Chapter Seven: The Pigment Processes - The Gum Bichromate Print and the Carbon Print

A note from the filmmakers:

Nothing lasts forever. The pigment processes were invented to address problems of fading in albumen prints. Making a photograph permanent is a reoccurring theme throughout the history of photography. The pigment processes, created over 150 years ago, achieved a level of permanence in their images that even surpasses the modern processes we find today.

This chapter also introduces one of key movements in the artistic developments in photography, the pictorialists. It’s leaders, Alfred Steglitz and Edward Steichen, worked to elevate photography so that it was accepted as an art form. As a bonus, this chapter features one of Stieglitz’s cameras, which was given to George Eastman House by Georgia O’Keeffe.

January 5th, 2015 Comments are closed

Inventions of Photography – Chapter Nine - The Woodburytype

A note from the filmmakers:

The woodburytype process was the most challenging to demonstrate as the machines used in the process have all but disappeared. For the purposes of the demonstration, Mark Osterman was able to create a facsimile of this fascinating process. The woodburytype’s ability to combine photography and the press created an increase in the production of the printed image in publications.

January 5th, 2015 Comments are closed

Inventions of Photography - Chapter 10 - The Gelatin Silver Process

The Kodak empire rises and falls. Find out why in this chapter of Inventions of Photography.

Thanks to those who have been “liking”, sharing, re-Tweeting this series. This next chapter is personal for me, because it spans the era that I lived through. The analog to digital shift is still one of the most fundamental changes in photography since it’s invention. We’re still feeling its effects today. I still think in terms of a Super 16mm 100ft load of Kodak color reversal even while picking up my Canon DSLR. Share your feeling about the demise of the last great photographic chemical process.

A note from the filmmakers:

This chapter covers the historic revolution in photography created by George Eastman using the gelatin silver process. Like most people our age, we grew up in the era where gelatin silver prints and negatives were all we knew. It’s nostalgic today to remember a time when you would have to wait for the photo lab to finish your prints. It would be hard to explain to younger filmmakers the joy of loading a roll of Kodak Tri-X 16mm film into a Bolex. Even the smell of the celluloid makes us nostalgic. This chapter seeks to bring understanding to the recent historic shift from film to digital.

January 5th, 2015 Comments are closed

Inventions of Photography - Chapter 11 - Color Photography

A note from the filmmakers:

Those of us who remember the typical 4”x6” color film print might be surprised at the amazing technology that went into making what we used to take for granted. Tiny layers of dyes and gelatin silver combined to make minute patterns of color that, through a trick of the eye, would appear as a fully realized color image. The process in which the brain blends tiny patterns of selective colors has survived into the digital age in the form of the modern LCD screen. As we face the end of the film era, the complex industry used to make color print film is in jeopardy of extinction.

January 5th, 2015 Comments are closed

Inventions of Photography - Chapter 12 - Digital Photography

The final chapter of Inventions of Photography. Thanks for watching. Please share with those who you think would enjoy the series. – Matt & Jess InventionsOfPhotography.com

A note from the filmmakers:

We are now living in the age of photography’s biggest technological shift since it’s invention. The history of photography has seen the rise and fall of many photographic processes but all of them were based on the light sensitivity of chemical compounds. Images are now made with ones and zeros, not grains of silver nitrate. The vast majorities of these digital images are not printed and live solely within a computer or smart phone screen. This chapter attempts to see into the future at how photography will continue to evolve. As with most histories the only constant in the history of photography is change.

January 5th, 2015 Comments are closed
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