Capturing the Light

Capturing the Light
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The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry

مشارکت: عنوان و توضیح کوتاه هر کتاب را ترجمه کنید این ترجمه بعد از تایید با نام شما در سایت نمایش داده خواهد شد.
iran گزارش تخلف

فرمت کتاب

ebook

تاریخ انتشار

2013

نویسنده

Helen Rappaport

شابک

9781250038326
  • اطلاعات
  • نقد و بررسی
  • دیدگاه کاربران
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نقد و بررسی

Publisher's Weekly

October 28, 2013
On a hot August day in 1835 in the small village of Lacock, Wiltshire, British former parliamentarian, amateur scientist, and writer Henry Fox Talbot was experimenting with permanently capturing images from nature and created a small, delicate image of a latticed window—the first photographic negative. Little did he know that stage designer Louis Daguerre had been pursuing the same goal since the 1820s, and had begun collaborating with amateur scientist Nicephore Niépce to develop a photographic process. Here, historians Watson, curator of the Fox Talbot Museum, and Rappaport (The Last Days of the Romanovs) offer an energetically written and deftly paced history of photography’s origins, including the intricate rivalries surrounding Talbot and Daguerre’s laborious attempts to permanently capture images seen through the camera obscura. A brief, though informative, history of optics, the camera obscura, and the Lunar Men (a small society of inventors and amateur scholars whose published accounts would be essential to photography’s realization) preface the authors’ portraits of Daguerre and Talbot. Daguerre garnered the bulk of the fame for announcing his discovery in 1839, four years after Talbot had created the first photograph. Though Daguerre reaped many more commercial rewards, Talbot emerges as a humble, hardworking genius in this gripping popular history. Two eight-page color photo inserts. Agent: Charlie Viney, the Viney Agency.



Kirkus

October 1, 2013
Watson, the curator of the Fox Talbot Museum, and historian Rappaport (A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy, 2013, etc.) develop the intricate history of photography. The appropriate hardware was, of course, known from antiquity in the form of the camera obscura. What wasn't accomplished until the 19th century was the fixing of the evanescent image projected in the back of that simple box. "Such is human inventiveness," write the authors, "that it was not long in the new...century before some of those who looked at the images in the camera obscura began wondering whether they could push the boundaries of its use." Many devoted amateurs worked assiduously on the challenge to capture the light with chemical solutions on paper or on metal. Some worked alone; others shared their results. Among the researchers were Francois Arago, Tom Wedgwood and Alphonse Hubert. In Paris, the inventor Nicephore Niepce produced negative images but never thought to print positives from them. Then, in 1839, Niepce's former partner, the scenic artist and showman Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) displayed to an amazed world portraits and pictures of street scenes made by nature itself. The Daguerreotype was a sensation. By then, across the Channel, English polymath Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) had devised the calotype process and a way to utilize a negative to produce multiple images on paper; he had not announced it with fanfare. First conceived of as a tool for artists and scientists, by the second half of the century, photography became a popular craze, especially in the United States. For Daguerre and Talbot, many honors, and patent disputes, followed. Then came tintypes, cartes de visite and stereopticons. Photojournalism pursued war and politics. Improvements in commercial printing and color processes promoted photography. Today, snapshots of Martian landscapes are commonplace. An unbiased, worthwhile recollection of the marvelous invention of photography.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.



Library Journal

October 1, 2013

Photography has been in existence for over 150 years, and it is hard to imagine a world without it. This informative and accessible book tells the story of 19th-century inventors who struggled to find a process to make images with camera and light. By 1839, two men had succeeded: English gentleman scientist William Henry Fox Talbot and charismatic French impresario L.J.M. Daguerre. Unaware of the other's existence, the men announced their inventions mere months apart. Here, Watson (curator, Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey) and historian Rappaport (A Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death That Changed the British Monarchy) describe the decades of struggle and discovery leading to the momentous announcement, recount the lives of two extraordinary men, and explain the technical advances and social impact of the following decades that made photography universal, affordable, influential, and practical. In almost every respect, 19th-century photography differs from today's digital medium. This work introduces readers to that earlier world, vanished except in images. VERDICT An approachable introduction to the subject for general readers. Those looking for greater depth should seek out Stephen C. Pinson's Speculating Daguerre: Art and Enterprise in the Work of L.J.M. Daguerre and H.J.P. Arnold's William Henry Fox Talbot: Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science.--Michael Dashkin, New York

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.



Booklist

October 1, 2013
January 7, 2014, will be the 175th anniversary of French illusionist Louis Daguerre's 1839 unveiling of the daguerreotype, considered by some historians to be the first true photograph. Others argue that British polymath Henry Fox Talbot's 1835 calotype should be listed as the first preservation of a camera image. Had the shy and cautious Talbot revealed his invention to the public immediately, he might not now be a forgotten man, according to Watson and Rappaport. Ironically, after a couple of contentious decades during which early photographers fought over patents and the merits of metal, glass, and paper media for saving images, Talbot's use of negatives became the standard process for both landscape and portrait photography, and Daguerre remained photography's legendary figure. A small collection of historic photographs is included in this well-timed and welcome history of the invention and spread of photography in the nineteenth century.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)




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