Until Proven Otherwise - The First Photos

Francesca Seravalle

[thefirstphotos]

The First Instant Photo (Polaroid). 1 - Test photo of Edwin Herbert Land, inventor, on March 13th 1944. 2 - Scan of the patent. 3 - Demonstration of Land at OSA

Land conceived the idea of an instant camera on a vacation in New Mexico late in 1943 in response to Jennifer, his 3-year-old daughter’s bewilderment at why a camera could not instantly produce pictures. 

After a few early successes developing polarizing filters for sunglasses and photographic filters, Land obtained funding from a series of Walls Street investors for further expansion. The company was renamed the Polaroid Corporation in 1937. On February 21st of 1947, Land was ready to unveil the prototype. Showing the model at a meeting for the Optical Society of America, the new camera amazed the audience members.  From there it was still a year and a half before the camera was released to the public.  The first camera and film went on sale in November of 1948.  They were the Land Camera Model 95 and the Polaroid Land Type 40 film.  Immediately they were a success, as the idea of having a picture that could be developed in a minute appealed to many post-War Americans.  The original Land model was such a success that it remained the prototype for Polaroid cameras for the next 15 years. During that time, an abundance of the cameras were sold, as evidenced by the millionth camera rolling off the assembly line in 1956.

Dr. Land, who held 533 patents, was also an adviser to the Federal Government on military matters, advocating the use of photographic satellites in orbit to spy on enemy targets several years before such craft or the rockets to launch them came into being. In 1955, he was chairman of a secret intelligence panel for President Dwight D. Eisenhower that advised a vigorous program to develop advanced means of reconnaissance, including satellites. The Polaroid Corporation, donated its corporate archives to Baker Library in 2006. 

for more info http://www.osa.org/en-us/history/biographies/edwin-h--land/

[thefirstphotos]

THE FIRST PHOTOMONTAGE

Face of Christ superimposed on an oak leaf by Johann Carl Enslen, 1839.Public Domain (the Original belongs to the National Media Museum, UK). 

Johann Carl Enslen (1759-1848) was a German painter who, at 80, through the knowledge of Talbot and probably, Wedgwood (the alleged inventor of the first photograph ever), approached photography experimenting with new photographic processes on paper and inventing photomontage. In 1839 he sent to Talbot the first photomontage depicting a design of the face of Christ onto a contact photograph of an oak leaf. This combination of design and photography is one of the first steps for the deliberately manipulated image, forerunner of Photoshop, in which the representation of nature and the projection of an image drawn by hand are juxtaposed, creating a photograph deliberately artistic as early as in 1839.

[thefirstphotos]

PHOTOGRAPHY PATERNITY TESTING

19th August - World Photo Day

“From today, painting is dead!” God bless Daguerre and Niépce to have revealed the invention who made anyone able to became artist and to buy a little bit of geniality at the price of a silver paper! On August 19th 1839, Arago announced the invention of the Photography process by Daguerre and Niépce (Isidore, son of Nicéphore the inventor) to the French Academy of Science.

Here the article published on the “Journal des débats politiques et littéraires” the day after the declaration of the daguerreotype process showing all the first doubts of that time.

Would be possible to record the original colours of the nature? Would be possible to take portrait?

“Daguerre already had written an instruction manual that was on sale only a few days after Arago’s presentation. What is almost unbelievable to me is the number of manuals that were printed and sold. In France there were eight editions; in England, three; in Germany, five; in Sweden, one; in Italy, two; and in Spain, two. Twenty-one editions in four months! — plus reproductions of the instructions in condensed form in newspapers and magazines.” (Newhall)

The invention was anticipated on January 6th 1839 on La Gazette de France by Henri Gaucheraud. 

“We have much pleasure in announcing an important discovery made by M. Daguerre, the celebrated painter of the Diorama. This discovery seems like a prodigy. It disconcerts all the theories of science in light and optics, and, if borne out, promises to make a revolution in the arts of design. M. Daguerre has discovered a method to fix the images which are represented at the back of a camera obscura; so that these images are not the temporary reflection of the object, but their fixed and durable impress, which may be removed from the presence of those objects like a picture or an engraving.”

Gaucheraud focused immediatly on the limits of the first attempt of daguerrotype, declaring that the “Nature in motion cannot be represented, or at least not without great difficulty, by the process in question. In one of the views of the Boulevards, of which I have spoken, all that was walking or moving does not appear in the design; of two horses in a hackney coach on the stand, one unluckily moved its head during the short operation; the animal is without a head in the design. Trees are very well represented; but their colour, as it seems, hinders the solar rays from producing their image as quickly as that of houses, and other objects of a different colour. This causes a difficulty for landscape, because there is a certain fixed point of perfection for trees, and another for all objects the colours of which are not green. The consequence is, that when the houses are finished, the trees are not, and when the trees are finished, the houses are too much so. Inanimate nature, architecture, are the triumph of the apparatus which M. Daguerre means to call after his own name—Daguerrotype. A dead spider, seen in the solar microscope, is finished with such detail in the design, that you may study its anatomy, with or without a magnifying glass, as if it were nature itself; not a fibre, not a nerve, but you may trace and examine.”

 Here the proofs exposed at the French Academy of Science.

On January 7, 1839, members of the French Academy of Sciences were shown the first Daguerre’s tests and the Academy secured the inventor a lifetime pension of 6,000 Francs for the rest of his life, and to give the estate of Niépce 4,000 Francs yearly in exchange for the rights to his process. The process take the name of Daguerre even if it come from the society Niépce-Daguerre, here the base of their contract http://www.niepce-daguerre.com/Base_du_contrat_Niepce-Dag.html Niépce’s discoveries were fundamental for Daguerre as well Daguerre gave important tips to Niépce to improve the heliographic process. Nicéphore Niépce died on 1833 for a stroke and Isidore, his son succeeded to the father. He wasn’t able to develop his father’s discoveries (who created the first camera, for heliography, and with Daguerre the physautotype, image fixed by lavender oil). After the senior Niépce death, Daguerre progressed the invention and named it the "daguerréotype", after himself.

With the declaration of the invention of the Daguerrotype it has been started the first trial about Photography for more info http://www.niepce-daguerre.com/

Anyway the first announcement of the invention generate another claim, of course with Talbot. For other people the World Photo Day should be considered the 14th March ...

[thefirstphotos]

Which is the biggest panorama ever taken? 

This is the First Photo of an exoplanet (extrasolar planet). Infrared image of the brown dwarf 2M1207 (bluish) and companion planet 2M1207b (reddish), taken by Very Large Telescope NACO at the ESO Paranal Observatory in 2004. Until now this is the photograph with the biggest subject ever made. © ESO/José Francisco (josefrancisco.org)

[thefirstphotos]

Was Muybridge a photographer?

Every time I title a First Photo I have a challenge with the definition of Photography.

Looking for the first photo of a kiss I’ve bumped into Muybridge’s plate 444 and in that video recreated by Dave Gordon, an artist and the Curator of the Muybridge Archive and I was surprised it was considered The First Filmed Kiss, as I know by other sources the First Kiss on a Movie. Even considering the subtile distance between both the definitions, I’ve been shocked that Muybridge could be considered a movie director more than a photographer.

A couple of days ago I’ve been asked if the First Photo of Muybridge is just the first frame on the left top of the corner. I radically said no. The First Photo on a Muybridge’s plate is not the image corresponding to the first still. What makes his work recognizable is the layout of the whole plate framing the images in sequence, is the invention of the stripe background anticipating the mug photos. The stripes in the background were ropes stretched by a framework, and their division into squares were helpful for the study of the anatomic proportion, as in painting. The layout and the background were corresponding to scientific method. And that scientific mark in serial is his beauty.

Muybridge invented and created a new way to think in images. If we see just the movie and not his graphic composition we couldn’t admire his great work. Muybridge was thinking by plate. And specially we have to remember that at that time cinema was yet not invented. So I would ask: is it possible to create a video when there are yet no instrument to show the video? Probably Muybridge style is the most recognizable at all … even by a person who doesn’t know the History of Photography. He is also called the inventor of the first moving picture. I will ask to the Muybridge Online Archives if they have evidences that Muybridge was thinking about doing a movie, if he was showing his photos in a different way than a plate.

[thefirstphotos]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ox-tTPuZE8)

Video from © Les Horribles Cernettes

The First Photo of band on the Web - Les Horribles Cernettes "Surfing on the Web" written by Silvano De Gennaro

[thefirstphotos]

Do you know how is the First Photo uploaded on the Web? Neither me and the inventor of the Web.

My obsession about the First Photos started the day when during my normal research on Google Image, I've questioned my self "Which is the First Photo on The Web?" I found in many accredited websites that photo. Than I contacted Silvano De Gennaro, the man who uploaded it at the Cern, to have his confirmation, and I was surprised when he told me that information was wrong. This is how I started to apply the method of finding the evidences of the First Photos. It's really important to never consider absolute certain the information, specially on the Web, where the copy and paste is a daily hobby. The real problem is that we are going to be more and more surrounded by an increasing number of wrong information copied and pasted. This means that the debunk with the years will be more hard.

Here my original correspondences with the Cern and the inventor of the Web to “debunk the fake myth” about this photo normally and wrongly considered the First Photo on the Web. The Telegraph, The the Huffington Post and Wikipedia still spread this wrong information copying and pasting from a wrong article published on Vice in 2012. Anyway this is The First Non Scientific Photo Uploaded On The Web, or better the First Photo of a Band on the Web.

Their website was also the First Band Music Website.

Here the real story of the band

[thefirstphotos]

The First Birthday Party Photo, it doesn’t look really happy ...

The First Birthday Party Photo belongs to the album of the family Dillwyn Llewelyn. John Dillwyn Llewelyn was a botanist and photographer who owed his early introduction to the invention of Photography to his wife, the inventor’s first cousin Emma Thomasina Talbot. The photo belongs to the First Family Album, Until Proven Otherwise, realized by Emma Charlotte DL’s daughter. The photos of that album were taken by different member of the family.

The First Birthday Party Photo is taken to celebrate Emma’s birthday (the 16 years old girl on the right set on the chair with a dark skirt). It’s the 23rd of September 1853 and Willy, Thereza, Lucy, Emma Charlotte, Johnny and Elinor pose in front of their estate Penllergare in Wales. 

The group photo has been taken with a great attention of the pose: they compose a kind of dynamic triangle, like an arrow pointed down on the left. To our contemporary eyes it looks more like a funeral photo, because none is smiling and looking to the camera. The reason of this apparently sadness is related to the long exposure, a huge prevention to the capture of open eyes and smile. From this birthday John Dillwyn Llewelyn took every year photos of his family’s birthday. 

[thefirstphotos]

The first time the word “Photography” has been written, by Hercules Florence 1832, one of the photographic pioneers and the inventor of the word Photography, Until Proven Otherwise. The first image is also the first photocopy ever did. Hercules Florence, originally drawing and typographer, was looking to create a photographic technic useful to copy many documents, as well the labels for his friend pharmacist Mr. Mello. The main interest of Florence was the zoophonie: the record of the birdsongs in the jungle. More info and photos © Instituto Moreira Salles.

For long time the great contribution of the french exile inventor in Brazil, Hercules Florence (1804 – 1879), has been hidden by the european critic and in many books the invention of the word “Photography” is still commonly attributed to Herschel. Normally we consider the first appearance of this word together with the first use of the words “emulsion”, “positive” and “negative” in 1839 when Herschel presented to the Royal Society on March 14, 1839 the essay “On the Art of Photography; or the Application of the Chemical Rays of Light to the Purpose of Pictorial Presentation”. Well, here the proofs collected by Boris Kossoy, professor and photographer that helped the rediscovery of Florence.  http://etnolinguistica.wdfiles.com/local--files/biblio%3Akossoy-1977-florence/kossoy_1977_hercules_florence.pdf  

[thefirstphotos]

“The First known surviving Photo produced in camera” also called “View of the Window at Le Gras”, by Niépce 1826. 

This is generally considered the First Photo ever made in most of the book about History of Photography. There are many studies about that photo and specially about its re-discovery by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim in 1952, that I can’t sum up here. 

The image we normally know (the 4°) is far from the original on bitumen of Judea (the 1°, color digital print reproduction made in June 2002). Helmut Gernsheim draw the latent image on a paper to make it visible and than, on a reproduction made in gelatin silver print, in collaboration with the Kodak Laboratory, he spent two days painting in watercolor small dots as pointillism style to enforce the image. The last image is a “computer image depicting the original scene “because of an arrangement the Niepce’s house/museum has with a well-known photo agency, photography is not allowed inside the house.” Sometimes a copy become more known than the original.

© The Ransom Center / Gernsheim Collection  http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releases/2003/firstphotograph.html

 more info: http://nonsite.org/feature/the-miracle-of-analogy

[thefirstphotos]

Why we’ve never seen a photo taken by the first man in the space? Because he didn’t have a camera with him. We have just pictures of him with the helmet. 

Sometimes a negative reply is a positive reply confirming some theories. I couldn’t find the First Photo taken by the First Man in Space, so I questioned many archives, even the official Russian Archives helped me researching in other archives. I’m not interest in conspiratorial theories, I’m more interest in how Media and USSR decided to represent historical events. How is possible that any picture was taken during this epic moment of the Cold War? The mission of Gagarin, even if he was everywhere applauded as Hero, was a strategic mission to prove the supremacy of USSR able to control every country by Space. Why USSR never gave any evidence about what was visible from the by the Vostok 1? Some archives says that there is a video, I will try to find it, as it is not uploaded on the Internet.

[thefirstphotos]

The intriguing story of the “Damned Leaf” until now considered the First surviving Photo.

Since 2008, when the photo appeared at the Sothebys’ auction, the photo was dated 1790 and credited to Thomas Wedgwood, one of the Photography pioneer inventor. 

The Leaf, firstly sold at Sotheby’s in London in 1984 for £6,000 by the Bright family from Bristol, become the object of incredible speculation in 2008 when in another auction was considered The First Photo ever made: the 170-year-old image could be worth millions of pounds. 

After years of silent and denied conference by Sotheby’s, in June 2015, during the conference “Rethinking Early Photography”, Larry Schaaf, the most expert historian in early photography, just debunked the fake myth of the First Photo attributing it to Sara Anne Bright, 1839.   

Until proven Otherwise / On the Evidence of the First Photos is still looking for the First Photo ever made, or better the first surviving photo; and is going to interview professor Larry Schaaf,.

The video of full conference:  http://www.rethinkingphotography.com/conference-videos/

[thefirstphotos]

This is shortlisted to be one of the first amateur photos made with Kodak n.1 

Without amateur photographers Photography could not be improved and could be a boring professional work.

Without amateur photographer we couldn’t have millions of family album, as well beautiful photo-mistakes (fingers or feet on the photos, the authentic street photography, the real and the everyday story of the fashion etc...)

“Kodak n.1, invented and marketed by George Eastman in 1888, was a simple box camera that came loaded with a 100-exposure roll of film. When the roll was finished, the entire machine was sent back to the factory in Rochester, where it was reloaded and returned to the customer while the first roll was being processed. By simplifying the apparatus and even processing the film for the consumer, he made photography accessible to millions of casual amateurs with no particular professional training.” "You press the button, we do the rest." See more here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kodk/hd_kodk.htm

© Collection of National Media Museum/Kodak Museum

I’m still waiting from George Eastman Museum to have the confirmation. Stay Tuned! 

[thefirstphotos]

The First Photo of the Antimatter: an anti-electron (positron) observed in a cloud chamber, 1932. By Carl Anderson © Lawrence Berkeley / National Laboratory

[thefirstphotos]

Deep into the research of the First Photos, I realized that it was impossible to find a unique definition of Photography. The History of Photography is a History of Techniques, so in continuous metamorphosis. A photograph is still a photograph even without negative (daguerreotype) camera (calotype) direct light (screenshot) man (security camera, photomaton etc…). So I wrote a list of possible definitions mixing techniques with the uses we do with Photography.

[thefirstphotos]

Correspondences ©  From “Until Proven Otherwise” series by Francesca Seravalle www.francescaseravalle.com

[thefirstphotos]

Concept ©  From “Until Proven Otherwise” series by Francesca Seravalle www.francescaseravalle.com