Portal:Photography
The Photography Portal
The first photograph was an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea but for centuries images had been projected onto surfaces - artists used the camera obscura and camera lucida to trace scenes as early as the 16th century. These early "cameras" did not fix an image, but only projected images from an opening in the wall of a darkened room onto a surface, turning the room into a large pinhole camera.
The advent of photography, from the Ancient Greek words φως phos ("light"), and γραφη graphê ("stylus", "paintbrush") or γραφω graphō (the verb, "I write/draw"), together meaning "drawing with light" or "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", has gained the interest of scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge's study of human and animal locomotion (1887). Artists are equally interested in these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement. Military, police and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used to preserve favorite memories and as a source of entertainment.
Selected picture
Orbital telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope enable high-resolution unobstructed views of the cosmos. The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51a) shown here is a classic spiral galaxy located in the Canes Venatici constellation. Photo Credit: NASA, ESA
Selected biography
Riis held various jobs before he landed a position as a police reporter in 1873 with the New York Evening Sun newspaper. In 1874, he joined the news bureau of the Brooklyn News. In 1877 he served as police reporter, this time for the New York Tribune. During these stints as a police reporter, Riis worked the most crime-ridden and impoverished slums of the city.[2] Through his own experiences in the poor houses, and witnessing the conditions of the poor in the city slums, he decided to make a difference for those who had no voice.[1] He was one of the first Americans to use flash powder, allowing his documentation of New York City slums to penetrate the dark of night, and helping him capture the hardships faced by the poor and criminal along his police beats, especially on the notorious Mulberry Street. In 1889, Scribner's Magazine published Riis's photographic essay on city life, which Riis later expanded to create his magnum opus How the Other Half Lives.[3] This work was directly responsible for convincing then-Commissioner of Police Theodore Roosevelt to close the police-run poor houses in which Riis suffered during his first months as an American. After reading it, Roosevelt was so deeply moved by Riis's sense of justice that he met Riis and befriended him for life, calling him "the best American I ever knew."[3] Roosevelt himself coined the term "muckraking journalism", of which Riis is a recognized protagonist, in 1906.[2]
Did you know
- ...that the first real zoom lens, which retained near-sharp focus while the effective focal length of the lens assembly was changed, was patented in 1902 by Clile C. Allen (U.S. Patent 696,788)?
Quotes
| “ | The camera has interesting ideas of its own. | ” |
Selected article
Kodachrome is a brand of color transparency (slide) film sold by Kodak. Kodachrome was invented by Leopold Godowsky, Jr. and Leopold Mannes. It was first sold as 16 mm movie film in 1935, and as 8 mm movie film and 135 film in 1936. Kodachrome is the oldest successfully mass-marketed color still film using a subtractive method). Kodachrome has been through many incarnations and undergone four major developing process changes over the years; the current is the K-14 process.
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