Alternate History of Photography: how early could it have been invented?

[Drew Bedo]

Sometimes just knowing tjhat something is possible is all it takes.

We all know that the Daguerreotype process was announced in 1839. That it was so widely used so rspidly attests to the practicality of the process and the strong demand for images.

But how early in time was it possible? Was the technology available before 1820 or 1800 even? Mercury and Silver were known in ancient times. Optical quality glass technology as early as Galileo in the 1500s. I am thinking that Iodine was the latest basic item in the process to become available. . . .but when?

If someone actually KNEW what to do to create a lasting image on Silver, how early could it have been done?

Same question for the salted papers and albumin processes thet Fox-Talbut worked with . . If one knew how then how early could it have been done? Is the availability of Silver Nitrate the technology that sets the time limit here?

[Bill_1856]

The problem wasn't making the images, but of keeping them from fading.

[Drew Bedo]

The problem wasn't making the images, but of keeping them from fading.

Right: I understood that the key was under exposing and developing the latent image image with Mercury vapor.

[Ted R]

According to Helmut Gernsheim (A Concise History of Photography Dover Publicns NY) the light sensitivity of silver salts was discovered in the early 18th century by German Schultze and later investigated by Swede Scheele. I think Bill has a good point, "fixing" the image was a vital part of the process that came later.

The production of a sensitized Daguerrotype plate required a combination of silver metal, mercury vapor and the vapor of halides, initially iodine, later also bromine and chlorine. I agree silver and mercury were known to the ancients however possibly it was the availability of these halogens, in the form of purified chemicals, that held back the image forming process until the 19th century. According to Wikipedia Iodine was isolated in 1811, Bromine in 1825. Daguerre and Niepce were working on the photographic process in the 1820s and 1830s. Fox-Talbot was experimenting with sensitized paper processes at about the same time.

[Richard Wasserman]

Thomas Wedgewood was making images using silver nitrate probably before 1800, but they were not permanent—although a photogram of a leaf has turned up that possibly was done by him and if it is true would be the earliest photograph known to still exist. Basically through a good-old-boy network in Britain of various scientists and experimenters it was discovered how to fix the light-sensitive images on paper and make them permanent. This was done ultimately by Henry Fox Talbot in 1839 who announced the process about a month after Louis Daguerre announced his. The rest is history...

[Drew Bedo]

Thanks everyone . . .all good stuff.

So given that a mythical time traveler dropped into the past with full knowledge of the process: The earliest that he could have made a Daguerreotype was constrained by the isolation of Iodine, say 1820-ish.

[Sal Santamaura]

...So given that a mythical time traveler dropped into the past with full knowledge of the process: The earliest that he could have made a Daguerreotype was constrained by the isolation of Iodine, say 1820-ish.If this time traveler dropped into the past with that knowledge, why didn't he also know how to isolate iodine? :D

[Mark Sampson]

I'd find a copy of the book "Latent Image" by Beaumont Newhall.
Of course someone *could* have invented photography before Daguerre and Talbot, but in all of human history, no one did. Theirs was no small achievement.
Or to quote the late Jim Harrison, from his autobigraphy 'Off to the Side': "My life could have turned out differently, but it didn't."

[Drew Bedo]

Ten years ago I took a workshop with Jerry Spagnoli at the Photographer's Forumlary campus in Mopntana (it was great). If I walked out the door just now, I wouild bring along a working knowledge of how to creat a Daguerreotype . . .but not how to get crystalline Iodine except to place an order with the good folks at PF (are they still in business?)

[LabRat]

Well, Fred Flintstone had that "Polarock" camera with the little bird pecking away quickly, finally saying "It's a living"... :-#

Steve K

[RichSBV]

This is all very interesting as I sometimes love postulating. Next, I am certainly no expert but do have varied interests, so...

A while back I watched a documentary on the shroud of Turin. They were all working on how old it really was and how it could have been made. The connection? Many scientists agreed that in the early 1500's it was well known how to permanently stain cloth using metallic salts and _light_. They also were experimenting with camera obscuras. They demonstrated how the shroud could have been produced using 16th century chemical and optics and were successful. There even was some mention that DaVinci may have produced the shroud as he was in the area it was first introduced and had the knowledge.

So the first photograph? How about the Shroud in the mid 1500's

[Drew Bedo]

Didn't mean to stir up any bad feelings here . . .just having some fun with :What-Ifs". In the same vein, but not photography: Why didn't the Chinese ever develop hang gliders? They had the materials and flew kites large enough to carry a man at time, sos . . .?

The answer to the originalphotographic question seems to be that even with full knowledge of the process, no-one could have created a Daguerreotype before Iodine was isolated as a pure substance in the early 1800s. No possibility of doing it during ther Renaissance for instance (sorry Leonardo).

[Ivan J. Eberle]

There's been scholarly analysis of the late 16th-early 17th Century Caravaggio paintings that indicate he was using not only a Camera Obscura but mercury salts (and IIRC, ground-up fireflies?) for short-duration images he painted directly upon. Caravaggio never sketched out his subjects.

[RichSBV]

What bad feelings???

After a quick check, I found that they had silver sulfate which works very similar to silver nitrate in the late 1400's. I would suppose that we have no "photographs" from that early time because people expected paintings and as Ivan posted, they would have been painted over to make them acceptable.

[Maris Rusis]

Alternate history? Please no, this is not about the eternal debate but what if photography had never been invented? Instead we had contemporary digital picture-making starting from its beginnings in the 1980s and evolving to its present perfection. Would anybody now be motivated to invent a way of making pictures out of light-sensitive materials? What unfulfilled need could conceivably drive such research?

[LabRat]

Alternate history? Please no, this is not about the eternal debate but what if photography had never been invented? Instead we had contemporary digital picture-making starting from its beginnings in the 1980s and evolving to its present perfection. Would anybody now be motivated to invent a way of making pictures out of light-sensitive materials? What unfulfilled need could conceivably drive such research?

I'm sure you can go on kickstarter or fund-me sites and find (sincere) offerings of (and see vids with the canned music with the spokesperson presenting) something new, "THE FILM CAMERA" and how their "creation" will re-shape the world... :-#

Steve K

[ruilourosa]

The holy shroud from Torino is a nice Leonardo self portrait!!!

[Drew Bedo]

What bad feelings???

After a quick check, I found that they had silver sulfate which works very similar to silver nitrate in the late 1400's. I would suppose that we have no "photographs" from that early time because people expected paintings and as Ivan posted, they would have been painted over to make them acceptable.

Well I dunno really. I posted and left the net. Next day I saw that two follow-on posts had been deleted. I assumed someone had gotten a little off base and wanted to ask for calm.

The other posts are the type of discussion I had hoped for. Did some Wikipedia reading myself and found that while Iodine had not been purified before 1800 (or so) it was known in antiquity. So HYPOTHETICALLY, if one already knew how to make a Daguerreotype it might have been possible to create a lasting image on Silver some centuries earlier than the 1830s-1840s.

Posts on this thread lead me to think that the same might have been possible for a salted paper process prior to 1800.

In a related topic, see the documentary film "Tim's Vermeer", which details a modern non-artist's successful attempt to recreate a Renasance era Vermeer painting using mirrors and lenses.

[Ted R]

On the same subject is a fascinating study done by David Hockney on the use of mirrors and lenses in European art, the book is called Secret Knowledge and can be found used on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Knowledge-New-Expanded-Rediscovering/dp/0142005126/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494352802&sr=8-1&keywords=david+hockney+secret+knowledge

I found it enjoyable both for the history of optics and also because it opens a door on some masterpieces of European art as seen by an artist who writes well.

[Pfsor]

There was a plenty of marble available in the time when Cleopatra loved Antonius. Unfortunately for David it took Michelangelo to make his statue.
The last time I checked the matter it's not just the marble that makes a statue, is it?

[Nodda Duma]

Another key point is that, prior to the 19th century, the scientific method and the interchange of scientific knowledge had not developed to the point where the successful development of photography could have taken place. I believe that mode of thinking was just as important as isolation of the required chemicals.

[Ray Heath]

Alternate history? Please no, this is not about the eternal debate but what if photography had never been invented? Instead we had contemporary digital picture-making starting from its beginnings in the 1980s and evolving to its present perfection. Would anybody now be motivated to invent a way of making pictures out of light-sensitive materials? What unfulfilled need could conceivably drive such research?

An interesting question Maris. But I'd turn that around and ask, if we never had chemical based photography would anyone have ever gotten the idea to make images digitally, or at all?

[LabRat]

An interesting question Maris. But I'd turn that around and ask, if we never had chemical based photography would anyone have ever gotten the idea to make images digitally, or at all?

One thing for sure, painters would still be doing a brisk business...

Steve K

[Drew Bedo]

One of the things that comes into play inthese types of speculation is knowing that a thing CAN be done. In the case of the Daguerreotype, a person with full knowledge of the process might possibly have been able to assemble the materials some twenty or more years before 1839 based on the first isolation of iodine. To stretch it further: The isolation of Iodine came through treating seaweed with sulphuric acid, then known as "oil of vitriol" . . .which was a known substance in the Renascence or a little earlier.

So if we daydream a McGyver type time traveler into the mid 1400s, and if he survives the Black Death, maybe a Daguerreotype could have been done. Sounds like a novel in the genre of The DeVinci Code or one of the Indiana Jones movies.

For Example: Knowing that it is possible could have brought hang gliders from ancient China or helped Leonardo with his flying contraption. The Chinese did on occasion build kites large enough to fly a human observer.

[tgtaylor]

If anyone is interested in the orgins of photography I have a short history with links pieced together on my website: http://spiritsofsilver.com/galleries/a_little_history Photography has a rich history and a study of it and becoming familiar with the various processes discovered along the way is an immensely satisfying experience for the truly interested.

Thomas

[barnacle]

Somewhere, I'm *sure* I've read of an ancient Egyptian chunk of bitumen which was shadowed by a leaf(?) and then in later years the slightly different solubility of the exposed and unexposed parts revealed an image.

Knowing something is possible is perhaps the first movement in deciding to research and develop it. People two thousand years ago were no less intelligent than we, but lacked the scientific method - and perhaps also the resources in time and money.

Neil

[Alan Gales]

I wonder if the Aliens who visited the Aztecs brought cameras. Of course we would have no record of this since any photographs left here would have disintegrated by now.

[Johnny LaRue]

I wonder if the Aliens who visited the Aztecs brought cameras. Of course we would have no record of this since any photographs left here would have disintegrated by now.

Of course they brought cameras, but they took all their film back to their home world.
After all, the Aztecs didn't yet know how to process film.

[Harold_4074]

I know that I have seen pinhole images made on photographic paper using a simple box camera mounted to a building or pole, and exposing for months.

Silver nitrate has been known since the 13th century (per Wikipedia) and silver chloride is light sensitive (more so in the presence of gelatine). But gelatine is an intermediate in the manufacture of hide glue, and hide glue almost certainly does (or did) contain some sodium chloride. Since glue is ancient, and a useful sizing material for paper, it should have been possible to make an actual photograph (above and beyond a simple photogram) as early as the 13th century (if you believe everything that you see on the 'Net).

As for permanence, I understand that sodium chloride has some effect as a fixer for silver halide images, and gold toning (as for printing-paper) more or less supplants fixing as we understand the term. Aqua regia, and thus gold chloride, dates from the 14th century (Wikipedia, again...) so in principle a toned "sun print" from that era could have survived until today.

I'm going to have to try this!

[Drew Bedo]

Harold: Please do give it a try.

As for "Space Aleans and Aztecs . . .They wouldn't have taken their film home . . .it would have been all digital imaging anyway.

[Alan Gales]

Harold: Please do give it a try.

As for "Space Aleans and Aztecs . . .They wouldn't have taken their film home . . .it would have been all digital imaging anyway.

I don't know, Drew. If they knew how to travel here then they were smarter than humans. If they were smarter than humans then it just makes sense that they shot film instead of digital. Probably large format film too.

[Drew Bedo]

Alan: Wish I had thought to say that . . .!