METHODS OF INVESTIGATION

           DEVELOPMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY        

             The word photography, was in 1839 linked to Sir John Herschel. The word is derived from two Greek words. The first being photos meaning light with the second being graphe, meaning drawing or writing. Hence photography, literally means drawing with light.

                    Photography how ever came about due to several technical findings. For instance, way before the the first photographs,Mo Ti a ,Chinese philosopher, Greek mathematician, Aristotle and Euclid, described the pinhole camera in the fourth and fifth centuries. Also C.E. Byzantine mathematician, Anthenius of Trolles used a type of camera known as camera obscura in his experiments. Ibn al-Haythan also known as Alhazen, from 965c in Basra to 1040c in Cairo studied both the camera obscura and the pinhole camera. However , photography has a remote prehistoric origin from the combination of the camera obscura principle and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by their exposure to light.(the image below is an image of the camera obscura).

                  However in 1800 Thomas Wedgwood made the first attempt to put together these two

principles, in order to create permanent camera images. His attempts ended up unsuccessful and gave up on his research. Nicephore Niepce succeeded by using silver paper chloride,.Niepce developed the oldest image to be formed in a camera. His associate Louis Daguerre, also created the daguerre type process,which required only few minutes in the camera. He later made an over whelming discovery developing an invisibly latent image on a silver iodide plate by into a fully visible image by using mercury fumes. His process was now published in full on 19th August 1839 and this date was generally accepted as the birth of portrayal photography.This period of time is however known as the era of the MONOCHROME PROCESS. Apart from Niepce and Daguerre there also others such as William Henry Fox Talbot who was able to develop stabilized photographic negatives on paper in the year 1835 and later invented the calotype process which shared similarities with Daguerre's process. This era also experienced the likes of; Frederick Scott Archer who invented the collodion process and Herbert Bowyer Berkeley,he invented the platinotype.(below are images of the oldest image to be formed in a camera by Niepce(1) , the earliest photograph to include people by Daguerre , as well as other photographs developed in that era).    

 

                      After some time the COLOR PROCESS , was developed. Thomas Sutton was the first person to produce the first long lasting color photograph, in 1861.This was acheived by passing three black-and-white photographs through, red, green and blue filters similar to filters. The development of this era witnessed the likes of Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, Louis Ducos du Hauron and Charles Cros. The Autochrome in 1907 was the first method of color photography to be publicly introduced. It took its root from the discoveries and ideas of Louis Ducos du Hauron. It was a much simpler way of producing a color photograph. Instead of using three black-and-white photographs, as seen in the previous method, all you had to do was to get one black-and-white photograph, pass it through a mosaic of tiny color filters overlaid on emulsion and finally look through a similar mosaic to see the final outcome. This method was much more simple hence, making it easy and convenient to be used on a commercial level. The Kodachrome film was subsequently introduced. In 1935 it used 16 mm slides for home movies which increased to 35 mm slides in 1936. It combined red , blue and green colors arranged in three layers of emulsion. A more sophisticated technique was employed to produce other colors; cyan,magenta and yellow dye images the layers which brought about a subtractive color image. The Polachrome an instant slide film was introduced in 2003, it adopted principles from the Aurochrome in order to function. In our world today all film making prints and slides depend on various layers of emulsion, this method was initially used by Kodachrome.(the image below shows the first color photograph).

                    Finally a new era of photography was introduced to improve photography for ever. This era is known as the DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY era. It begun when Russell A. Kirsch of the Institute of Standards and Technology, invented  the binary digital version of an old invention , the wire photo drum scanner. His aim was to make it possible for alphanumeric characters, diagrams, photographs and other graphics to be copied into digital computer memory. Subsequently in 1969, the charge coupled device, was invented by Willard Boyle and George E. Smith,of AT & T  Bell Labs. This device was used in the first gnerational digital cameras to capture optoelectronic components. Willard and George started working on a picture phone and the creating of a semi conductor bubble memory. By the fusion of two distinctive ideas, they perceived the design of what they termed as Charge Bubble Devices. The main importance of the design was to have the ability to pass on charges along a surface of a semiconductor.. The C.C.D. is now been replaced by active pixel sensors A.P.S. this is commonly used in phone cameras.

                  Through the steady development of photography over years and decades, we can now express ourselves in so many ways and even share memorable event with our friends and loved once without necessarily being there.