Endnotes
Why Wasn't photography invented earlier?
To return to your place in the text, just click your Back button.
[1] The daguerreotype, named after its inventor Louis Daguerre, was quickly followed (but not superseded) by Fox Talbot’s “calotype”, which was printed on paper (instead of a silvered copper surface), had less precise definition and was less durable, but could produce a “warmer” effect and – importantly – could be reproduced.
[2] Niepce died in poverty in 1833. His prototype “heliograph” View from the Window at Le Gras (ca 1826) disappeared in 1900 and was only rediscovered in 1951 (Koetzle, H-M, Photo Icons: The Story Behind the Pictures 1827-1926, Taschen, Cologne, 2002).
[3] Hyatt Mayor, A, "The Photographic Eye", Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol 5, No 1 (1946) 15-26, at 20.[4] Batchen, G, Each Wild Idea, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2001
[5] Galassi, P, “Before Photography: Painting and the Invention of Photography”, Exh Cat, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1981.
[6] Gernsheim, H and A, The History of Photography: From the Camera Obscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era, McGraw Hill, New York, 1969, at 13
[7] Gernsheim, op cit, at 31 note 6
[8] Eder, J M, (transl Epstean, E), History of Photography, Dover Publications, New York, 1978 reprint at 62.
[9] Gernsheim, op cit at 34;
[10] Cottinton, I, “Platinum and Early Photography”, Platinum Metals Review, 1984 vol 28(4), 178
[11] This stop-start development timeline was mirrored in many other contexts. For example, the Bell Curve was first “discovered” by De Moivre in 1733, first published in 1738, picked up by Gauss decades later, rediscovered by Laplace in 1810 and finally accepted as having general application in the 1830s.
[12] In this novel, a traveller in the African desert is transported by a whirlwind to a land whose inhabitants are able to fix the images made by light rays. He describes how using “a most subtle matter, very viscous and proper to harden and dry”, coated on canvas, these images are impressed in “the twinkle of an eye”, after which the canvas is dried in a dark place for an hour. Once dry, the pictures “cannot be imitated by art or damaged by time” (Newton, G, Shades of Light: Photography and Australia 1839-1988, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1988, Introduction).
[13] Snyder, J, “Review of Galassi’s ‘Before Photography’ ”, Studies in Visual Communication 8 No 1 Winter 1982, 116
[14] These included Talbot’s discovery in 1834/5 of differential light sensitivity in different forms of the same silver compound (Snyder, op cit).
[15] Bruce, R V, “Alexander Graham Bell”, National Geographic Vol 174 No 3 Sep 1988 358, at 372.
[16] Frugoni, C, Inventions of the Middle Ages, Folio Society, London, 2007, at 23-25. In the interim, people had evidently experimented with handles, caps with hooks attached, and even clamps attached to the wearer’s temples, without hitting on the solution.
[17] Mandel, G N, “Patently Non-Obvious: Empirical Demonstration that the Hindsight Bias Renders Patent Decisions Irrational” Ohio State Law Journal, Vol. 67, p. 1391, 2006; 1st Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies Paper. This phenomenon has also been described as "creeping determinism" : Fischhoff, B, "An Early History of Hindsight Research", Social Cognition, Vol 25, No 1, 2007 at p 10; Fischhoff, B, "Hindsight ≠ Foresight: The Effect of Outcome Knowledge on Judgment Under Uncertainty", Jnl of Experimental Psychology, 1973, Vo1, No 3 at 288; Gladwell, M, "Connecting the Dots", in What the Dog Saw, and Other Adventures, Allen Lane, 2009 at 249.
[18] Mandel, op cit
[19] Mandel, op cit. Hindsight bias is, of course, commonly recognised in everyday usage, in the ironic use of expressions such as “20-20 hindsight”, the “wisdom of hindsight”, the expression "it is easy to be wise after the event", or the concept of the “Monday morning quarterback”,
[20] Clarke, A C, Profiles of the Future, Pan Books, London, 1982 at 20. It is interesting that many of these inventions span more than one traditional discipline, similarly to photography, which lies at the junction of art and science.
To return to your place in the text, just click your Back button
© Philip McCouat 2012, 2013, 2014
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "Why wasn't photography invented earlier?", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article
[1] The daguerreotype, named after its inventor Louis Daguerre, was quickly followed (but not superseded) by Fox Talbot’s “calotype”, which was printed on paper (instead of a silvered copper surface), had less precise definition and was less durable, but could produce a “warmer” effect and – importantly – could be reproduced.
[2] Niepce died in poverty in 1833. His prototype “heliograph” View from the Window at Le Gras (ca 1826) disappeared in 1900 and was only rediscovered in 1951 (Koetzle, H-M, Photo Icons: The Story Behind the Pictures 1827-1926, Taschen, Cologne, 2002).
[3] Hyatt Mayor, A, "The Photographic Eye", Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol 5, No 1 (1946) 15-26, at 20.[4] Batchen, G, Each Wild Idea, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2001
[5] Galassi, P, “Before Photography: Painting and the Invention of Photography”, Exh Cat, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1981.
[6] Gernsheim, H and A, The History of Photography: From the Camera Obscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era, McGraw Hill, New York, 1969, at 13
[7] Gernsheim, op cit, at 31 note 6
[8] Eder, J M, (transl Epstean, E), History of Photography, Dover Publications, New York, 1978 reprint at 62.
[9] Gernsheim, op cit at 34;
[10] Cottinton, I, “Platinum and Early Photography”, Platinum Metals Review, 1984 vol 28(4), 178
[11] This stop-start development timeline was mirrored in many other contexts. For example, the Bell Curve was first “discovered” by De Moivre in 1733, first published in 1738, picked up by Gauss decades later, rediscovered by Laplace in 1810 and finally accepted as having general application in the 1830s.
[12] In this novel, a traveller in the African desert is transported by a whirlwind to a land whose inhabitants are able to fix the images made by light rays. He describes how using “a most subtle matter, very viscous and proper to harden and dry”, coated on canvas, these images are impressed in “the twinkle of an eye”, after which the canvas is dried in a dark place for an hour. Once dry, the pictures “cannot be imitated by art or damaged by time” (Newton, G, Shades of Light: Photography and Australia 1839-1988, Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1988, Introduction).
[13] Snyder, J, “Review of Galassi’s ‘Before Photography’ ”, Studies in Visual Communication 8 No 1 Winter 1982, 116
[14] These included Talbot’s discovery in 1834/5 of differential light sensitivity in different forms of the same silver compound (Snyder, op cit).
[15] Bruce, R V, “Alexander Graham Bell”, National Geographic Vol 174 No 3 Sep 1988 358, at 372.
[16] Frugoni, C, Inventions of the Middle Ages, Folio Society, London, 2007, at 23-25. In the interim, people had evidently experimented with handles, caps with hooks attached, and even clamps attached to the wearer’s temples, without hitting on the solution.
[17] Mandel, G N, “Patently Non-Obvious: Empirical Demonstration that the Hindsight Bias Renders Patent Decisions Irrational” Ohio State Law Journal, Vol. 67, p. 1391, 2006; 1st Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies Paper. This phenomenon has also been described as "creeping determinism" : Fischhoff, B, "An Early History of Hindsight Research", Social Cognition, Vol 25, No 1, 2007 at p 10; Fischhoff, B, "Hindsight ≠ Foresight: The Effect of Outcome Knowledge on Judgment Under Uncertainty", Jnl of Experimental Psychology, 1973, Vo1, No 3 at 288; Gladwell, M, "Connecting the Dots", in What the Dog Saw, and Other Adventures, Allen Lane, 2009 at 249.
[18] Mandel, op cit
[19] Mandel, op cit. Hindsight bias is, of course, commonly recognised in everyday usage, in the ironic use of expressions such as “20-20 hindsight”, the “wisdom of hindsight”, the expression "it is easy to be wise after the event", or the concept of the “Monday morning quarterback”,
[20] Clarke, A C, Profiles of the Future, Pan Books, London, 1982 at 20. It is interesting that many of these inventions span more than one traditional discipline, similarly to photography, which lies at the junction of art and science.
To return to your place in the text, just click your Back button
© Philip McCouat 2012, 2013, 2014
Mode of citation: Philip McCouat, "Why wasn't photography invented earlier?", Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article