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

  1. #11

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

    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

  2. #12
    Drew Bedo's Avatar
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    Re: Alternate History of Photography: how early could it have been invented?

    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).
    Drew Bedo
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    There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!

  3. #13

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

    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.

  4. #14

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

    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.

  5. #15
    Maris Rusis's Avatar
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    Re: Alternate History of Photography: how early could it have been invented?

    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?
    Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".

  6. #16

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

    Quote Originally Posted by Maris Rusis View Post
    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

  7. #17

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

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

  8. #18
    Drew Bedo's Avatar
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    Re: Alternate History of Photography: how early could it have been invented?

    Quote Originally Posted by RichSBV View Post
    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.
    Drew Bedo
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    There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!

  9. #19

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

    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-Knowle...cret+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.

  10. #20

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

    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?

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