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Photography is the
art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
, 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. Typically, a
lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...
is used to
focus Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based ...
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 Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
at each pixel, which is electronically processed and stored in a digital image file for subsequent display or processing. The result with
photographic emulsion Photographic emulsion is a light-sensitive colloid used in film-based photography. Most commonly, in silver-gelatin photography, it consists of silver halide crystals dispersed in gelatin. The emulsion is usually coated onto a substrate of glas ...
is an invisible latent image, which is later chemically "developed" into a visible image, either negative or
positive Positive is a property of positivity and may refer to: Mathematics and science * Positive formula, a logical formula not containing negation * Positive number, a number that is greater than 0 * Plus sign, the sign "+" used to indicate a posi ...
, 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 (''phōtós''), genitive of φῶς (''phōs''), "light" and γραφή (''graphé'') "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light". Several people may have coined the same new term from these roots independently. Hercules Florence, a French painter and inventor living in Campinas,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, used the French form of the word, ''photographie'', in private notes which a Brazilian historian believes were written in 1834. 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. The German newspaper ''Vossische Zeitung'' of 25 February 1839 contained an article entitled ''Photographie'', discussing several priority claims – especially Henry Fox Talbot's – regarding Daguerre's claim of invention. The article is the earliest known occurrence of the word in public print. It was signed "J.M.", believed to have been Berlin astronomer
Johann von Maedler Johann, typically a male given name, is the German form of ''Iohannes'', which is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Iōánnēs'' (), itself derived from Hebrew name ''Yochanan'' () in turn from its extended form (), meaning "Yahweh is Gracious" ...
. The astronomer Sir John Herschel is also credited with coining the word, independent of Talbot, in 1839. The inventors
Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he us ...
, Henry Fox Talbot, and
Louis Daguerre Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre ( , ; 18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photog ...
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).


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 A camera obscura (; ) is a darkened room with a small hole or lens at one side through which an image is projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole. ''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions such as a box or tent in w ...
("dark chamber" in
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
) 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. In the 6th century CE, Byzantine mathematician Anthemius of Tralles used a type of camera obscura in his experiments. The Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (965–1040) also invented a camera obscura as well as the first true
pinhole camera A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture (the so-called '' pinhole'')—effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image ...
. The invention of the camera has been traced back to the work of Ibn al-Haytham. While the effects of a single light passing through a pinhole had been described earlier, Ibn al-Haytham gave the first correct analysis of the camera obscura, including the first geometrical and quantitative descriptions of the phenomenon, 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. He also first understood the relationship between the focal point and the pinhole, and performed early experiments with
afterimage AfterImage is a Filipino rock band formed in 1986, best known for their songs "Habang May Buhay", "Next in Line", and "Mangarap Ka". They disbanded in 1997 and became active again in 2008 after they reunited and released their fourth studio alb ...
s, laying the foundations for the invention of photography in the 19th century. Leonardo da Vinci mentions natural camerae obscurae 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 The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
painters used the camera obscura which, in fact, gives the optical rendering in color that dominates Western Art. It is a box with a small hole in one side, which allows specific light rays to enter, projecting an inverted image onto a viewing screen or paper. The birth of photography was then concerned with inventing means to capture and keep the image produced by the camera obscura.
Albertus Magnus Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his li ...
(1193–1280) discovered silver nitrate, and Georg Fabricius (1516–1571) discovered silver chloride, and the techniques described in Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics are capable of producing primitive photographs using medieval materials.
Daniele Barbaro Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro (also Barbarus) (8 February 1514 – 13 April 1570) was an Italian cleric and diplomat. He was also an architect, writer on architecture, and translator of, and commentator on, Vitruvius. Barbaro's fame is chief ...
described a diaphragm in 1566. Gernsheim, Helmut (1986).
A concise history of photography
''. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 3–4.
Wilhelm Homberg Wilhelm Homberg (January 8, 1652 – September 24, 1715), also known as Guillaume Homberg in French, was a German natural philosopher. Life Wilhelm Homberg was the son of John Homberg, a Saxon gentleman, originally from Quedlinburg, who was stri ...
described how light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694. The fiction book '' Giphantie'', published in 1760, by French author Tiphaigne de la Roche, described what can be interpreted as photography. Around the year 1800,
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
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.


Invention

The first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor
Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he us ...
, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from it. Niépce was successful again in 1825. In 1826 or 1827, he made the ''
View from the Window at Le Gras ''View from the Window at Le Gras'' is a heliographic image and the oldest surviving camera photograph. It was created by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1827 in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France, and shows parts of the buildings and surroun ...
'', the earliest surviving photograph from nature (i.e., of the image of a real-world scene, as formed in a
camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is a darkened room with a small hole or lens at one side through which an image is projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole. ''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions such as a box or tent in w ...
by a
lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...
). 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 Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre ( , ; 18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photog ...
, 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 year, American photographer
Robert Cornelius Robert Cornelius (; March 1, 1809 – August 10, 1893) was an American photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He designed the photographic plate for the first photograph taken in the United States, an image of Central High Sc ...
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 British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
inventor,
William Fox Talbot William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE FRAS (; 11 February 180017 September 1877) was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 1 ...
, 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. Talbot's famous tiny paper negative of the Oriel window in
Lacock Abbey Lacock Abbey in the village of Lacock, Wiltshire, England, was founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order. The abbey remained a nunnery until the suppression of Roman Catholic inst ...
, one of a number of camera photographs he made in the summer of 1835, may be the oldest camera negative in existence. In France,
Hippolyte Bayard Hippolyte Bayard (20 January 1801 – 14 May 1887) was a French photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He invented his own process that produced direct positive paper prints in the camera and presented the world's first public e ...
invented his own process for producing direct positive paper prints and claimed to have invented photography earlier than Daguerre or Talbot. British chemist John Herschel made many contributions to the new field. He invented the
cyanotype The cyanotype (from Ancient Greek κυάνεος - ''kuáneos'', “dark blue” + τύπος - ''túpos'', “mark, impression, type”) is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet ...
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 Sodium thiosulfate (sodium thiosulphate) is an inorganic compound with the formula . Typically it is available as the white or colorless pentahydrate, . The solid is an efflorescent (loses water readily) crystalline substance that dissolves well ...
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 Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography, and were still used in some communities up until the late 20th century. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thinn ...
in late 1839. In the March 1851 issue of ''The Chemist'',
Frederick Scott Archer ] Frederick Scott Archer (1813 – 1 May 1857) was an English photographer and sculptor who is best known for having invented the photographic collodion process which preceded the modern gelatin emulsion. He was born in either Bishop's Stortfor ...
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 Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann (16 August 1845 – 13 July 1921) was a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference. ...
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. 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 Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1840, but it was no ...
, continued into the 1990s, and in the niche field of laser
holography Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...
, it has persisted into the 21st century.


Film

Hurter and Driffield Ferdinand Hurter (1844–1898) and Vero Charles Driffield (1848–1915) were nineteenth-century photographic scientists who brought quantitative scientific practice to photography through the methods of sensitometry and densitometry. Among the ...
began pioneering work on the
light sensitivity Photosensitivity is the amount to which an object reacts upon receiving photons, especially visible light. In medicine, the term is principally used for abnormal reactions of the skin, and two types are distinguished, photoallergy and phototoxicity ...
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 George Eastman (July 12, 1854March 14, 1932) was an American entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and helped to bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. He was a major philanthropist, establishing the Eastman ...
, founder of Kodak 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 known as nitrate film. Although
cellulose acetate In biochemistry, cellulose acetate refers to any acetate ester of cellulose, usually cellulose diacetate. It was first prepared in 1865. A bioplastic, cellulose acetate is used as a film base in photography, as a component in some coatings, and ...
or " safety film" had been introduced by Kodak in 1908, 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 An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10  picometers to 10  nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
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. 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), (2) resolution, and (3) continuity of tone.


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, chemical stability, and its "classic" photographic look. The tones and contrast between light and dark areas define black-and-white photography. Monochromatic pictures are not necessarily composed of pure blacks, whites, and intermediate shades of gray but can involve shades of one particular
hue In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that ...
depending on the process. The
cyanotype The cyanotype (from Ancient Greek κυάνεος - ''kuáneos'', “dark blue” + τύπος - ''túpos'', “mark, impression, type”) is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet ...
process, for example, produces an image composed of blue tones. The albumen print process, publicly revealed in 1847, produces brownish tones. Many
photographers A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...
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 A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...
have an option to shoot in monochrome, and almost all image editing software can combine or selectively discard
RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three addi ...
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. 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. 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 Plate may refer to: Cooking * Plate (dishware), a broad, mainly flat vessel commonly used to serve food * Plates, tableware, dishes or dishware used for setting a table, serving food and dining * Plate, the content of such a plate (for example: ...
. 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. 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 Kodachrome is the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and still photography. For many years Kodachrome was widely used ...
, 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 An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from café in Oslo, Norway. An Agfacolor slide dated 1937 from Paris, France. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Hungary. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 from Zakopane in Poland. An Agfacolor slide dated 1938 fr ...
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

In 1981, Sony unveiled the first consumer camera to use a
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
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. The first digital camera to both record and save images in a digital format was the Fujix DS-1P created by Fujfilm in 1988. 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 An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
to record the image as a set of electronic data rather than as chemical changes on film. 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.


Techniques

A large variety of photographic techniques and media are used in the process of capturing images for photography. These include the camera; 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 An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of c ...
is the capture medium. The respective recording medium can be the plate or film itself, or a digital magnetic or electronic memory. 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 A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...
use an electronic image sensor based on light-sensitive electronics such as
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(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 A camera obscura (; ) is a darkened room with a small hole or lens at one side through which an image is projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole. ''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions such as a box or tent in w ...
') 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 A process camera is a specialised form of camera used for the reproduction of graphic material. Before the advent of color scanners, color process work was undertaken by the process camera, by a skilled operator. This was achieved by using various ...
). 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 A movie camera (also known as a film camera and cine-camera) is a type of photographic camera that rapidly takes a sequence of photographs, either on an image sensor or onto film stock, in order to produce a moving image to project onto a movie sc ...
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.


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. 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.


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 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 A hot mirror is a specialized dielectric mirror, a dichroic filter, often employed to protect optical systems by reflecting infrared light back into a light source, while allowing visible light to pass. Hot mirrors can be designed to be inserted ...
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. 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 Fine-art photography is photography created in line with the vision of the photographer as artist, using photography as a medium for creative expression. The goal of fine-art photography is to express an idea, a message, or an emotion. This stand ...
, geology, forensics and law enforcement.


Layering

Layering is a photographic
composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
technique that manipulates the foreground, subject or middle-ground, and background layers in a way that they all work together to tell a story through the image. Layers may be incorporated by altering the focal length, distorting the perspective by positioning the camera in a certain spot. People, movement, light and a variety of objects can be used in layering.


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. As explained by Michael Faraday in 1846, the "
light field The light field is a vector function that describes the amount of light flowing in every direction through every point in space. The space of all possible '' light rays'' is given by the five-dimensional plenoptic function, and the magnitude of e ...
" 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 Xerography is a dry photocopying technique. Originally called electrophotography, it was renamed xerography—from the roots el, ξηρός, label=none ''xeros'', meaning "dry" and -γραφία ''-graphia'', meaning "writing"—to emphasize ...
.
Photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...
s 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.


Types


Amateur

Amateur photographers take photos for personal use, as a
hobby A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...
or out of casual interest, rather than as a business or job. The quality of amateur work can be comparable to that of many professionals. Amateurs can fill a gap in subjects or topics that might not otherwise be photographed if they are not commercially useful or salable. Amateur photography grew during the late 19th century due to the popularization of the hand-held camera. Twenty-first century social media and near-ubiquitous camera phones have made photographic and video recording pervasive in everyday life. In the mid-2010s smartphone cameras added numerous automatic assistance features like
color management In digital imaging systems, color management (or colour management) is the controlled conversion between the color representations of various devices, such as image scanners, digital cameras, monitors, TV screens, film printers, computer printer ...
,
autofocus An autofocus (or AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system ...
face detection Face detection is a computer technology being used in a variety of applications that identifies human faces in digital images. Face detection also refers to the psychological process by which humans locate and attend to faces in a visual scene. ...
and image stabilization that significantly decreased skill and effort needed to take high quality images.


Commercial

Commercial photography is probably best defined as any photography for which the photographer is paid for images rather than
works of art A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
. 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 A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
or with an in-house corporate design team. * Architectural photography focuses on capturing photographs of buildings and architectural structures that are aesthetically pleasing and accurate in terms of representations of their subjects. * Event photography focuses on photographing guests and occurrences at mostly social events. * 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 magazine This is a list of magazines primarily marketed to men. The list has been split into subcategories according to the target audience of the magazines. This list includes mostly mainstream magazines as well as Adult magazine, adult ones. Not include ...
s. 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. * Real Estate photography focuses on the production of photographs showcasing a property that is for sale, such photographs requires the use of wide-lens and extensive knowledge in High-dynamic-range imaging photography. * Food photography can be used for editorial, packaging or advertising use. Food photography is similar to still life photography but requires some special skills. * 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 wild animals.


Art

During the 20th century, both
fine art photography Fine-art photography is photography created in line with the vision of the photographer as artist, using photography as a medium for creative expression. The goal of fine-art photography is to express an idea, a message, or an emotion. This stand ...
and
documentary photography Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional pho ...
became accepted by the English-speaking art world and the
gallery Gallery or The Gallery may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Art gallery ** Contemporary art gallery Music * Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s Albums * ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album * ''Gallery'' (Gr ...
system. In the United States, a handful of photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen,
John Szarkowski Thaddeus John Szarkowski (December 18, 1925 – July 7, 2007) was an American photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the director of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Early life and ca ...
, 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 Pictorialism is an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no standard definition of the term, but in general it refers to a style in which the photographer ha ...
, often using
soft focus In photography, soft focus is a lens flaw, in which the lens forms images that are blurred due to spherical aberration. A soft focus lens deliberately introduces spherical aberration in order to give the appearance of blurring the image while ...
for a dreamy, 'romantic' look. In reaction to that, Weston, Ansel Adams, and others formed the
Group f/64 Group 64 or f.64 was a group founded by seven 20th-century San Francisco Bay Area photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharply focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpo ...
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 Beautiful, an adjective used to describe things as possessing beauty, may refer to: Film and theater * ''Beautiful'' (2000 film), an American film directed by Sally Field * ''Beautiful'' (2008 film), a South Korean film directed by Juhn Jai-h ...
to the viewer. The controversy began with the earliest images "written with light";
Nicéphore Niépce Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he us ...
,
Louis Daguerre Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre ( , ; 18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was a French artist and photographer, recognized for his invention of the eponymous daguerreotype process of photography. He became known as one of the fathers of photog ...
, and others among the very earliest photographers were met with acclaim, but some questioned if their work met the definitions and purposes of art.
Clive Bell Arthur Clive Heward Bell (16 September 1881 – 17 September 1964) was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. He developed the art theory known as significant form. Biography Origins Bell was born in East S ...
in his classic essay ''Art'' states that only "significant form" can distinguish art from what is not art. 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.
Conceptual photography Conceptual photography is a type of photography that illustrates an idea. There have been illustrative photographs made since the medium's invention, for example in the earliest staged photographs, such as Hippolyte Bayard's ''Self Portrait as ...
turns a concept or idea into a photograph. Even though what is depicted in the photographs are real objects, the subject is strictly abstract. In parallel to this development, the then largely separate interface between painting and photography was closed in the early 1970s with the work of the photo artists Pierre Cordier (Chimigramm), Chemigram and Josef H. Neumann, Chemogram. In 1974 the chemograms by Josef H. Neumann concluded the separation of the painterly background and the photographic layer by showing the picture elements in a symbiosis that had never existed before, as an unmistakable unique specimen, in a simultaneous painterly and at the same time real photographic perspective, using lenses, within a photographic layer, united in colors and shapes. This Neumann chemogram from the seventies of the 20th century thus differs from the beginning of the previously created cameraless chemigrams of a Pierre Cordier and the
photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...
Man Ray or
László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...
of the previous decades. These works of art were almost simultaneous with the invention of photography by various important artists who characterized
Hippolyte Bayard Hippolyte Bayard (20 January 1801 – 14 May 1887) was a French photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He invented his own process that produced direct positive paper prints in the camera and presented the world's first public e ...
, Thomas Wedgwood,
William Henry Fox Talbot William Henry Fox Talbot FRS FRSE Royal Astronomical Society, FRAS (; 11 February 180017 September 1877) was an English scientist, inventor, and photography pioneer who invented the Salt print, salted paper and calotype processes, precursors t ...
in their early stages, and later Man Ray and
László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...
in the twenties and by the painter in the thirties Edmund Kesting and Christian Schad by draping objects directly onto appropriately sensitized photo paper and using a light source without a camera.


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 Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional pho ...
, social documentary photography,
street photography Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and ca ...
or
celebrity photography Celebrity photography is a subset of photojournalism where the subjects are celebrities in the arts, sports and sometimes politics. There are three main types of celebrity photographs used by magazines and newspapers: event photography, celebrity p ...
) 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, including
sports photography Sports photography refers to the genre of photography that covers all types of sports. In the majority of cases, professional sports photography is a branch of ''photojournalism,'' while amateur sports photography, such as photos of childre ...
.


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 scene A crime scene is any location that may be associated with a committed crime. Crime scenes contain physical evidence that is pertinent to a criminal investigation. This evidence is collected by crime scene investigators (CSI) and law enforcemen ...
s 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 Forensic photography may refer to the visual documentation of different aspects that can be found at a crime scene. It may include the documentation of the crime scene, or physical evidence that is either found at a crime scene or already proce ...
. Crime scene photos are taken from three vantage point. The vantage points are overview, mid-range, and close-up. In 1845
Francis Ronalds Sir Francis Ronalds FRS (21 February 17888 August 1873) was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first electrical engineer. He was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph over a substantial distance. In 1816 ...
, the Honorary Director of the
Kew Observatory The King's Observatory (called for many years the Kew Observatory) is a Grade I listed building in Richmond, London. Now a private dwelling, it formerly housed an astronomical and terrestrial magnetic observatory founded by King George III. T ...
, 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 Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equivalent to 1013.25 millibars, ...
, temperature, humidity,
atmospheric electricity Atmospheric electricity is the study of electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electr ...
, 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. Charles Brooke a little later developed similar instruments for the
Greenwich Observatory The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in G ...
. Science uses image technology that has derived from the design of the Pin Hole camera.
X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10  picometers to 10  nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
machines are similar in design to Pin Hole cameras with high-grade filters and laser radiation. Photography has become universal in recording events and data in science and engineering, and at
crime scene A crime scene is any location that may be associated with a committed crime. Crime scenes contain physical evidence that is pertinent to a criminal investigation. This evidence is collected by crime scene investigators (CSI) and law enforcemen ...
s or accident scenes. The method has been much extended by using other wavelengths, such as
infrared photography ''Top:'' tree photographed in the near infrared range. ''Bottom:'' same tree in the Visible spectrum, visible part of the spectrum. In infrared photography, the photographic film, film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light ...
and
ultraviolet photography Ultraviolet photography is a photographic process of recording images by using radiation from the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum only. Images taken with ultraviolet radiation serve a number of scientific, medical or artistic purposes. Images may rev ...
, as well as spectroscopy. Those methods were first used in the Victorian era and improved much further since that time. 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.


Wildlife photography

Wildlife photography involves capturing images of various forms of wildlife. Unlike other forms of photography such as product or food photography, successful wildlife photography requires a photographer to choose the right place and right time when specific wildlife are present and active. It often requires great patience and considerable skill and command of the right photographic equipment.


Social and cultural implications

There are many ongoing questions about different aspects of photography. In her '' On Photography'' (1977), Susan Sontag dismisses the objectivity of photography. This is a highly debated subject within the photographic community. 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."Sontag, S. (1977) '' On Photography'', Penguin, London, pp. 3–24, . 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 ''Rear Window'' is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film st ...
'' (1954), the camera is presented as promoting voyeurism. 'Although the camera is an observation station, the act of photographing is more than passive observing'.
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, unlike the sexual push and shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with some detachment.
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 "
photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final image ...
s", passing them as "real" photographs. Today's technology has made
image editing Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as a ...
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 Forensic photography may refer to the visual documentation of different aspects that can be found at a crime scene. It may include the documentation of the crime scene, or physical evidence that is either found at a crime scene or already proce ...
. Photography is one of the
new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...
forms that changes perception and changes the structure of society. 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. One of the practices through which photography constitutes society is tourism. Tourism and photography combine to create a "tourist gaze" in which local inhabitants are positioned and defined by the camera lens. However, it has also been argued that there exists a "reverse gaze" through which indigenous photographees can position the tourist photographer as a shallow consumer of images.


Law

Photography is both restricted and 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. 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. 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.


See also

* Outline of photography * Science of photography * List of photographers * List of photography awards *
Astrophotography Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1840, but it was no ...
*
Image editing Image editing encompasses the processes of altering images, whether they are digital photographs, traditional photo-chemical photographs, or illustrations. Traditional analog image editing is known as photo retouching, using tools such as a ...
*
Imaging Imaging is the representation or reproduction of an object's form; especially a visual representation (i.e., the formation of an image). Imaging technology is the application of materials and methods to create, preserve, or duplicate images. ...
* Photolab and minilab * Visual arts


References


Further reading


Introduction

* Barrett, T 2012, Criticizing Photographs: an introduction to understanding images, 5th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York. * Bate, D. (2009), Photography: The Key Concepts, Bloomsbury, New York. * Berger, J. (Dyer, G. ed.), (2013), Understanding a Photograph, Penguin Classics, London. * Bright, S 2011, Art Photography Now, Thames & Hudson, London. * Cotton, C. (2015), The Photograph as Contemporary Art, 3rd edn, Thames & Hudson, New York. * Heiferman, M. (2013), Photography Changes Everything, Aperture Foundation, US. * Shore, S. (2015), The Nature of Photographs, 2nd ed. Phaidon, New York. * Wells, L. (2004), ''Photography. A Critical Introduction'' aperback 3rd ed. Routledge, London.


History

* ''A New History of Photography'', ed. by Michel Frizot, Köln : Könemann, 1998 * Franz-Xaver Schlegel, ''Das Leben der toten Dinge – Studien zur modernen Sachfotografie in den USA 1914–1935'', 2 Bände, Stuttgart/Germany: Art in Life 1999, .


Reference works

* * Hans-Michael Koetzle: ''Das Lexikon der Fotografen: 1900 bis heute'', Munich: Knaur 2002, 512 p., * John Hannavy (ed.): ''Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography'', 1736 p., New York: Routledge 2005 * Lynne Warren (Hrsg.): ''Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography'', 1719 p., New York: Routledge, 2006 * ''The Oxford Companion to the Photograph'', ed. by Robin Lenman, Oxford University Press 2005 * "The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography", Richard Zakia, Leslie Stroebel, Focal Press 1993, *


Other books

* ''Photography and The Art of Seeing'' by Freeman Patterson, Key Porter Books 1989, . * ''The Art of Photography:'' An Approach to Personal Expression by Bruce Barnbaum, Rocky Nook 2010, . * ''Image Clarity: High Resolution Photography'' by John B. Williams, Focal Press 1990, .


External links


World History of Photography
From The History of Art.
Daguerreotype to Digital: A Brief History of the Photographic Process
From the State Library & Archives of Florida. {{Authority control French inventions 19th-century inventions Imaging Audiovisual introductions in 1822