Portal:Photography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia portals: Culture · Geography · Health · History · Mathematics · Natural sciences · Philosophy · Religion · Society · Technology
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. 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.
André Kertész (July 2, 1894 – September 28, 1985) born Andor Kertész, was a Hungarian-born photographer distinguished by his photographic composition and by his early efforts in developing the photo essay. In the early years of his lengthy career, his then-unorthodox camera angles, and his unwillingness to compromise his personal photographic style, prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Even towards the end of his life, Kertész did not feel he had gained worldwide recognition. The first photographer to have an exposition devoted to his work, he is recognized as one of the seminal figures of photojournalism, if not photography as a whole.
Dedicated by his family to work as a stock broker, Kertész was an autodidact and his early work was mostly published in magazines. This would continue until much later in his life when he ceased to accept commissions. He served briefly in WWI and began to form dreams to move to Paris, which he realised in 1925, against the wishes of his family. There he was involved with the artistic melting pot of immigrates and the dadaist movement, and achieved critical and commercial success. The imminent threat of WWII pushed him to immigrate again to the United States, where he had a more difficult life and needed to rebuild his reputation through commissioned work. He would take offense with several editors that he felt did not recognize his work. In the 1940s and '50s he stopped working for magazines and began achieved greater international success. Despite the numerous and awards he collected over the years, he still felt unrecognized, a sentiment which did not change even into his death.
- ...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?
| “ | I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them. | ” |
Nature photographs are published in scientific, travel and cultural magazines such as National Geographic Magazine and Audubon Magazine or other more specific magazines such as Outdoor Photographer and Nature's Best Photography, as well as a growing hobby as photography is getting more popular in general.
- 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
