| Photography
Photography is a way of making
a permanent image on light-sensitive materials. Before 1839, the only
way to show how something looked was to draw a picture, paint a painting,
or trace it. Now there are photographs in family albums, books, newspapers,
billboards, magazines. Photographs can be sent around the world via computers
in a manner of seconds. Satellites in space send back stunning photographs
of the earth and enable us to view our planet as we have never been able
to before. Specialized robots embedded with cameras can be stationed on
the rim of a volcano and send back minute by minute images of the volcanic
activity taking place. Tiny cameras are used to view the actual workings
of a patient's stomach. Powerful microscopes can take actual photographs
of atoms. Pressure-resistent, waterproof cameras take photos of the deepest
parts of the ocean where no one has ever been. Photography has helped
change how we view our earth and has added to our knowledge of our planet.
It took imagination to invent
the photographic process. Imagination places a part in the creative process
of taking photographs.
Sample some of the following
activities to learn more about photography.
Places
To Go | People To See | Things
To Do | Teacher Resources | Bibliography
Places
To Go
The following are places to
go (some real and some virtual) to find out about photography.
American
Memory Library of Congress: America's First Look Into the Camera
Virtually visit the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. It has a collection
of daguerreotypes that consists of more than 650 photographs dating from
1839 to 1864. Portrait daguerreotypes produced by the Mathew Brady studio
make up the part of the collection. The collection also includes early
architectural views by John Plumbe, several Philadelphia street scenes,
and early portraits by pioneering daguerreotypist Robert Cornelius.
 International
Museum of Photography and Film
Travel to the International Museum of Photography and Film. See their
timeline of photograhic history and their exhibitions and collections.
American
Museum of Photography
Visit the American Museum of Photography. From this site, you can trace
the history of the recorded image in all the various forms it has been
used.
Milestones in Photography
National Geographic slideshows demonstrating the evolution of photography.
Pictures of the Year
Award-winning photos from around the world.
People
To See
Joseph
Nicèphore Niepce
Meet Joseph Nicèphore Niepce. He is known as one of the Fathers
of Photography. He made the first known photography in 1826 using a process
where he put bitumen of Judea which is a tar-like substance on a polished
pewter plate and placed it in a camera obscura for 8 hours. In 1816, he
also creatd the first negatie on paper while working with silver salts.
Jacques
Mande Daguerre
Spend some time with Jacques Mande Daguerre. He worked with Joseph Nicèphore
Niepce. Daguerre's photographic process used silver iodide on a highly
polished, silver-coated copper plate. Like Niepce, Daguerre put his plate
inside a camera obscura. He the exposed it to vapors of heated mercury
and dipped it in a bath or salt water. The pictures that he made were
called daguerreotypes.
William
Henry Fox Talbot
Visit with William Henry Fox Talbot. He invented a photographic process
called calotype and in 1839 published the first book illustrated with
photographs. This book was called The Pencil of Nature. Talbot's work
led to the photography methods used in film today.
Félix
Nadar
Meet Félix Nadar. In the 1850s, he went up in a balloon and tok
the first aerial photographs. In 1853, he opened a photographic studio
in Paris and took photos of famous people. This site shows his photograph
of Alexandre Dumas, French author of The Three Musketeers. (Nice haircut,
n'est pas?)
Hippolyte
Bayard
Make the acquaintance of Hippolyte Bayard who was also involved in the
development of photography. In 1839, he put together the first photo exhibit
in a gallery. He did not get good advice about how to patent his process,
and Daguerre, Talbot, and others gained credit and exposure for creating
the process. Find out what Bayard did to protest being slighted.
Queen
Victoria
Spend time with Queen Victoria of England. She actually helped the art
of photography become popular. Photograpy was coming of age in the 1850s
when she was ruler of England. Queen Victoria loved anything new. She
encouraged photography in her royal household, and it became popular in
England. Before photography, the only portraits of people that existed
had to be, of course, hand-painted, and only the rich could afford this.
Photography made portraits available to the middle class because it was
so much cheaper that having a family portrait painted. And because Queen
Victoria liked photography, its popularity spread throughout Britain.
Julia
Margaret Cameron
Meet Julia Margaret Cameron. She was one of the first major women photographers.
She received her first camera in 1863 when she was 48 years old. She worked
to make photogrphy accepted as an art, and her natural portraits were
a departure from the stiff, formal pictures usually taken in her time.
 Ansel
Adams
Get to know Ansel Adams. He was an American photographer who lived from
1902 to 1984. He is particularly famous for his photographs of the southwestern
United States and for his work for the conservation of unspoiled America.
National
Portrait Gallery - Matthew Brady
Get to know American pioneer photographer, Matthew Brady. He learned the
daguerreotype photographic process from Samuel Morse and opened his own
photographic studio in New York City in 1844. He eventually successfully
learned the wet-plate process of photography. He began photographing President
Lincoln in 1860. When the Civil War began Brady was authorized to accompany
and photograph the armies; through his efforts a vast visual record of
the war was preserved. In 1875 the government purchased part of Brady's
collection, but the rest passed into private hands after the photographer's
financial failure. In 1954 the Library of Congress acquired the enormous
Handy collection of Brady's work.
Bud
Meet Bud. He is a mannequin, and this site is a written and photographic
record of the trips he has taken. There are actual, non-retouched photos
taken in the most unusual places--where you would least expect a mannequin.
He's been to DisneyWorld, South Africa, the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge,
the Yukon Territory, and Maui.
Things
To Do
Exposure
Learn about basic photographic procedures.
Optics
for Kids: Science and Engineering
The scientific basis of photography involves physics and chemistry. This
site has a student tour which begins with a basic introduction to the
science of optics.
 Oatmeal
Box Pinhole Photography
Make a camera from an oatmeal box. Instead of using a glass lens, it forms
it forms an image with a tiny hole drilled into a piece of aluminum cut
from a soft drink can.
Focus
on Photography
Find excellent explanations of how a camera operates and a basic introduction
to the principles of composition.
Kodak
- Taking Great Pictures
Learn how to take the best pictures.
Basic Strategies in Reading Photographs
A site to teach and illustrate the basic vocabulary of photography analysis.
American Photography: a Century of Images
A PBS companion site focuses on the growth of photography as a chronicle of our times.
Teacher
Resources
Virtual
Field Trips are
teacher and student-created tours of curricular topics. (You can learn
how to use this UEN Virtual
Field Trip tool created by UEN for Utah educators).
Lesson Plans/Webquests
Bibliography
- Evans, Arthur G. First Photos
: How Kids Can Take Great Pictures. Redondo Beach, Calif. : Photo Data
Research, c1992.
- Finkle, Cyndi. Camera Crafts
: Creative Projects to Make with Your Camera and a Good Roll of Film.
Los Angeles : Lowell House Juvenile ; Chicago : Contemporary Books,
c1997.
- Gibbons, Gail. Click! A
Book About Photography and Taking Pictures. Boston : Little, Brown,
c1997.
- King, Dave. My First Photography
Book. London ; New York : Dorling Kindersley, 1994.
- Price, Susanna. Fun With
Photography. New York : Sterling Pub., 1997.
- Varriale, Jim. Take A Look
Around : Photography Activities for Young People. Brookfield, Conn.
: Milbrook Press, c1999.
- Wilson, Keith. Photography.
New York : Random House, 1994.
Images
are copyrighted by ArtToday. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
|
Share
