative, which was
used to make positive prints on albumen or salted paper.

Many advances in photographic glass plates and printing were made during the rest of
the 19th century. In 1891, Gabriel Lippmann introduced a process for making natural-
color photographs based on the optical phenomenon of the interference of light waves.
His scientifically elegant and important but ultimately impractical invention earned him
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908.
 23

Glass plates were the medium for most original camera photography from the late
1850s until the general introduction of flexible plastic films during the 1890s. Although
the convenience of the film greatly popularized amateur photography, early films were
somewhat more expensive and of markedly lower optical quality than their glass plate
equivalents, and until the late 1910s they were not available in the large formats
preferred by most professional photographers, so the new medium did not immediately
or completely replace the old. Because of the superior dimensional stability of glass, the
use of plates for some scientific applications, such as astrophotography, continued into
the 1990s, and in the niche field of laser holography, it has persisted into the 2010s.

Fil

Hurter and Driffield began pioneering work on the light sensitivity of photographic
emulsions in 1876. Their work enabled the first quantitative measure of film speed to be
devised.

The first flexible photographic roll film was marketed by George Eastman in 1885, but
this original "film" was actually a coating on a paper base. As part of the processing, the
image-bearing layer was stripped from the paper and transferred to a hardened gelatin
support. The first transparent plastic roll film followed in 1889. It was made from highly
flammable nitrocellulose ("celluloid"), now usually called "nitrate film".

Although cellulose acetate or "safety film" had been introduced by Kodak in 1908,[34] at
first it found only a few special applications as an alternative to the hazardous nitrate
film, which had the advantages of being considerably tougher, slightly more
transparent, and cheaper. The changeover was not completed for X-ray films until 1933,
and although safety film was always used for 16 mm and 8 mm home movies, nitrate
film remained standard for theatrical 35 mm motion pictures until it was finally
discontinued in 1951.

Films remained the dominant form of photography until the early 21st century when
advances in digital photography drew consumers to digital formats.[35] Although modern
photography is dominated by digital users, film continues to be used by enthusiasts and
professional photographers. The distinctive "look" of film based photographs compared
to digital images is likely due to a combination of factors, including: (1) differences in
spectral and tonal sensitivity (S-shaped density-to-exposure (H&D curve) with film vs.
linear response curve for digital CCD sensors)[36] (2) resolution and (3) continuity of
tone.[37]

Black-and-white

Originally, all photography was monochrome, or black-and-white. Even after color film
was readily available, black-and-white photography continued to dominate for decades,
due to its lower cost and its "classic" photographic look. The tones and contrast
 24

between light and dark areas define black-and-white photography.[38] It is important to

note that monochromatic pictures are not necessarily composed of pure blacks, whites,
and intermediate shades of gray but can involve shades of one particular hue depending
on the process. The cyanotype process, for example, produces an image composed of
blue tones. The albumen print process first used more than 170 years ago, produces
brownish tones.

Many photographers continue to produce some monochrome images, sometimes

because of the established archival permanence of well-processed silver-halide-based
materials. Some full-color digital images are processed using a variety of techniques to
create black-and-white results, and some manufacturers produce digital cameras that
exclusively shoot monochrome. Monochrome printing or electronic display can be used
to salvage certain photographs taken in color which are unsatisfactory in their original
form; sometimes when presented as black-and-white or single-color-toned images they
are found to be more effective. Although color photography has long predominated,
monochrome images are still produced, mostly for artistic reasons. Almost all digital
cameras have an option to shoot in monochrome, and almost all image editing software
can combine or selectively discard RGB color channels to produce a monochrome image
from one shot in color.

Color

Color photography was explored beginning in the 1840s. Early experiments in color
required extremely long exposures (hours or days for camera images) and could not
"fix" the photograph to prevent the color from quickly fading when exposed to white
light.

The first permanent color photograph was taken in 1861 using the three-color-
separation principle first published by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in
1855.[39][40] The foundation of virtually all practical color processes, Maxwell's idea was
to take three separate black-and-white photographs through red, green and
blue filters.[39][40] This provides the photographer with the three basic channels required
to recreate a color image. Transparent prints of the images could be projected through
similar color filters and superimposed on the projection screen, an additive method of
color reproduction. A color print on paper could be produced by superimposing carbon
prints of the three images made in their complementary colors, a subtractive method of
color reproduction pioneered by Louis Ducos du Hauron in the late 1860s.

Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii made extensive use of this

color separation technique, employing a special camera which successively exposed the
three color-filtered images on different parts of an oblong plate. Because his exposures
were not simultaneous, unsteady subjects exhibited color "fringes" or, if rapidly moving
through the scene, appeared as brightly colored ghosts in the resulting projected or
printed images.
 25

Implementation of color photography was hindered by the limited sensitivity of early

photographic materials, which were mostly sensitive to blue, only slightly sensitive to
green, and virtually insensitive to red. The discovery of dye sensitization by
photochemist Hermann Vogel in 1873 suddenly made it possible to add sensitivity to
green, yellow and even red. Improved color sensitizers and ongoing improvements in
the overall sensitivity of emulsions steadily reduced the once-prohibitive long exposure
times required for color, bringing it ever closer to commercial viability.

Autochrome, the first commercially successful color process, was introduced by

the Lumière brothers in 1907. Autochrome plates incorporated a mosaic color filter
layer made of dyed grains of potato starch, which allowed the three color components
to be recorded as adjacent microscopic image fragments. After an Autochrome plate
was reversal processed to produce a positive transparency, the starch grains served to
illuminate each fragment with the correct color and the tiny colored points blended
together in the eye, synthesizing the color of the subject by the additive method.
Autochrome plates were one of several varieties of additive color screen plates and
films marketed between the 1890s and the 1950s.

Kodachrome, the first modern "integral tripack" (or "monopack") color film, was
introduced by Kodak in 1935. It captured the three color components in a multi-
layer emulsion. One layer was sensitized to record the red-dominated part of
the spectrum, another layer recorded only the green part and a third recorded only the
blue. Without special film processing, the result would simply be three superimposed
black-and-white images, but complementary cyan, magenta, and yellow dye images
were created in those layers by adding color couplers during a complex processing
procedure.

Agfa's similarly structured Agfacolor Neu was introduced in 1936. Unlike Kodachrome,
the color couplers in Agfacolor Neu were incorporated into the emulsion layers during
manufacture, which greatly simplified the processing. Currently, available color films still
employ a multi-layer emulsion and the same principles, most closely resembling Agfa's
product.

Instant color film, used in a special camera which yielded a unique finished color print
only a minute or two after the exposure, was introduced by Polaroid in 1963.

Color photography may form images as positive transparencies, which can be used in
a slide projector, or as color negatives intended for use in creating positive color
enlargements on specially coated paper. The latter is now the most common form of
film (non-digital) color photography owing to the introduction of automated photo
printing equipment. After a transition period centered around 1995–2005, color film
was relegated to a niche market by inexpensive multi-megapixel digital cameras. Film
continues to be the preference of some photographers because of its distinctive "look".

Digital
 26

In 1981, Sony unveiled the first consumer camera to use a charge-coupled device for
imaging, eliminating the need for film: the Sony Mavica. While the Mavica saved images
to disk, the images were displayed on television, and the camera was not fully digital. In
1991, Kodak unveiled the DCS 100, the first commercially available digital single lens
reflex camera. Although its high cost precluded uses other than photojournalism and
professional photography, commercial digital photography was born.

Digital imaging uses an electronic image sensor to record the image as a set of electronic
data rather than as chemical changes on film.[41] An important difference between
digital and chemical photography is that chemical photography resists photo
manipulation because it involves film and photographic paper, while digital imaging is a
highly manipulative medium. This difference allows for a degree of image post-
processing that is comparatively difficult in film-based photography and permits
different communicative potentials and applications.

Digital photography dominates the 21st century. More than 99% of photographs taken
around the world are through digital cameras, increasingly through smartphones.

Synthesis

Synthesis photography is part of computer-generated imagery (CGI) where the shooting

process is modeled on real photography. The CGI, creating digital copies of real
universe, requires a visual representation process of these universes. Synthesis
photography is the application of analog and digital photography in digital space. With
the characteristics of the real photography but not being constrained by the physical
limits of real world, synthesis photography allows artists to move into areas beyond the
grasp of real photography.[42]

Techniques[e

Angles such as vertical, horizontal, or as pictured here diagonal are considered

important photographic techniques

A large variety of photographic techniques and media are used in the process of
capturing images for photography. These include the camera; stereoscopy;
dualphotography; full-spectrum, ultraviolet and infrared media; light field photography;
and other imaging techniques.

Cameras

The camera is the image-forming device, and a photographic plate, photographic film or
a silicon electronic image sensor is the capture medium. The respective recording
medium can be the plate or film itself, or a digital magnetic or electronic memory.[43]

Photographers control the camera and lens to "expose" the light recording material to
the required amount of light to form a "latent image" (on plate or film) or RAW file (in
digital cameras) which, after appropriate processing, is converted to a usable
image. Digital cameras use an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive
 27

electronics such as charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide-

semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The resulting digital image is stored electronically,
but can be reproduced on a paper.

The camera (or 'camera obscura') is a dark room or chamber from which, as far as
possible, all light is excluded except the light that forms the image. It was discovered
and used in the 16th century by painters. The subject being photographed, however,
must be illuminated. Cameras can range from small to very large, a whole room that is
kept dark while the object to be photographed is in another room where it is properly
illuminated. This was common for reproduction photography of flat copy when large
film negatives were used (see Process camera).

As soon as photographic materials became "fast" (sensitive) enough for taking candid or
surreptitious pictures, small "detective" cameras were made, some actually disguised as
a book or handbag or pocket watch (the Ticka camera) or even worn hidden behind
an Ascot necktie with a tie pin that was really the lens.

The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of
photographs on recording medium. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single
snapshot at a time, the movie camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame".
This is accomplished through an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played
back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames
per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures to
create the illusion of motion.[44]

Stereoscopic

Photographs, both monochrome and color, can be captured and displayed through two
side-by-side images that emulate human stereoscopic vision. Stereoscopic photography
was the first that captured figures in motion.[45] While known colloquially as "3-D"
photography, the more accurate term is stereoscopy. Such cameras have long been
realized by using film and more recently in digital electronic methods (including cell
phone cameras).

Dualphotography

Dualphotography consists of photographing a scene from both sides of a photographic

device at once (e.g. camera for back-to-back dualphotography, or two networked
cameras for portal-plane dualphotography). The dualphoto apparatus can be used to
simultaneously capture both the subject and the photographer, or both sides of a
geographical place at once, thus adding a supplementary narrative layer to that of a
single image.[46]

Full-spectrum, ultraviolet and infrared

Ultraviolet and infrared films have been available for many decades and employed in a
variety of photographic avenues since the 1960s. New technological trends in digital
 28

photography have opened a new direction in full spectrum photography, where careful
filtering choices across the ultraviolet, visible and infrared lead to new artistic visions.

Modified digital cameras can detect some ultraviolet, all of the visible and much of the
near infrared spectrum, as most digital imaging sensors are sensitive from about 350 nm
to 1000 nm. An off-the-shelf digital camera contains an infrared hot mirror filter that
blocks most of the infrared and a bit of the ultraviolet that would otherwise be detected
by the sensor, narrowing the accepted range from about 400 nm to 700 nm.[47]

Replacing a hot mirror or infrared blocking filter with an infrared pass or a wide
spectrally transmitting filter allows the camera to detect the wider spectrum light at
greater sensitivity. Without the hot-mirror, the red, green and blue (or cyan, yellow and
magenta) colored micro-filters placed over the sensor elements pass varying amounts of
ultraviolet (blue window) and infrared (primarily red and somewhat lesser the green
and blue micro-filters).

Uses of full spectrum photography are for fine art photography, geology, forensics and
law enforcement.

Light field

Digital methods of image capture and display processing have enabled the new
technology of "light field photography" (also known as synthetic aperture photography).
This process allows focusing at various depths of field to be selected after the
photograph has been captured.[48] As explained by Michael Faraday in 1846, the "light
field" is understood as 5-dimensional, with each point in 3-D space having attributes of
two more angles that define the direction of each ray passing through that point.

These additional vector attributes can be captured optically through the use of
microlenses at each pixel point within the 2-dimensional image sensor. Every pixel of
the final image is actually a selection from each sub-array located under each microlens,
as identified by a post-image capture focus algorithm.

Other[

Besides the camera, other methods of forming images with light are available. For
instance, a photocopy or xerography machine forms permanent images but uses the
transfer of static electrical charges rather than photographic medium, hence the
term electrophotography. Photograms are images produced by the shadows of objects
cast on the photographic paper, without the use of a camera. Objects can also be placed
directly on the glass of an image scanner to produce digital pictures.

Modes of production

Amateur
 29

An amateur photographer is one who practices photography as a hobby/passion and

not necessarily for profit. The quality of some amateur work is comparable to that of
many professionals and may be highly specialized or eclectic in choice of subjects.
Amateur photography is often pre-eminent in photographic subjects which have little
prospect of commercial use or reward. Amateur photography grew during the late 19th
century due to the popularization of the hand-held camera.[49] Nowadays it has spread
widely through social media and is carried out throughout different platforms and
equipment, switching to the use of cell phone. Good pictures can now be taken with a
cell phone which is a key tool for making photography more accessible to everyone.[50]

Commercial

Commercial photography is probably best defined as any photography for which the
photographer is paid for images rather than works of art. In this light, money could be
paid for the subject of the photograph or the photograph itself. Wholesale, retail, and
professional uses of photography would fall under this definition. The commercial
photographic world could include:

Advertising photography: photographs made to illustrate and usually sell a service or

product. These images, such as packshots, are generally done with an advertising
agency, design firm or with an in-house corporate design team.

Fashion and glamour photography usually incorporates models and is a form of

advertising photography. Fashion photography, like the work featured in Harper's
Bazaar, emphasizes clothes and other products; glamour emphasizes the model and
body form. Glamour photography is popular in advertising and men's magazines.
Models in glamour photography sometimes work nude.

360 product photography displays a series of photos to give the impression of a rotating
object. This technique is commonly used by ecommerce websites to help shoppers
visualise products.

Concert photography focuses on capturing candid images of both the artist or band as
well as the atmosphere (including the crowd). Many of these photographers work
freelance and are contracted through an artist or their management to cover a specific
show. Concert photographs are often used to promote the artist or band in addition to
the venue.

Crime scene photography consists of photographing scenes of crime such as robberies

and murders. A black and white camera or an infrared camera may be used to capture
specific details.

Still life photography usually depicts inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace
objects which may be either natural or man-made. Still life is a broader category for
food and some natural photography and can be used for advertising purposes.

Food photography can be used for editorial, packaging or advertising use. Food
photography is similar to still life photography but requires some special skills.
 30

Editorial photography illustrates a story or idea within the context of a magazine. These
are usually assigned by the magazine and encompass fashion and glamour photography
features.

Photojournalism can be considered a subset of editorial photography. Photographs

made in this context are accepted as a documentation of a news story.

Paparazzi is a form of photojournalism in which the photographer captures candid

images of athletes, celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people.

Portrait and wedding photography: photographs made and sold directly to the end user
of the images.

Landscape photography depicts locations.

Wildlife photography demonstrates the life of animals.

Pet photography involves several aspects that are similar to traditional studio portraits.
It can also be done in natural lighting, outside of a studio, such as in a client's home.

The market for photographic services demonstrates the aphorism "A picture is worth a
thousand words", which has an interesting basis in the history of photography.
Magazines and newspapers, companies putting up Web sites, advertising agencies and
other groups pay for photography.

Many people take photographs for commercial purposes. Organizations with a budget
and a need for photography have several options: they can employ a photographer
directly, organize a public competition, or obtain rights to stock photographs. Photo
stock can be procured through traditional stock giants, such as Getty Images or Corbis;
smaller microstock agencies, such as Fotolia; or web marketplaces, such as Cutcaster.

Art

During the 20th century, both fine art photography and documentary photography
became accepted by the English-speaking art world and the gallery system. In the
United States, a handful of photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward
Steichen, John Szarkowski, F. Holland Day, and Edward Weston, spent their lives
advocating for photography as a fine art. At first, fine art photographers tried to imitate
painting styles. This movement is called Pictorialism, often using soft focus for a dreamy,
'romantic' look. In reaction to that, Weston, Ansel Adams, and others formed the Group
f/64 to advocate 'straight photography', the photograph as a (sharply focused) thing in
itself and not an imitation of something else.

The aesthetics of photography is a matter that continues to be discussed regularly,

especially in artistic circles. Many artists argued that photography was the mechanical
reproduction of an image. If photography is authentically art, then photography in the
context of art would need redefinition, such as determining what component of a
photograph makes it beautiful to the viewer. The controversy began with the earliest
images "written with light"; Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, and others among the
 31

very earliest photographers were met with acclaim, but some questioned if their work
met the definitions and purposes of art.

Clive Bell in his classic essay Art states that only "significant form" can distinguish art
from what is not art.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing
which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless. What is this quality? What
quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? What quality is
common to Sta. Sophia and the windows at Chartres, Mexican sculpture, a Persian bowl,
Chinese carpets, Giotto's frescoes at Padua, and the masterpieces of Poussin, Piero della
Francesca, and Cezanne? Only one answer seems possible – significant form. In each,
lines and colors combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir
our aesthetic emotions.[51]

On 7 February 2007, Sotheby's London sold the 2001 photograph 99 Cent II

Diptychon for an unprecedented $3,346,456 to an anonymous bidder, making it the
most expensive at the time.[52]

Conceptual photography turns a concept or idea into a photograph. Even though what is
depicted in the photographs are real objects, the subject is strictly abstract.

Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a particular form of photography (the collecting, editing, and

presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that employs images in order
to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in
some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism
is distinguished from other close branches of photography (e.g., documentary
photography, social documentary photography, street photography or celebrity
photography) by complying with a rigid ethical framework which demands that the work
be both honest and impartial whilst telling the story in strictly journalistic terms.
Photojournalists create pictures that contribute to the news media, and help
communities connect with one other. Photojournalists must be well informed and
knowledgeable about events happening right outside their door. They deliver news in a
creative format that is not only informative, but also entertaining.

Science and forensics

The camera has a long and distinguished history as a means of recording scientific
phenomena from the first use by Daguerre and Fox-Talbot, such as astronomical events
(eclipses for example), small creatures and plants when the camera was attached to the
eyepiece of microscopes (in photomicroscopy) and for macro photography of larger
specimens. The camera also proved useful in recording crime scenes and the scenes of
accidents, such as the Wootton bridge collapse in 1861. The methods used in analysing
photographs for use in legal cases are collectively known as forensic photography. Crime
 32

scene photos are taken from three vantage point. The vantage points are overview, mid-
range, and close-up.[53]

In 1845 Francis Ronalds, the Honorary Director of the Kew Observatory, invented the
first successful camera to make continuous recordings of meteorological and
geomagnetic parameters. Different machines produced 12- or 24- hour photographic
traces of the minute-by-minute variations of atmospheric pressure,
temperature, humidity, atmospheric electricity, and the three components
of geomagnetic forces. The cameras were supplied to numerous observatories around
the world and some remained in use until well into the 20th century.[54][55] Charles
Brooke a little later developed similar instruments for the Greenwich Observatory.[56]

Science uses image technology that has derived from the design of the Pin Hole camera.
X-Ray machines are similar in design to Pin Hole cameras with high-grade filters and
laser radiation.[57] Photography has become universal in recording events and data in
science and engineering, and at crime scenes or accident scenes. The method has been
much extended by using other wavelengths, such as infrared
photography and ultraviolet photography, as well as spectroscopy. Those methods were
first used in the Victorian era and improved much further since that time.[58]

The first photographed atom was discovered in 2012 by physicists at Griffith University,
Australia. They used an electric field to trap an "Ion" of the element, Ytterbium. The
image was recorded on a CCD, an electronic photographic film.[59]

Social and cultural implications

Photography may be used both to capture reality and to produce a work of art.
While photo manipulation was often frowned upon at first, it was eventually used to
great extent to produce artistic effects. Nude composition 19 from 1988 by Jaan Künnap.

There are many ongoing questions about different aspects of photography. In her
writing "On Photography" (1977), Susan Sontag discusses concerns about the objectivity
of photography. This is a highly debated subject within the photographic
community.[60] Sontag argues, "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed.
It means putting one's self into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge,
and therefore like power."[61] Photographers decide what to take a photo of, what
elements to exclude and what angle to frame the photo, and these factors may reflect a
particular socio-historical context. Along these lines, it can be argued that photography
is a subjective form of representation.

Modern photography has raised a number of concerns on its effect on society. In Alfred
Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), the camera is presented as promoting voyeurism.
'Although the camera is an observation station, the act of photographing is more than
passive observing'.[61]

The camera doesn't rape or even possess, though it may presume, intrude, trespass,
distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate – all activities that,
 33

unlike the sexual push and shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with some
detachment.[61]

Digital imaging has raised ethical concerns because of the ease of manipulating digital
photographs in post-processing. Many photojournalists have declared they will
not crop their pictures or are forbidden from combining elements of multiple photos to
make "photomontages", passing them as "real" photographs. Today's technology has
made image editing relatively simple for even the novice photographer. However,
recent changes of in-camera processing allow digital fingerprinting of photos to detect
tampering for purposes of forensic photography.

Photography is one of the new media forms that changes perception and changes the
structure of society.[62] Further unease has been caused around cameras in regards to
desensitization. Fears that disturbing or explicit images are widely accessible to children
and society at large have been raised. Particularly, photos of war and pornography are
causing a stir. Sontag is concerned that "to photograph is to turn people into objects
that can be symbolically possessed." Desensitization discussion goes hand in hand with
debates about censored images. Sontag writes of her concern that the ability to censor
pictures means the photographer has the ability to construct reality.[61]

One of the practices through which photography constitutes society is tourism. Tourism
and photography combine to create a "tourist gaze"[63] in which local inhabitants are
positioned and defined by the camera lens. However, it has also been argued that there
exists a "reverse gaze"[64] through which indigenous photographees can position the
tourist photographer as a shallow consumer of images.

Additionally, photography has been the topic of many songs in popular culture.

Law

Photography is both restricted as well as protected by the law in many jurisdictions.

Protection of photographs is typically achieved through the granting of copyright or
moral rights to the photographer. In the United States, photography is protected as
a First Amendment right and anyone is free to photograph anything seen in public
spaces as long as it is in plain view.[65] In the UK a recent law (Counter-Terrorism Act
2008) increases the power of the police to prevent people, even press photographers,
from taking pictures in public places.[66] In South Africa, any person may photograph any
other person, without their permission, in public spaces and the only specific restriction
placed on what may not be photographed by government is related to anything classed
as national security. Each country has different laws.