From: Alejandro Lopez de Haro (alhr@wanadoo.fr)
Date: 02/23/02-05:45:07 AM Z
Hi to all:
Again on the topic of the first photograph. Reading the thread on the
forthcoming Sotheby's auction of the famous Collection Marie-Thérèse et
André Jammes, where the first "photographic document ever" will be auction,
it made me to hit some books which I have read a long time ago.
First, it seems that what it is at auction in Sotheby's is the "first
photographic document", since this claim is back up by a letter sign by
Nicéphor Niépce where he send this "document", actually a gravure made by a
photographic image, héliographie was Niépce term, to his cousin.
Now the question I raise is that this claim seems at the very least
something to be discuss. I say this because at the Niépce Museum in France,
there are several pewter plates done before 1825. They are from 1820. There
seems that no print has been found from these plates, and so it is claim by
Niépce curators that no prints were made by Niépce, so in theory, Sotheby's
claim appears to be right, but not exact ("juste") since there is no way in
knowing that they were not.
Now, rereading the book by Roland Barth "La chambre claire", "Camera Lucida"
in English, he mentions that the first photograph was by Niépce, and that it
was a "dinner table". So the claim that the photograph, "Le point de vue de
la fenêtre" was the first photograph ever, which is in Harry Ramson Center
in Austin, seems in doubt. It seems then, that what is presume to be the
first photograph, is in reality "the first preserved photograph from
nature*" (*According to Helmut Gernsheim-photo-historian) , not the first
photograph.
Regards,
Alejandro López de Haro
P.S. I still have many doubts about Sotheby's claim. How did Niépce made a
héliographie from a horse and a boy without showing any movements on both
the boy and the horse? (We were talking what, a sensitivity of ISO 1?)
*http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~photohst/mta303/niepce.html
----- Original Message -----
From: <Grafist@aol.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 11:01 PM
Subject: Re: Gum or what?
> In a message dated 20/02/02 06:25:25 GMT Standard Time, jseigel@panix.com
> writes:
>
> > Well, by my calculations, if the volume of "dichro" was so much greater
> > than the paint (a few "squirts"), say about 10 times as much (?), that
> > means in effect you had a 20% solution -- wouldn't you say????
> >
> > And if so, it doesn't count as 2%...
> >
> > However, you don't say how far from the light source that 15 minutes
> > exposure was... Also a factor in actual exposure...
>
............................................................................
..
>
> .........
> Judy, You may well be accurate in your calculations. Would anyone like to
> comment? The UV radiation exposure source was several million miles away
> (?). The Sun. We have not agreed on the volume of a " squirt ". One finds
it
> difficult to be accurate about these things.
> I'll get my coat........... Regards. John
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