Cave paintings are the earliest evidence of sentient Man and also show that we are, and always have been, a visual species. The hunters chasing mammoths and bison over the plains tell a story and we, thousands of years later, can still understand it. The power and simplicity of the image has transcended language and experiences and thousands of years. Our eyes are the main receptors of the world and images, whether the live images of real events we see around us or pictures we look at, arrive unfiltered in our minds. Writing has been a mere blip by comparison and relies on the shapes and symbols being interpreted before it can be understood. 
Images have always played a powerful role in conveying ideas, asserting power and maintaining tradition. One has only to look at some of the great art produced over the centuries to see that imagery has a very powerful effect on the viewer. When we remember, we tend to remember in images, flashing in our minds. If they are our own memories, they will be our own images. If we are remembering something we have been told or taught, we will recall the iconic images that we were given at the time. From Jesus to Che Guevara, images control our memories and thus our feelings.
Sometimes, when we study great inventions through history, they appear to have popped up out of nowhere and created a market or fulfilled a need that nobody was even aware of. Many times national cultures us these inventions - and the inventors - as examples of how clever/ resourceful their people are. In Britain inventors created the industrial revolution, in America, they conquered the land built a huge economic power. But I believe that most inventions have been created due to a specific need and that is why I think photography was inevitable.
Anyone who has tried to instruct somebody over the phone knows how ambiguous language can be and anyone who has been bamboozled by an image that could be a vase or two faces knows the limitations of language and images on their own. However when words and pictures are used together, their meaning is a lot clearer. It was natural that scientists would look for ways to illustrate their books and papers, particularly as their experiments became more complicated and the ideas behind them more complex.
Scientists could have drawn or painted the images themselves - there is a strong tradition of artist scientists - or have the illustrations done for them. But the problem with drawings or paintings is that they are completed after the fact and so open to post rationalization. Ideally these images had to be produced contemporaneously. They needed to record the experiment as it happened. The camera obscura had already been around for thousands of years. All that was needed was a way of capturing the image it produced.
Chemistry was behind the development of photography and so it isn't surprising to learn that the earliest pioneers came from a metallurgy or scientific background. In the 1720s it was discovered that that light could have an effect on a mixture of chalk and silver nitrate. A century later frenchman Joseph Nicphore Nipce created the first photograph, "View from the Window at Le Gras". He captured the image with a camera obscura focused onto a sheet of oil-treated bitumen. The exposure time was 8 hours. He was introduced to Louis Daguerre, and they went on to develop the process further. After the death of Nipce, Daguerre won fame as the man who invented the photography.
The first known photographic portrait dates back to 1839 - a self portrait of Robert Cornelius using the daguerreotype process. He was originally a metal polisher, who worked with his father, specializing in silver plating. The daguerreotype process uses silver on a copper plate and Cornelius combined his knowledge of metallurgy and chemistry to try to improve the process. This self-portrait of Robert Cornelius is one of the first photographs of a human to be produced. Cornelius operated two of the earliest photographic studios in the U.S. between 1841 and 1843, but realized that he could make more money at the family gas and lighting company and lost interest.
Whilst there are plenty of famous paintings that depict quiet solitude and pastoral scenes, artists have always been attracted to high drama. War and conflict provide the sort of backdrop that naturally appeal to the curious eye. Roger Fenton was one of the first men to photograph conflict when he provided the public with a unique insight into the Crimean war. He was sent by the British government as an official war photographer, their intention being to use the pictures as propaganda. Due to the limitations of early photography there were no 'action pictures'. All the pictures were either landscapes or posed. He avoided taking pictures of dead or injured soldiers. But his photographs gave the public back in England an idea of what their troops were experiencing in southern Russia.
A few years later that taboo was broken during the American Civil war. Photographers like Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan followed the troops from battle to battle and recorded the aftermath. Gardner's famous picture ' The home of the rebel sharpshooter' shocked the nation when it was published just after the war in1866. It began the tradition of war photography, which ever since has strived to tell the hardship and misery of war.
Images have always played a powerful role in conveying ideas, asserting power and maintaining tradition. One has only to look at some of the great art produced over the centuries to see that imagery has a very powerful effect on the viewer. When we remember, we tend to remember in images, flashing in our minds. If they are our own memories, they will be our own images. If we are remembering something we have been told or taught, we will recall the iconic images that we were given at the time. From Jesus to Che Guevara, images control our memories and thus our feelings.
Sometimes, when we study great inventions through history, they appear to have popped up out of nowhere and created a market or fulfilled a need that nobody was even aware of. Many times national cultures us these inventions - and the inventors - as examples of how clever/ resourceful their people are. In Britain inventors created the industrial revolution, in America, they conquered the land built a huge economic power. But I believe that most inventions have been created due to a specific need and that is why I think photography was inevitable.
Anyone who has tried to instruct somebody over the phone knows how ambiguous language can be and anyone who has been bamboozled by an image that could be a vase or two faces knows the limitations of language and images on their own. However when words and pictures are used together, their meaning is a lot clearer. It was natural that scientists would look for ways to illustrate their books and papers, particularly as their experiments became more complicated and the ideas behind them more complex.
Scientists could have drawn or painted the images themselves - there is a strong tradition of artist scientists - or have the illustrations done for them. But the problem with drawings or paintings is that they are completed after the fact and so open to post rationalization. Ideally these images had to be produced contemporaneously. They needed to record the experiment as it happened. The camera obscura had already been around for thousands of years. All that was needed was a way of capturing the image it produced.
Chemistry was behind the development of photography and so it isn't surprising to learn that the earliest pioneers came from a metallurgy or scientific background. In the 1720s it was discovered that that light could have an effect on a mixture of chalk and silver nitrate. A century later frenchman Joseph Nicphore Nipce created the first photograph, "View from the Window at Le Gras". He captured the image with a camera obscura focused onto a sheet of oil-treated bitumen. The exposure time was 8 hours. He was introduced to Louis Daguerre, and they went on to develop the process further. After the death of Nipce, Daguerre won fame as the man who invented the photography.
The first known photographic portrait dates back to 1839 - a self portrait of Robert Cornelius using the daguerreotype process. He was originally a metal polisher, who worked with his father, specializing in silver plating. The daguerreotype process uses silver on a copper plate and Cornelius combined his knowledge of metallurgy and chemistry to try to improve the process. This self-portrait of Robert Cornelius is one of the first photographs of a human to be produced. Cornelius operated two of the earliest photographic studios in the U.S. between 1841 and 1843, but realized that he could make more money at the family gas and lighting company and lost interest.
Whilst there are plenty of famous paintings that depict quiet solitude and pastoral scenes, artists have always been attracted to high drama. War and conflict provide the sort of backdrop that naturally appeal to the curious eye. Roger Fenton was one of the first men to photograph conflict when he provided the public with a unique insight into the Crimean war. He was sent by the British government as an official war photographer, their intention being to use the pictures as propaganda. Due to the limitations of early photography there were no 'action pictures'. All the pictures were either landscapes or posed. He avoided taking pictures of dead or injured soldiers. But his photographs gave the public back in England an idea of what their troops were experiencing in southern Russia.
A few years later that taboo was broken during the American Civil war. Photographers like Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan followed the troops from battle to battle and recorded the aftermath. Gardner's famous picture ' The home of the rebel sharpshooter' shocked the nation when it was published just after the war in1866. It began the tradition of war photography, which ever since has strived to tell the hardship and misery of war.
About the Author:
Andy Pinkham has worked in the photographic industry for over twenty years. He has a particular interest in digital photography and good cameras. Find out more about the best digital SLR cameras on his website, Camerawize and get greatadviceon how to improve your photography.
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