In To the Past

Daguerreotypes- 1840-1900
These crisp representations of people were used and rose to prominence in the infancy of photography. These grandfathers to modern photography enabled a cultural and conceptual redefinition of art. These photographers were unprecedented because were bonded by a yearning to understand their changing world. These "mad" scientist characters were unprecedented because of their ernest blending of concept with a sort of proletariat practicality.
Calotype - Same as Daguerreotypes
Calotype photography rose and feel back into obscurity at the within the Daguerreotypes life time. The process of making a print directly on to paper (Calotype) resulted in a slightly soft image. Lending a quality of chiaroscuro to the image that became a trait of this photography.

In my opinion the difference between both of these types of photography was in the quality of the "Clean Slate." The Clean Slate in video compositing terms represents a clean palate to build on top of. The problem with the calotype has to be how restricting it would be to always end up with a soft image regardless of the mechanical aspects of the process. This is conceptually limiting. The Daguerreotype form of photography was usually on a smooth and almost translucent material. Some Victorian portraiture is glass "film" framed against a velvet back grounds. Other times we find variations of metals used to print transfer an image from real life using an emulsion. One final gigantic innovation these photographers implemented was the addition of hand painted color on the images that they produced. These photographers painted fully involving narratives for their consumers. These photographers blissfully captured the essence of an era during a time of national turmoyl. Think of the war time photographers that produced fabricated narratives in the service of both the union and the confederacy.

Either way the reason I am looking at these wonderful representations of an era long gone is to try and figure what these artistic pioneers were trying to articulate. They might not have know how history would put into context their photos, all they knew is that they were doing work.









*Some of these images came from the awesome blog listed bellow, check it out yourself interested in more info about these types of photos

http://jolantasketch.blogspot.com/2012/01/capc-stands-for-commercial-application.html