WEBVTT - Invention Playlist: The Camera, Part 3 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.080 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.040 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.440 Joe McCormick, and we're back with part three of our 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.239 discussion of the invention of photography. Now, last time, we 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.000 got up to the moment of invention, the debut of 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.560 the Daguero type of of course Louis Daguerre in Paris, 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:30.320 and the early paper based negative photo procedure of Henry 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.760 Fox Talbot in England, which was initially far less successful. Right. Yeah, 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:36.680 we we spent a lot of time talking about the 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:42.840 early laborious methods of taking a photograph, but the startling 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:47.560 and just game changing results, uh that they gave us. Um, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:49.480 you know, in all that discussion of de Guarat types, 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.680 I neglected to mention my Daguarat type boyfriend and what 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:55.680 is this? This is a I believe it was a 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.120 tumbler page and it was just a collection of like 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.920 handsome do dudes with their you know, their photo having 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:05.720 been taken with the Deguarat type. A lot of like 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.600 a really neat sideburns and whatnot. But it was kind 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.200 of a trend at least a few years ago. I 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.360 remember it making the rounds and people having a lot 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.280 of fun with it. I'm looking at it now. You know. 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.760 One of the things is nobody smiling in their deguaratype. Yes, 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:23.479 some guys look kind of smug, but it's not really 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:26.120 a smile, right, And there's an important reason for that, 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.360 which we'll get into in this episode. This is a 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.600 great blog now that I'm looking at it. Do you 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.920 have a favorite old school deguerotype or I don't know 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:35.640 if it's actually a deguaratype. The one I'm going to 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.920 bring up in an old school photograph doppelganger a favorite 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.000 one of those? Of course? I love the old Nicholas 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.679 Cage from the nineteenth century. Yeah, I think that that's 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:46.400 the main one that comes to mind. But because yeah, 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.040 you go back to enough photographic history, even though we 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.200 have very little of it really, I mean, can can 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.680 compare to the you know, the deeper history of of 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:58.800 the human species. But yeah, you can find these weird 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.160 doppelgangers where you're like, that looks like Stevie Sinny, especially 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.280 if I just kind of, you know, blur my eyes 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.120 a little bit. Yeah. So, last time we covered this 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:14.799 transition from the resin based heliography method of Joseph Nissa fourneeps, 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.280 the French inventor and scientist and aristocrat to the big 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.040 breakthrough announced and described in eighteen thirty nine by Louis Dega, 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.280 the da Gara type method, which for a brief refresher 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.720 on how that worked. Remember it had many steps, so 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.760 that was sort of Dagar's breakthrough was the multi step 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:37.840 chemistry procedure um. So it involved sensitizing a silver coated 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.200 plate with iodine fumes, and this would produce a layer 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.680 of the light sensitive compound silver iodide. And then you'd 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.120 expose that plate inside a camera obscura. And then, and 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.000 this is the real genius step, you would take the 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.400 lightly exposed plate on which the image would still be 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:56.800 invisible to the naked eye. You couldn't see anything yet, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.480 and you would develop that by exposing it to mercury fumes, 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:02.959 which would bring out the latent image on the plate 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.600 and create a sharp contrast. Uh And then finally you'd 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.880 wash off the remaining silver eyedide to prevent further darkening. 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.560 And originally this washing off step took place in in 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.200 hot salt water until the better solution of hyposulfite of 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:22.280 soda now known as sodium. Theosulfate was suggested by John Herschel. Now, 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.240 I think it's widely agreed that Digear's most original and 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:31.799 brilliant contribution to the invention of photography was this chemical 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.120 development stage. Of course, the development was so useful because 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.480 it greatly cut down on exposure times, which before had 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.800 been very long. Before the development stage, you might have 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.240 to expose a plate for hours at a time, like 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.640 maybe seven hours or twelve hours before the image would 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.120 really come through on it. You only had to get 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.520 a very faint initial exposure of maybe ten to fifteen 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.960 minutes before you could develop it with the mercury fumes, 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.120 which sounds like a lot to us. But but like 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.920 you said, it was a huge improvement over hours of 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.280 exposure time. Yeah, gigantic difference back then. I mean that 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.680 it made it suddenly realistic to photograph landscapes. So if 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.080 you had to expose a plate for hours on a landscape, 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:18.240 all the shadows would be messed up, right, I mean, 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.400 shadows are such an important part of our our view 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.400 of the natural world. If the shadows keep shifting over 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.800 the many hours of exposure, nothing's going to look right. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.680 Um Now. Also in the last episode, we talked about 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.800 the English polymath, scientist, politician and inventor Henry Fox Talbot, 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.400 who had independently invented a kind of different method of 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.680 photography years earlier in England. But unfortunately, even though he 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.000 invented it first, he never got around to publishing his 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.719 findings until after de Gara announced his invention in France 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.360 and was cemented in the minds of most people as 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:55.640 the inventor of photography. Henry Fox Talbot's original method was different. 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.080 It used paper instead of these sensitized metal plates. He 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.440 sensitized the paper to light by coating it in silver chloride, 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:04.560 and then he would expose it in a camera for 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.200 a longer period than Diga's final method, and then wash 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.400 it off afterwards to stop the exposure. Now, Talbot actually 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.440 had a few different methods over time. After Dager's method 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.440 was announced in eighteen thirty nine, Talbot eventually went on 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.159 to create and patent a different process known as the 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.560 Calo type, which also made use of a different chemical 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.839 form of Dagas concept of development right to shorten the 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.360 exposure time needed in the camera. And while Dagas method 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.360 produced these kind of sharp, one of a kind positive, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:40.440 shiny reflective images on metal plates. Talbot's method produced kind 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:46.120 of fuzzy, soft, but highly replicable, copyable negative images on paper. 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:48.520 So these are the two main things you've got by 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.240 eighteen forty and again we just have to drive home 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:58.960 how photography was this collision of advancements in optics, chemistry, 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:01.760 and the r it's all of it coming together, uh, 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.240 just the right time, with just the right individuals. Yeah. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:06.800 And one of the things we talked about in the 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.280 last episode is how surprising it is that this, this 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.440 first big breakthrough comes from Louis de Guerre, who was 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.120 not a scientist. He was not he was not trained 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.159 in chemistry. Digerre was a painter. He was an artist. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.760 I mean, he was clearly a very clever and energetic 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.279 kind of go getter, but he he was not trained 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.600 in chemistry. He didn't have a lot of scientific knowledge. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.039 He was kind of just bumbling around in the dark 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:33.200 in a way, at least at first. And one of 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.120 the funny things about this is we know a lot 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.760 about what Henry Fox Talbot was doing because he usually 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.839 took extensive notes and journals about his ideas and his 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.200 projects de Garrett generally did not. So remember last time 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:46.440 we talked about how Louis de Guerre had this brief 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:51.280 partnership with with niece four Niepps. How did Gare got 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.479 from Niepps's heliography which used this resin and wasn't really 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.640 like the ultimate process of the Daguero type to the 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:02.200 Daguero type. What happened in those years in between is 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:07.360 not fully known. We don't have accurate, reliable information about 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.680 what Degres postings, partnership experiments were, or like what roadmap 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.320 of discoveries led to his inventions, So there's kind of 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:19.320 a mystery there. There are stories that were reported later. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.560 One common example of one of these stories is the 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.960 story about Degres magic cabinet. Have you ever heard about this? 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.440 Uh No, but it already sounds uh perhaps a little 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.320 dramatic size you know very well could be apocryphal. But 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.960 that's always the tendency, right, Like do you lay out 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.280 the various steps and and uh minor revelations that lead 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.760 to some sort of an invention, or do you come 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.800 up with something uh more sexy like I saw it 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.920 in a dream, you know? Or do you tell a 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.560 good story? Yeah, and so The Magic Cabinet is one 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.800 of these good stories that might not be true. Supposedly, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.040 it was about how he discovered the developing process, his 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.760 most his most important key insight on photography the mercury 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.880 fumes to bring out the latent image from a short exposure. Supposedly, 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.160 what happened is that Degare had under exposed a plate 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.360 and then he put it inside a cabinet that he 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.640 was storing some chemicals in, and then came back later 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.040 and found that the under exposed plate had had an 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:21.880 image brought out in it, and it was like, WHOA, 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.480 what's going on here? And he realized it must have 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.240 been exposure to one of the chemicals in the cabinet. 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.600 So he just started removing one chemical at a time 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.200 and trying to figure out what it was, until eventually 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.320 he had removed everything from the cabinet and the cabinet 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.040 was still doing this. It was still bringing out the 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.840 image in under exposed plates, until he discovered that some 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.360 mercury had been spilled inside the cabinet and it was 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:50.960 this spill that was that was creating bringing the image out. Well, 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.480 you know, that seems like a plausible story, and even 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:55.480 if it didn't quite happen like that. It is a 0:08:55.800 --> 0:09:00.960 it is a nice way of describing, you know, how 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:02.959 he might have discovered it, you know, like it's this 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.640 nice story shaped explanation. Yes. And I will say, for 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.720 all of Dager's apparently good qualities, he he does not 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.200 strike me, having read a good bit about his life now, 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.000 as someone who would be above making up a story 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.680 about how things came about. Because he was a salesman, 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:23.040 you know, businessman. A lot of his his accomplishments came from, 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:24.800 you know, as we said in the last episode, you know, 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.160 being a great networker, being karas mad at, being able 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:32.679 to bring people together and get them behind his vision. Yes, exactly. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.199 So when d Get revealed his method publicly, he actually 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:38.800 he did not take out a patent on the process 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.000 anywhere except in England, or I don't know if he 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.319 actually held it. I think a different guy held this patent. 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.400 But there was a patent on the daguerrotype process in England, 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.760 but only in England. Uh And instead Dagara was given 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.800 a pension by the French government and the Daguara type 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.880 method was sort of presented as a free gift to 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:02.360 the world from France. Except guests to England. Henry Fox Talbot, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.760 on the other hand, he tried to patent his callow 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:09.600 type process, though he faced enormous resistance and public scorn. 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.000 And it is amazing, by the way, to read sections 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.720 from articles in publications like The Economist viciously attacking the 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:22.040 very concept of patents as quote injurious to the progress 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.719 of production and to the common weelfare and thus illegitimate 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.199 in the light of the principle of property rights. Can 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:34.040 you imagine that? Well, yeah, it certainly makes sense. I mean, 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:38.600 you still see various discussions these days about things that 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.160 are being patent certainly in the you know, sort of 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.800 the genetic sciences. Oh yeah, So you know, it's not 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.280 too much of elite to imagine people getting upset about 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:52.319 the the idea of patenting photography, especially in retrospect, seeing 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.959 like what effects photography had. I'm not surprised in that. 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.680 It's not that I don't think it's a legitimate ethical 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.160 debate to be had. I'm is kind of surprised we'd 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.720 see this coming from The Economist in the eighteen forties. Yeah, 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.120 it also seems a little unfair that Talbot is the 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.040 one who's who who gets it here, you know, because 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.120 he's he's kind of coming up just a little behind 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.040 Deger at every turn. Yeah, and uh So, in those 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.400 first few decades, the world of photography was absolutely dominated 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:22.920 by the daguerotype, and and Talbot really seems to have 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.600 gotten the short end of the stick, even though his 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.640 inside of producing negatives that could be easily copied would 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.400 later prove hugely important to photography as as you might guess. 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.120 But any way, pretty much immediately after it was publicly 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:41.600 explained and demonstrated, the dagaratype became enormously popular, and people 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.880 all over we're trying it out. Initial reception of the 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.200 method was was mostly extremely positive, and in the last 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.440 episode we discussed a few examples of this, like the 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.920 absolutely glowing reception uh the daguerotype got from Edgar Allan 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.360 Poe when he described its quality as quote truth itself 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.240 in the suprem nous of it perfection. One of the 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.160 types of reviews that I like less I feel kind 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.720 of icky about, but I see pretty often as people 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:14.079 who are repeatedly, uh negatively comparing traditional artistic methods to 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.480 the daguero type. Like there's this example Polish in the 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.160 Gazette de France in UH in its announcement about the 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.040 Daguero type in eighteen thirty nine, quote, you will see 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.679 how far from the truth of the Daguero type are 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.280 your pencils and brushes. That's right, artists for lunatics. Now 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:33.120 it sounds like a line that will be spoken by 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.319 like a villain in a video game. You know, that's 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:39.200 already been translated poorly. Once you will see how weak 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.960 are your brushes. But I can I can imagine there 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.240 might be you know, the kind of tension, right, It's 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.360 kind of like, oh, my goodness, but the photos exist. Now, 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.120 is this going to impact my career as a painter? Yeah, 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.200 I mean we can. We always see that kind of 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:57.720 anxiety and perhaps uh, you know, overestimation of of what 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.000 a new technology can do exactly. And and I think 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.880 in some ways that reaction was sort of reasonable, even 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:10.160 though you know, we view painting and photography as different things. 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.040 Obviously some artists would have viewed photography not just as 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.959 a new art form, but as a substitute for realist 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.959 painting or a general replacement for traditional forms of art. 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:24.400 I want to mention the story that's related in one 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.800 of my main sources on these episodes. A book by 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.960 Helen Rappaport and Roger Watson called Capturing the Light The 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.520 Birth of Photography, A True Story of Genius and Rivalry, 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:34.680 which is a great book that goes into detail in 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.360 the lives of Louis de Guerre and Henry Fox Talbot especially, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.120 but there's a section where it mentions this famous story. 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.640 This only reported many years after the fact, so again 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.680 possibly untrue, kind of like Degare's own story about where 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:49.800 the idea of the mercury fumes came from. But this 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.720 is a story that the realist painter Paul Delaroche, who 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:58.040 was known for realistic looking depictions of historical scenes such 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.400 as the execution of Lady Jane Gray, you might have 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.720 seen that painting before. Uh that he saw a daguerotype 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.160 for the first time and commented, quote from today, painting 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.120 is dead. So he may not have actually said this, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.760 but it no doubt reflects like an anxiety that some 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:15.560 in the art world must have felt. And remember, today 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:19.480 we appreciate photography and painting as a as like separate 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:23.440 art forms, they each have their own uses. But before photography, 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:28.000 painting wasn't just a fine art. It also served practical 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.120 purposes that we now mostly leave up entirely to photography, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.240 such as family portraiture. Like, while photography doesn't supersede all 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.000 forms of painting, there were clearly some cases where it 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.920 did simply automate work that would once have been done 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:45.040 by a human painter. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it. How 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.560 like that the one area that we were one of 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.160 the few areas were able to sort of keep photography 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.600 out of it is think of the courtroom in some 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.680 cases where you have where you have the courtroom sketch 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.720 still being an important part of the journalist effort there. 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.040 That's a funny inversion because I mean one of the 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.520 earliest uses of photography that will discuss later on as 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.520 like it's like a form of objective evidence to use 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.560 in court. But yeah, there are prohibitions in some cases 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.040 of allowing cameras into the courtrooms. And so now you 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.200 get to see, like what does it look like when 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.880 you draw a picture of Paul Manifort. Yeah, and some 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:26.120 of these pictures are still rather amusing in the ambiguity 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.960 that is sometimes possible with just a what is you know, 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:35.240 probably a rushed sketch of of of happenings in a courtroom. Now, 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:39.280 apart from the anxiety of painters and artists, there also 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.600 uh were a few at least to question the morality 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.520 or propriety of photography as a medium. And there was 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.880 a really interesting article that was quoted in in Watson 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.200 and Rapp reports book from a German publication called The 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:58.880 Leipziger Stattenzeiger, and it goes a little something like this quote. 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.920 The wi to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible, 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.000 as has been shown by thorough German investigation, but the 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:13.000 mere desire alone, the will to do so is blasphemy. Blasphemy. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.400 God created man in his own image, and no man 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.600 made machine may fix the image of God. Is it 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.320 possible that God should have abandoned his eternal principles and 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.600 allowed a Frenchman in Paris to give to the world 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:32.280 an invention of the devil, the idea of the revolution fraternity, 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.200 and Napoleon's ambition to turn Europe into one realm. All 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.800 these crazy ideas, Monsieur de gear now claims to surpass 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.880 because he wants to outdo the creator of the world. 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.200 If this thing were at all possible, then something similar 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.720 would have been done a long time ago in antiquity 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.400 by men like Archimedes or Moses. But if these wise 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.560 men knew nothing of mirror pictures made permanent, then one 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.560 can straightaway call the Frenchman to gear who boasts of 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:02.520 such unheard of things, the fool of fools. Well that's 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.200 the that's a kind of a confusing review. Yeah, Um, 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.440 he can't possibly do it, and since he's doing it, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:15.399 it's very bad. Wow. Uh so that that is definitely 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.639 a negative review for um, the Garrett type. Well, I 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:20.960 think it's interesting because this does not seem to be 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:23.840 a common reaction to it. It seems, by and large 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.040 people were very excited by it. But it does reflect 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:31.960 the general impression of the magnitude of photography as an invention. Right. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.280 It seems absurd now that people would think of photography 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.720 as a blasphemy, but I think it's possible back then 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:41.040 for people to think this way because this was such 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.640 a strange and new and unheard of thing. And yet 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.120 at the at the same time, like like I'm trying 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.560 really zoning in on no man made machine may fix 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.760 the image of God. Now, obviously people were and again 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.680 that saying this because the idea that man is made 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.640 and uh in the likeness of God and all that. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.840 But uh so, just merely fixing the image of God 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.200 can't be the thing he's upset about because because painting 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:10.760 did that. It's the idea that it's a machine. Is 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.680 that this idea that that we have made a thing 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.879 that does the thing? Is this like a Butlerian Jihad 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.800 kind of situation? Oh yeah, you shall not make an 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.400 image in the what make a machine? And the likeness 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.639 of human human mind? Yeah? Yeah, it reminds me a 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:28.320 lot of that. Well, I don't know. I mean, there 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.920 is a thing that's very often mentioned by people writing 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.439 about photography at the time, in the eighteen forties and 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:38.240 eighteen fifties, is there there's all this mention of the sun. 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.920 I think now because we often take photos in rooms 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.679 with artificial light, Like our cameras are more sensitive, they 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:49.280 can take dim photos. We have cameras with cameras with flashes, 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:53.440 we have you know, brighter artificial lights. Back then, there 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.600 was all all of this talk about how when you 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.240 take a photo, it's heliography, right, the sun is drawing 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.439 your pictures for you. It's all about sunlight because that 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.800 was the only light that was generally bright enough to 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.639 actually create a photo exposure. So I think maybe this 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.639 association with the sun is one of the reasons that 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.520 somebody might have a more religious reaction to it, right 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.119 that that that it's like the sun, the source of all, 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.200 you know, the the symbol of God's glory shining down 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.680 on all things bright and beautiful, all things great and small. 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.119 Now it's making images for you, and this is a 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.080 perversion of the light that God has given to us, 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.879 fixed it in darkness. Yeah, but like I said, I 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.840 do not get any indication that this was like a 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.200 major opinion. It might have been popular in Germany. I 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.399 don't know, just because they didn't like Frenchmen that that 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.840 didn't like the fact that the dgear that this was 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.600 like something that France was bragging about. It's like, oh, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.000 here's our free gift to the world, and and some 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.720 Frenchman really did take take on that idea right of 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.439 of giving it to the world, of sharing photography with 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:56.919 the world. Yeah, overall, people loved the Daguero type and 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.359 it gave way to a sort of Daguerreotype craze in 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.040 which amage you're in professional photographers by the hundreds embarked 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:06.320 on all kinds of projects of documenting things. One example 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.919 in the early days is this French optician named Noel 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.080 Paymal lara Bor, and he had the idea to equip 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.840 a team of traveling de guerra typists to go around 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.600 the world and capture images of foreign landscapes and sites 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:22.200 of interest, and then then to send the images back 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.560 to Paris so that people could see these places like 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.320 Niagara Falls, like the Great Mosque of Algiers, or like 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:33.320 the Acropolis, see them in full realism for the first time. 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:35.920 Lara Bor wanted to publish them in a book, which 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.399 he did in eighteen forty one called Excurgion dig de 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:45.040 guerrienes da guariens. I think, except there's a problem, because 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.480 remember what's true about the daguerrotype. The Daguera type is 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.800 an opaque, one of a kind print on a metal plate. 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.040 It can't be copied directly, and at the time certainly 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.719 it couldn't be printed in a book. So unfortunately, the 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.360 best he could do was to have the daguerrotypes from 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:07.160 these locations redrawn by hand as engravings so they could 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.040 be printed in the book, which is. I mean, on 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.119 one hand, there there actually was a great level of 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:16.040 realism in these engravings and illustrations, since the engravings were 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.680 copied from real photographs. But they weren't the photographs themselves. 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.520 A kind of bizarre irony. The first like big book 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:27.399 of photographs wasn't it wasn't photographs illustrations. All right, Well, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.119 on that note, let's take a quick break. When we 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:31.880 come back, we will continue to discuss the de Guara 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:41.240 type craze and other developments in early photography. Alright, we're 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.560 back now. Remember the Dagara type was revealed in eighteen 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.520 thirty nine, sort of announced I think in January, and 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.239 then he really described his process publicly in August, and 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.880 by December eighteen thirty nine there were already jokes about 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:58.520 how trendy this new invention of photography had become. One 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.800 really great one is a lithograph by the artist Theodore 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:08.520 Morrissette called La ladgera type of many. I think that's 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.040 the French version. I think it means degera type of mania. Uh. 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:16.320 And it is this manic, hieronymous, bosh like hell of 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:20.560 people swarming all around with camera boxes and photographing everything. 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.520 There's even a camera hanging from a hot air balloon, 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:28.840 apparently anticipating like spy planes. Uh. My favorite detail is 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.800 up in the upper right of the image, which appears 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.160 to be some kind of a cult ritual in which 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:38.560 pagan revelers are dancing in a circle lasciviously around a 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.280 steaming vat of mercury. Remember the mercury fumes where the 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:46.840 where the chemical insight used to develop the quick exposed print. Yeah, 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:49.680