Evolution Of Photography Research Paper

Although the basic concept of photography has been around since fifth century B.C, the beginnings of the camera date back to the early 1800s when people began using various light-sensitive substances to produce images. In the 1820s, an inventor named Joseph Nicephore Niépce started to us light in order to produce the etchings and lithographs that he desired, calling it a heliograph. Along with Niépce, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre joined in the efforts to secure images by light in a camera. Together, they created a variant of the heliograph that used rosin on silver plates. Due to this process being very slow, Daguerre went on to discover that “a silver iodide plate required only a fraction of the exposure time and that an invisible image could

be revealed by exposing the plate to mercury fumes. Instead of requiring an exposure of hours, the new process required only minutes”.

As a result of these ideas, he created the daguerreotype. This invention is very significant because it caused the industry to flourish and it “was being used commercially in every industrialized nation by the late 1840s”. Although these daguerreotypes were small and hard to copy, they were still a milestone in the development of photography. The daguerreotype allowed for the portraits of many important figures in society to be taken. This influenced the average person during the time to get their own portraits taken as well (Osterman 28).

After the expansion of the daguerreotype, many efforts continued in order to improve the process of taking photographs. By the 1850’s, people were using a wet plate process that sensitized collodion film while still wet and then exposed in a camera. This process “reduced exposure times by half and made portraits in the studio

possible”. Along with this, it also helped artists understand the negative and positive process. During this time that wet plates were in use, “great photographic journals such as Photography News, The British Journal of Photography, and La Lumiere were introduced.” Along with this, many photographic societies and clubs were established. It is unfortunate that despite the increase in attention and accessibility that photography experiences, it was still not a very well received art form during this time. Instead, people believe that it was a shortcut to drawing and painting. Therefore, critics failed to take photography seriously and acknowledge the great work that was produced. Following the use of the wet plate, the development of silver gelatin emulsions began in the late quarter of the 19th century, also known as the modern era of photography. These gelatin plates were important because they “could be relied upon at any time and developed later at a more convenient location”. It is important to note that in the 1880’s, gelatin plates led to the use of film and the start of the Kodak company. The box camera created by Kodak is significant because it allowed photography to become more accessible to the common person. Suddenly, there was no longer a need to go to a professional for photographs. At last, “photographs were common and available in a wide range of sizes on a variety of photographic papers” (Osterman 31-35).
With the evolvement of many new technologies regarding the camera and photo developing, there also came a shift in photography’s role in society. In the “late nineteenth-century, national magazines, professional journals, and gazettes provided an outlet to showcase photographs” (Szto 93). This is notable because at this point, photography grew to become a more accepted form of art. Instead of using it for portraits only, photographers now wanted to show off their work in a public manner. Many people were inspired by the ability to capture the world and environments around them. Before the use of photography, things were only able to be described using words. Szto states that, “prior to the advent of photography, social critic has relied on the perspicuity of words to describe and analyze social problems. If and when print media did report on social issues, graphs and drawings were used to supplement words rather than replace them” (94). This shows that media was largely effected by the developments in photography because it gave them the new ability to visualize their news to viewers.
One effect that visualized news through photography has had on our society is the communication of social issues to a large audience.

According to Szto, “Conceptualizing social problems based on empirical evidence, rather than in moral and religious categories, positioned photography to affect change because of its straightforward and truth-feeling qualities” (95). This shows that photography is capable of creating social change through the reality that it creates. It is interested to see how this affects social welfare provision within our country. Many “social welfare leaders were attracted to communicating social problems to a mass audience” (Szto 94). This is important because the images created by these leaders had a large effect on viewers. Through photography, the rich were able to see how the poor were living. Due to this, the lives of the poor were put into reality but those who were blind to it before. In addition, it has been used to evoke compassion within an individual. This is described by Szto when he states that “the camera’s ability to elicit an emotive connection between image and viewer was remarkably similar to how the human mind perceived and recorded events” (96). These emotions evoked through photography have helped shape the social situations that we have

today.
One specific time period in history when photography had a great effect on the social issues in society was throughout the mid-nineteenth century. During this time, “rapid urbanization and rampant industrialization were wreaking economic and social havoc on millions of Americans. The social effect of this phenomenon created an experimental and perceptual chasm among citizens” (Szto 92). This statement shows that there was a lot of divide among the rich and the poor due to the Great Depression in the United States. Photographers spread all around in order to capture this divide and show the rich how the poor were living. This sort of documentary was brutally honest and “challenged the public’s perception of America’s social well-being” (Szto 106). In these types of situations, it is common for people to subconsciously perceive a situation in a more positive light and believe that everything will work itself out and be okay. Therefore, it is essential that these photographs were created in order to display the hardships that the economy caused. Because the Great Depression was the first largely documented crisis, Americans began to shift from a reading-oriented society to a visual one. Without the use of documentary photography, the United States may have never seen the realities of the situation they were presented with.