Portal:Photography
The Photography Portal
The first photograph was an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea but for centuries images had been projected onto surfaces - artists used the camera obscura and camera lucida to trace scenes as early as the 16th century, and the optical properties of which had been described as early as the 4th Century BC by the Chinese philosopher Mozi. These early "cameras" did not fix an image, but only projected images from an opening in the wall of a darkened room onto a surface, turning the room into a large pinhole camera.
The advent of photography, from the Ancient Greek words φως phos ("light"), and γραφη graphê ("stylus", "paintbrush") or γραφω graphō (the verb, "I write/draw"), together meaning "drawing with light" or "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", has gained the interest of scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used photography to record and study movements, such as Eadweard Muybridge's study of human and animal locomotion (1887). Artists are equally interested in these aspects but also try to explore avenues other than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement. Military, police and security forces use photography for surveillance, recognition and data storage. Photography is used to preserve favorite memories and as a source of entertainment.
Selected picture
Contre-jour is used to emphasize the outline of the man and the tunnel entrance in this photo. Photo Credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar
Selected biography
Did you know
- ...that the first permanent color photo was taken in 1861 by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, but that the first fully practical color film, Autochrome, did not reach the market until 1907?
Quotes
| “ | Photography is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality. | ” |
Selected article
Large format SLR cameras were first built in the early years of the 20th century. The Ihagee Kine-Exakta was the first 35 mm SLR and it was truly influential. Further Exakta models, all with waist-level finders, were produced up to and during World War II. Another ancestor of the modern SLR camera was the Swiss-made Alpa, which was innovative, and proved influential for the later Japanese cameras. The first solution for an eye-level viewfinder was patented in Hungary during the war,—more precisely, on August 23, 1943, by Jenő Dulovits. The first 35mm camera that had one implemented was the Duflex, designed by Dulovits. This camera utilised a system of mirrors to provide a laterally correct, upright image in the eye-level viewfinder. The Duflex, which went into serial production in 1948, was also the world's first SLR with an instant-return (a.k.a. autoreturn) mirror.
Things you can do
- Join and help out in both the Wikiproject:Photography and the WikiProject:History of Photography
- Introduce appropriate citations into Photography
- Check Things needing to be done
