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World's First Photo
angkor cut-and-pastes
"'The image acknowledged as the world's first photograph - taken by a French inventor in 1826 - has passed its first full-scale analysis with flying colors and is now awaiting an airtight case that will keep it safe for centuries to come, scientists said Wednesday.'" See also the first color photography.
that the world's second photo was of a naked woman.
I've lost track of the humber of technologies that were initially driven by porn. BBS's, Video CD's, e-commerce, and of course, the amazing X10 camera.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
where saying "First." really does mean something.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
A little more info on the inventor here and here
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The first picture I ever took with my digital camera faded away, due to the ink in my canon inkjet
Do you think in 5 years I'll be able to pull these pictures off my CDR's? Much less to show my grandchildren...
interesting ... the photo gets the same fate as the inventor, or were coffins airtight back then?
Fault loves the past, worry loves the future, but content enjoys the present.
... what kind of developer or fixer a pewter plate used?! To bad PhotoFlow is a more recent invention, because that plate REALLY looks like it could have used it!
The wages of sin are unreported and back taxes are hell to pay.
The first one was destroyed after the photographer realized his thumb was over the aperture.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
As you see, both walls, the one showing left and the right one, are lit by the sun. Also the sky seems somewhat blurry and apears to have something one might call an 'intense twighlight'.
That's because he exposed the "Film" over the entire day in order to actually make a picture, thus tracking every daylight condition and them changing with the path of the sun.
This is indeed an amazing inovative feat. I would have liked to meet this guy.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The second link is entirely more interesting than the initial story. The process that this Russian developed for color photographs back in the early 1900's and the fact that we can now view them is increditable.
Beat's the hell out of Ted Turner's colorization of old movies.
...to have a Reuters sig under a photo obviously in the public domain for a long time.
Capitalism is no excuse for the privatisation of the commons. Signing this photo reuters instead of Niepce is clearly stealing.
Given the above, I remember reading that one possibility for the Turin Shroud was that it was an early, and I mean early, photograph. Apparently, the Turks had developed a method of photography involving canvas and I -think- silver nitrate (maybe mercury?). This was in use during the 1500s, as far as I recally the article saying.
Now, the photography they were talking about wouldn't bear much resemblence to a camera as we would recognise it. I believe the subject had to be very still, covered in this impregnated cloth and then the light would do the rest.
I realise this is a very sketchy post, but I'm at work right now and really am not able to spend ages chasing down the relevant information. Just chucking this one out for a bit of interest really...
Cheers,
Ian
See the various links one, two, three.
Grain of salt not provided. This quickly wanders off into the land of wierdos, as there is also a lot of political infighting in the land of psuedo science. The Idea of the Shroud being a hoax is politically loaded.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Yawn?
Put this in perspective, man. In 170 years, do you think anyone will be discussing your work?
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Many early photographers died of horrible nervous conditions, a result of exposure to toxic chemicals used in Daguerrotype and other early photographic processes. Ambrotype and tintype, introduced in the 1850's, were faster and the chemicals involved were both cheaper and safer.
You can get more information about the Ransom Center's photographic collections.
There are quite a few more photos available at the Prokudin-Gorskii Exhibition than officially linked from the pages of the exhibition. If I'm not mistaken, 111 photos are available, but only 61 are linked. How to reach them is quite trivial and left as an execise for the reader. Hey, you'll even get the chance to have a beautiful picture of Alix Chevallier!
I saw the real thing several years ago in a lobby to one of the upper floors of the Harry Ransom Center here at UT. The picture is tiny, and the image faint, looking for all the world like a scrap of tinfoil with the image only visible from certain angles, manifested as a slight difference in the gloss of the surface. I can't help but wonder what it looked like when it was new.
There were many wonders to behold in that building. On that particular visit, I was "behind the ropes" to do some maintenance work on a database server sitting in the corner of one of the center's conservation rooms. Sitting near me were a remarkable array of items, ranging from a model sailboat used in the making of an old John Huston film, to a collection of original Edgar Allen Poe manuscripts. And these were items that weren't even on display. I would've love to have just spent months rummaging around in that one room...
Sadly, much of the collection of the Harry Ransom Center is accessible on to scholars on a by-reservation basis. Fortunately, plans are in place to make the collects more accessible to the public.
*** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
Time Travellers from the future?
what?
boy, quit smokin' crackrock, it'll do you no good.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
The article states that they're trying to recreate the process by which the original picture was taken.
Once they've done that, they should figgure out where the window from which the picture was taken was and take a new (8 hour) exposure with the old technology, as a comparason.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
...That is, the last photograph taken on film-as-we-know-it, by a photochemical process involving silver halides?
I know that won't be a very well-defined event, since undoubtedly researchers, historians, and dedicate hobbyists will periodically rediscover and revive it... there's never any point at which you can say "the last daguerrotype has been taken."
Let's put it this way. At the end, there will still be photo stores that carry film--but only specialty, boutique stores, and only in large cities, and the film they carry will be from the last manufacturer that will continue to make it for aficionados. Then that last manufacturer will pull the plug and you won't be able to make a "photo" unless you're prepared to make the emulsion and film yourself.
How long until that happens? My guess: fifteen years.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
So actually, the second photograph was first! :)
I think it's fake! Theer's no tourist in the picture!
It's funny, laugh!
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
They're a lot more likely to be viewable than color photographs you took 15 years ago. Color prints, especially the first decade or two worth, fade incredibly fast compared to properly processed (i.e. washed until bleach and other chemicals are gone) black and white photos. From what I understand, there are more B&W civil war photos surviving than color photos from the first 5-10 years of those (and I read this a while back, so I assume it's only gotten worse.)
Yes, CDRs do degrade (albeit slowly.) But you can always transfer the information over to new CDRs with no degredation (yay digital tech!)
I'm more concerned about my DV tapes. Will they degrade before I can afford to transfer them to DVDs (at current prices transferring even my small collection would cost me nearly a grand.)
If you really want to preserve your photos for eternity, post them to USENET. Everyone knows the binaries there are just the same photos being posted over and over...
In fact the town (Chalon sur Saone, in Burgundy) is a quiet place with very little tourism. Should that photo be there, however, perhaps it would be taken more often for what it is - the birthplace of modern photography. There is a little Museum there (The Niepce Museum) which is fantastically interesting. Sadly its piece de resistance is in Texas.
Chalon sur Saone still has a big Kodak factory though. A lot of you who may have toured in Paris etc may have bought film manufactured there.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Moments ago, I posted a story on my website to the Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii exhibit on LOC.gov. I clicked submit and then jumped to Slashdot to check the headlines - Imagine my surprise when I see this link.
I feel like monkey #100 right now...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
For fans of the Prokudin-Gorskii Collection pictures. By searching the catalog it came up with 2608 pictures that you can view. Most of these are in black and white. Just click the link and start viewing. Be warned that it is a bit slow, and slahdotting may make it worse.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Probably never. Artists still make paintings using paint made from linseed oil and egg yoak, even though modern replacements have made them 'obsolete'.
This guy claims to have found a very early Daguerreotype of Abraham Lincoln as young man. He's been trying to sell it for a lot of money, so he's been in the news. Hard to say absolutely, but I have to admit he makes an interesting case.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It's too bad that the treasures of American, Egyptian, et al civilizations were plundered, raided and taken to...Europe. Give back our civilization, you can have your fscking picture back.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Did he use a Nikon or Canon pinhole to take the picture?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Why not? Why do people do anything? Curiosity, for one.
:)
But from the description of the image (made up of fine droplets of melted bitumen) it sounds like the plate may have been coated with a layer of powdered bitumen and the image perhaps fused by the heat of the sunlight. Which would make this not just the first photograph, but the forerunner of the laser printer and xerographic copying.
-- Alastair
There are many many ways to archive. Try webmagic. If that is too much to learn (for me it is) then just make the html yourself as you archive. Try setting the thubnail size to 100x100 in GMC and using blue fish to make a few example tables of the thumbnails pointing to the real picture. Blue fish does have a way to automate this, but I don't know it yet. Right now vi does everything I need. There you have it.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
In my opinion, the RGB separation is not nearly as cool as the roughly contemporary work of Gabriel Lipmann. His 1891 system achieved full accurate color using no dyed materials in either the film or the viewing system (I.e. no color filters etc.)
Lipmann turned a clear glass B&W film plate so the emulsion faced away from the lens (I.e. the light had to travel through the thickness of the light to reach the emulsion). He placed the emulsion in contact with a reflecting mercury bath. Light from the lens traveled through the emulsion twice, once on its way from the lens, and again bouncing back from the mercury mirror thus forming....standing waves through the thickness of the emulsion.
In other words, color was recorded according in the third plane...through the thickness of the exposed material. Blue light = tightly spaced waves, red = less tight. The plate is viewed by again sandwiching against the mercury reflector, and viewing in white lite. The interference causes the colors to reappear.
Note that these colors are 100% accurate as long as the dimensions of the emulsion are stable. Of course, the balance can change if the viewing light isn't white.
I read about this in a Pop Photo in the 1960's, I think. One of the most beautiful pieces of scientific/photographic work I've heard of. He won a Nobel prize for this in 1908.
Smear makeup on your face. Drape an old sheet over it like a shroud. Wait for the contact print to form. Peel off the sheet. Look at it. Notice how it looks just like Arnold the cartoon character?
Now look at a picture of the Shroud of Turin. Notice how the face doesn't look like a football? Notice how it's even gaunt?
Any technology or spiritual manifestation or whatever that involves the shroud being used on the shroud would produce Mr. Football Head, because of the basic geometry. There is no more need to think about it.
Some would say this makes a lot of sense biologically. It's a bit of a reduction, but why do anything (read, build technology) unless it helps us survive and procreate? I'd say that porn is a expressional side-effect of the basic human need for sex.
But then again I'm sure all geeks, with better things to do such as recompiling their kernel, are above such simple things as procreation. :)
No this is not offtopic. Sit down.
I discovered a real treasure a few weeks ago: My grandmother's photo album containing top quality pictures of her parents as youngsters. That was in the late 1800s. Just by looking at these pictures, no technical gadgets needed, a time that is long past really came to life in my mind. I saw a picture of my great-grandfather on his way into the First World War, pictures from my grandfather when he met my grandmother, pictures of my hometown from a hundred years ago. It's better than any history book.
What will be left of the digital pictures, M$ Word documents, MP3 music, what will be left of our lives that our grandchildren can look at or listen to in 150 years? Of our culture? How long does digital data live, how long do even today's printouts live? To be honest, the very fact that everything will just get lost unless much effort of preservation is taken bothers me so much that I'm asking myself whether I should move to digital photography at all. I want my time and life to come alive in my great-grandchildrens' minds as well.
I wish I could mod you "+5 Supercalifrajalisticexpialidocious", my friend. Thank you very much for the links. My brutal solution had simply been to go directly to the images directory: the browsing is not restricted.
100% of Slashdot is available elsewhere, perhaps you're just reading more news than you used to.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
tried to find the relevant Calvin and Hobbes online, but couldn't. Oh well, you know what I'm talking about.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
The tapes themselves, not the readers and not the formats of the data on the tapes, last considerably less than a decade, depending on who you ask and how you store them and the quality of the tape. Analog tapes are far more vulnerable than digital ones, but estimates range from 1 year to 20 years, but between 5 and 10 (under optimal storage) being very common estimates.
Since most people choose their data tapes based on lowest price, quality is usually crap and you can only count on a year or two of reliability. Five years is probably top average life expectancy for less than top of the line tapes (non- metal or chrome tapes) with optimum storage. Optimum storage conditions are around 21 C and 41% humidity. Neither of the two common tape storage units like gym bags or car trunks meet those conditions. :P
Eventually you will have to migrate to another of the same type of physical medium or a different type of physical medium. Most people only think of this after they've lost a few years of archived data. Do this migration before you start losing data. A good tape costs a few bucks, the data probably cost hundreds of thousands or millions to acquire and may not be replacable.
If you are really paranoid, keep three backups: one for occasional restores, one for backup, and one in case something bad happened to the first two.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.