WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Photo Editing and Manipulation, Part One 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:14.440 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.000 John Than Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.840 and how the tech area. It's time for a classic 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.360 episode of tech Stuff. This episode is titled Photo Editing 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:29.120 and Manipulation Art one, So I guess you can probably 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.200 make an educated guess about what next week's classic episode 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.960 is going to be. This episode originally published on August 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:40.479 thirty one, two thousand fifteen. Dylan, who at the time 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.720 was sort of working in our our social media and 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.040 marketing areas, was a guest host on this one. Now 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.800 Dylan is a managing executive producer with I Heart, So 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.760 the dude is a superstar at I Heart really is 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.200 an incredible person, does incredible work. By way back then, 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.720 Dylan was fairly new and uh so I decided to 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:06.560 show in the ropes and have them on to talk 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:13.280 about manipulating photos online for fun and profit. Enjoy. Dylan 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:17.240 has generously offered up some of his precious time to 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.800 jump into the studio to talk about photo manipulation and 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.399 photo editing. So this is going to be a two 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.400 part podcast. We know that starting off, we're gonna concentrate 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.839 on sort of the pre digital era for this first episode, 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.280 and then our next one will be kind of the 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:38.679 various techniques and motivations behind photo manipulation and the post 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:43.760 digital era where we're no longer talking necessarily about physical 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:48.040 media but lots of zeros and ones instead. But the 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.600 the interesting thing to me is that photo manipulation has 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:57.760 been around almost as long as photography has, and in 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.480 large part because of the limitation of photography, especially the 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:06.240 early days, it was kind of seen early on as Okay, well, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.240 we have the foundation down, now how do we make 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.640 up for all the things that we can't do at 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:13.880 least yet. You know, you don't know in their mind 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.359 if they knew that was going to be a possibility 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.880 in the future, but um, it kind of gave them 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:25.600 the ability to add to a photo what cameras were 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.520 not able to do at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, those 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:34.280 early cameras were incredibly limited. And uh, you know, it 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.560 helps if we take kind of a step back and 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:38.560 look at a little bit of history. And by a 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.079 little bit of history, I mean I've created a timeline 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:45.440 to kind of walk us through the early development no 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.440 pun intended. Okay, no, that was definitely a pun intended 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.560 of photography. So before we get to any photography at all, 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.360 before we get to the point where we're recording light 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.800 onto some medium, we can talk a little bit about 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.920 the camera obscura, which was not necessarily about recording recording images, 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:09.399 but more about projecting them. Yes, and this is ancient technology. 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.440 I mean, when you think about it, the basic technology 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.640 was a dark chamber or room through which you have 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.400 a hole in one wall and then you can project 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:23.000 across the on the opposite wall. Yeah, and uh, what 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.840 you saw on the opposite wall would be correct in perspective, 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.799 but it would be eight degrees rotating hundred degrees. It 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.280 would be upside down. Yeah. So I I have often 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.240 seen this used as a way for artists who wanted 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.960 to do a big wall mural. For example, they would 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.320 have an image on one side, so it would be 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.600 projected large on the opposite where they could actually trace 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.440 things out, although not all artists were very capable of 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.440 doing this, and it wouldn't be until the Renaissance. Like 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.800 even though the technology itself was thousands of years old, 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.280 in the sense that the ancient Chinese and Greek we're 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.400 using the sort of yeah, it really does. It's always 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.080 like it's always like, well, you have you got to 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:07.600 look to the Middle East and you gotta look to 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:09.960 China for some of these amazing developments that took a 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.000 long time to make their way to the Western world. 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.800 But in the Renaissance, there was an Italian writer named 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:20.120 Gia Batista de la Porta who was really the first 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.839 to use a lens arrangement in camera scarre. So it 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.560 was more than just the simple hole or a mirror. 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.320 It was a lens. And uh, that's where we started 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:35.200 really calling it camera obscura. And then you move ahead 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.560 about a hundred two hundred years to seventy seven, and 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.359 that's when a gentleman by the name of Johann Heinrich 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:47.480 Schulz uh noticed something really odd. In fact, it was 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:49.080 something that other people had noticed, but he was the 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.120 one who actually put two and two together. We're talking 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:58.680 silver salts here. Now, silver salts, when exposed to light, uh, 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:04.039 get darker. And this is a major part of early photography. 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.359 But for a long time people thought that it was 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.640 heat that made the salts turn dark. Now, what Schultz 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.600 did was he had an experiment where he he had 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.640 essentially a surface covered in silver salts, and he put 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.680 a covering over it so that he could spell out 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:25.040 a word in the silver salt and then expose that 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.960 to light, and it made those salts turn dark. So 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:32.839 he actually could spell out words using light this way, 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.520 but he didn't have any way of preserving it. There's 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.640 no way for him to keep this so that it 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.080 would permanently have this word. In fact, as soon as 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.920 you remove the covering and the rest of the salts 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.800 are exposed to light, everything turns dark. So it's like 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:48.840 you have a temporary image. It's kind of like the 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:55.600 Snapchat of its day. Yeah, that a very very kind 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.159 of simple snapchat where someone would have to be in 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.279 there with you and be like, all right, you're gonna 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.280 have to look at this right now, because as soon 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.480 as I turn on the light, this sucker, it's it's 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:11.839 it's time. Will be very limited a latent image. Um yeah, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:13.880 in a way that like if you see something very 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.479 bright and you close your eyes, right there it is. Yeah, 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.360 So it wouldn't be until the eighteen twenties. That's when 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.839 a fellow by the name of Anissa four Neepsie thank 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.600 you for pronouncing that that's a guess, my French jump. 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:33.960 Papa francis bien malorism So I am not very good 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.719 with the French pronunciation. I haven't had French since high school, 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.000 so I apologize for butchering the name. But he developed 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.000 a technique to use light in order to make copies 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.720 of engravings. And what he would do is he would 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.280 take it engraving and covered in oil and then he 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.040 would put the engraving on a plate that was coated 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.359 with a combination of lavender oil and vitamin of Judea, 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.200 which is a light sensitive material. And yeah, and he 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:06.120 had the first successful image in eighteen sixteen. Yeah, amazing, right, 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.039 Like he was able to use this and he called 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:14.480 the process heliography, meaning from the sun to right, so 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.520 it was close to photography, but he was calling it heliography. 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.520 By eighteen twenty six he was using that process on 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.040 lots of stuff like lithographic stone, on glass, on zinc, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.560 and on pewter plates. And in eight he used a 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:31.200 camera obscura computer plate to produce a photograph from nature. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.720 It was an image of the courtyard of his estate. 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.640 It was taken from an upstairs balcony and over the 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.520 course of eight hours. Yes, it took a number of hours. Yeah, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.520 that was the real issue where with these early approaches 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.640 is that they had not perfected the chemistry necessary to 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.800 have this reaction of light that would affect chemicals in 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.080 such a way as to preserve an image. What's really 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.640 funny is that the lens technology was much farther ahead 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.440 from the start than the chemist street and a lot 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:07.280 of early photography was really only limited by the chemicals involved. Right, Yeah, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.800 so you would end up having these super long exposure 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.080 times in the in some cases it meant that the 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:18.000 the image you produced is otherworldly because in the case 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.120 of this one with a courtyard, the lights coming from 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.280 the sun, and it's over the course of eight hours, 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.520 which reads, the sun starts in the east and ends 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.240 in the west, So in the finished image you have 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.680 light from the sun shining from both directions. It's as if, 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:34.840 you know, obviously, we don't live in a world where 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:36.920 you can really do that in a in an instant. 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.320 You would have to have this long exposure time in 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.120 order to achieve that, so kind of a special effect 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.040 just by the very limitation of the media itself. Yeah, 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.200 the exposure time is early on would would make things, 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:52.760 like you said, look very otherworldly. And it was just 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.280 because it was out of necessity, that's what they had. Yeah, 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.960 they didn't have any option really like, it wasn't like 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.440 it had nothing to do with shutter speed or any 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.840 of the other stuff we talked about with cameras. It 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:08.079 had specifically to do with the limitation of the materials, 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.600 the chemicals they were using. By eighteen thirty three, that's 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:16.160 when we first start seeing the term photograph being used. Uh. 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.920 And in fact, it was apparently coined by a fellow 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:25.040 named Hercules Florence or Hercule floren if you want to 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.760 be fancy. Uh. He coined the term, using it to 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.200 describe a process in which he used paper with silver 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.520 salts to produce prints of drawings. However, his work actually 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.400 largely took place in Brazil, and because Brazil was so 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.920 far removed from all the other areas that we're looking 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.600 into this mostly in Europe, his work remained largely unknown 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.520 until the nineteen seventies. And I would like to notice 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.000 is his really interesting work. It's something to look into. 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.640 He had some nice photographs. Yeah. Yeah, And and our 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:04.200 next fellow who made a big impression on photography is 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.800 one that probably most people have heard, at least heard 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:12.520 the technology named after him. That would be uh, Louis Jacquemond, 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:18.840 the gear type. Yeah. So he used the camera obscura 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.640 in a plate of iodized silver, which would allow him 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:23.640 to create a latent image of a scene. That's what 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.160 Dylan was talking about just a minute ago. And he 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.200 found that if you expose that plate to mercury vapor, 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.640 the exposed parts of the image, the ones that had 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:37.880 been exposed to light, would become visible, so it would develop. 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.440 This is where we start talking about developing photographs, and 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.960 that approach reduced the exposure times needed eventually from eight 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:49.520 hours down to around half an hour ish um using 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:51.800 this particular approach, But there was a drawback. If the 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.600 developed picture was exposed to light, like after you've taken it, 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.760 then the unexposed areas of silver would continue to darken 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.120 and eventually the image would become impossible to see. Dylan 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:03.640 and I will be back in just a moment to 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:08.120 talk more about photo editing and manipulation after these messages. 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.160 Imagine that you have a photograph in your hand and 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.240 you take it out anywhere where there's light, and it 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.640 would just gradually become a dark picture, like there will 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:29.600 be no no, no way of distinguishing what was there before. Yeah, 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:33.040 Like like before you expose film and a film camera, 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.000 if anyone's ever done that, you have to go into 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.520 a pitch black room to do so because once you 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.880 open the back of the light tight camera, when if 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.840 you have that film exposed to the you know, to light, 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.120 it's it's just gonna go completely dark. You're not going 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.320 to be able to take any photographs with that role 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.680 of film right now, Dylan, have you ever worked in 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.000 the dark room? I have, yes, So what is what 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.439 is it like when you are doing something like that, 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.640 Like you know, the we've seen movies with the process 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.840 where you've got the people with like the three or 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.280 four different little basins filled with fluid and there's never 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.320 any explanation of what was actually happening. It is it's 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.920 an updated version of something like the GEA was doing. 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.560 The chemicals are a lot less dangerous, Yeah right, we're 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.240 not using mercury rap, You're a lot less likely to 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:25.880 go crazy or catch on fire. Yes, yes, but it's 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.800 a it's a process. But it's something that I think 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.600 if you're interested in photography, you should. You should try 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:37.480 the development process, um because from going into the closet 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.400 to load your film, figuring out how to open something 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.240 and put it in the back of the camera in 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.120 Pitch Black, is is a lot of it's frustrating, but 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.079 it's a lot of fun. And then you you know, 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.040 even to the I don't want to get to ahead 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.400 of us, but the photo the process of taking the 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.760 photographs a lot different because you realize you have, like 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:04.400 of the thirties six shots and so it's it's not 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:06.600 like on your phone or on your digital camera, which 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.280 is which is great freedom, but you think I paid 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.560 I paid money for this film, and it makes you 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.640 much more selective and careful. And and not only that, 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.400 but I mean even that is a huge step from 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.120 what we're talking about here, where taking a single image 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.160 required so much effort just the not just the taking it, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:30.880 but the developing of that single image took so much 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.040 effort that obviously the composition of your shot was really 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.680 important and if you mess that up, you're talking about 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.600 a day's work. In some cases, that's a lot of 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.240 for one image. It's it's easy for us to forget 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:47.120 that in the realm of selfies that we have today. Yeah, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.120 so I'll definitely be relying upon you heavily when we 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.200 start talking about manipulation in this world. But to get 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.360 back to the history, just a couple more points I 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.440 want to make. Uh, so we've got to air who 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.559 starts solving the problem of this image immediately disappearing if 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.640 you were to expose it to light by using ordinary 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:12.160 table salt. Actually, yeah, he put it in a water solution. 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.640 You got your sodium chloride solution. He would use that 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.760 to dissolve the unexposed silver iodide that was left on 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.080 the paper. So that way the exposed stuff had already 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.080 been exposed. It's fine, you dissolve everything else, so now 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.880 that stuff can't end up going dark, and you're left 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.360 with your image, and you could fix it permanently because 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.120 light can no longer ruin them. And uh, Eventually the 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.600 Gara would find a way of producing photographs on silvered 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.440 copper plate, which was kind of his his medium of 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.840 choice from that point forward. Meanwhile, there was another fellow, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.160 William Henry Fox Talbot, who was working on a different 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:56.400 approach to create photographic images of scientific observations. The reason 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.200 all right, he was a scientist, not he wasn't necessarily 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.440 interested in photogra if he originally he was interested in science. 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:07.080 But he had a problem. He couldn't draw at all. 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.080 He had like he would try all these sort of 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.240 things so that he would just trace using a camera. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.920 Obscura didn't matter. He found himself incapable of doing that. 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:21.080 I find myself sympathizing heavily with him. I have a 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.240 distinct lack of artistic ability when it comes to that. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.960 So he wanted to find a way to preserve scientific 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.640 observations exactly as they were and record them in a 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.440 way that would not require him to draw in any way, shape, 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.480 or fashion. So he started to look into a way 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:43.720 to create photographic prints on paper, not using plates like 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.080 the gear was using. So he used paper soaked in 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.400 solutions of sodium chloride and silver nitrate in order to 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.840 produce silver chloride infused paper. And if he exposed that 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:56.800 paper to light, it would cause the exposed parts to 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.200 become dark, and that would create a negative image. If 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.360 he took another sheet of this and put it against 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.920 the one that had been exposed, and then exposed that 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.120 to light, that would create a positive image. On the 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.360 second sheet, and for the first time you could get 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.520 hypothetically more than one print from a picture. Yes, you 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.760 were not limited to whatever the original plate was. Now 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:23.760 you could produce multiple prints, assuming that everything stayed intact. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.240 Through this process, which was painstaking, it was still not 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.320 easy to do um and in fact, there were times 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.440 where it took some experimentation with this approach to get 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.160 it to work just right, because often they were having 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.480 quality issues with transferring the image from the negative to 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.400 the the secondary sheet. And it wasn't until thirty nine 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:48.880 that Talbot felt that he had really nailed it. He 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.560 had actually talked with his friend and astronomer named Sir 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.840 John herschel Uh in a way to fix the negatives 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.240 using sodium thiosulfate which at the time they called sodium 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.520 hypo sulfate, and found that that was what allowed it. 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:06.080 And then then he heard about the gear and he thought, oh, 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.920 because this is the era of everyone trying to get 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.480 patents for things to protect their ideas so that other 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.240 folks don't just run away with them. So he immediately 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.520 rushes to publication to beat the French to the punch 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.840 because he knew that the French publication about the Gears 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:24.720 work was coming, so he said, well, I can't drag 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.520 my feet on this and rushed ahead. Uh and this 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.280 is a story we hear over and over again in technology. 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:32.959 It's not you know. Radio was another big one like that, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:39.560 so television as well. So eighteen forty was the March. 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:44.480 Eighteen forty was really when the first photography studio that 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.520 we know of opened, And it was in New York 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.840 City and it was it was called the Dagaron Parlor 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:58.560 and it was operated by Alexander Woolcott. And uh so 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.080 you finally had a place. It was open to the public. 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:06.120 It was no longer these uh, the scientists, physicists, researchers 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.359 and others who were all interested in this concept. Now 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.399 it was something that ordinary people could have some access to, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:20.200 the beginning of a long road to making photography very personal. Yes, 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:25.720 and also the birth of our era of narcissism. That's 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:30.440 probably being unkind, uh andund Around this time you also 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.399 started to see improvements in both lens design, camera design, 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:38.760 and the chemical processes that meant that development time had 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.040 decreased significantly enough where you could sit for a portrait 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.040 without having to stay absolutely still for three hours, which 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:53.040 that's good, you know. Suddenly, suddenly portraiture became more of 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:57.000 an attainable thing for families, and it became very popular 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.040 pretty early on, especially by the eighteen sixties to the 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.040 eighteen eighties, it became it was a huge movement at 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.680 that point. And there are lots more things that happened 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:10.240 from that point forward. Obviously, there was the development of 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.680 calo type, which is a negative development process that Talbot 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:18.440 had created that made photography on paper more practical by 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.120 reducing the exposure times down to one minute. Pretty incredible 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:26.280 at the time. Stereoscopic photography became a thing. That's when 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.360 you take two images using cameras or lenses that approximate 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.000 the distance of a person's eyes. One of those, oh 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.520 you did, and that was very popular during the Civil War. Yes, 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.640 it was exactly. Yeah, you would take you would take 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.520 these two images and then you would use something called 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.159 usually called a stereoscope, which was essentially a kind of 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.600 a pair of glasses that held the two images at 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.120 a certain distance from your eyes, so when you looked 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.600 at it, it creates the illusion of depth. It's essentially 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.040 a primitive three D and a lot of them you 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:02.760 could adjust the lenses back and forth until the image 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.280 came in focus for you. Right, Yeah, because of course 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.040 not everyone is like our Our focal points are a 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.600 little different. Uh. It's the same thing that we see 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.880 now with various headsets where you have ways to adjust 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:16.840 the lenses so that if your eyes are a little 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.159 set a little further apart, are a little closer together, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:24.119 because a tiny difference from the average can mean you 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.200 have a very different experience than someone who is closer. 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.080 To the end, you can still do the exact same 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.399 thing on a digital s l R through the viewfinder. 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.360 Everybody can just set it up for because sometimes you'll 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.919 pick up someone else's and and you're like, wow, this 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:41.080 person has very different eyes than I do. And also 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.600 you can get a very similar effect to this using Uh. 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.200 There there are apps on phones now that do essentially 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:50.600 the same thing that this is doing, only they're using 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:55.200 the the software in an app that like a Google 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:58.040 Cardboard is an example where you actually go and you 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.359 buy a little cardboard headset and you turn your phone 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:06.040 landscape side, you activate the Google Cardboard app, you slide 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.159 it into the headset, and now you've got your own 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.880 little virtual reality headset. It's based on the exact same 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:14.080 principle as this photography. It's just in that case you're 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.639 talking about more like video animation that kind of stuff 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.160 rather than still photography, but it's the same idea. Then 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.280 there was the wet Colodeon process, which I don't know 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.840 if I'm even saying that correctly. Yes, Oh, excellent, that 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.280 was used to make glass negatives and was much faster 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.960 than earlier methods, provided that you were able to work quickly. Yeah, 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.240 I mean you it it kind of birth digital. I 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:41.320 mean not that it kind of birthed the portable dark room. Yeah, 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.240 because if you had everything with you, you could do 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.560 it in like fifteen minutes, that's which was incredible speed 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.399 compared to the previous methods. Yeah, and you could have 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:55.440 huge glass plates. Yeah, so you can make enormous negatives. Wow. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:01.400 So the challenge here is that the the method relied 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.719 upon the glass retaining that that moisture on it that 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:08.080 was used for the process, and if it dried out, 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:10.680 then your negative was ruined. So you had to work 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:13.160 quickly in order for you to be able to take 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:15.800 advantage of this. But on the flip side, the process 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.720 itself was very fast, So that was a big advance 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:21.640 and then there was an even larger one a little 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.280 bit later, which was the dry plate technology. I was 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:28.480 developed by an English physician named Wretcher Richard Leech Maddox 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:31.600 in eight seventy one UM, which eliminates some of the 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:33.680 drawbacks of the glass approach. You didn't have to have 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:38.760 the plate remain wet for the whole process. We'll have 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:40.840 a bit more to talk about with photo editing and 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:54.000 manipulation after this quick break. Early manipulation, sometimes it was 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:56.520 again it was perfectly innocent. It might be that you 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.080 take an image and you look at the negative and 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:01.320 you realize from the net negative that there is a 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.320 flaw of some sort, So you might alter the negative 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:07.160 a little bit before creating a print so that you 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.080 can compensate for some error that was made. Either the 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.320 exposure wasn't quite right, the lighting wasn't quite right, or 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:16.840 the subject moved or whatever. That may be the same 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.719 thing that we do today. Yeah, So it's not necessarily 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:27.800 a sinister or unethical uh motivation to manipulate a photo, 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.600 but there are those as well. So if you look 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.679 at some of the earlier edits, sometimes it meant that 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.760 you would alter the negative. As I had mentioned, sometimes 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.400 you would alter a print, um, in which case you might. 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.240 In fact, early because we were limited to black and 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:49.280 white photography, you had some people who would present make photographs. 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:51.320 So make a make a print of a photograph or 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:53.600