It can be said that photography is a technical procedure and, at the same time, an art.
Photography is the procedure and art that allows you to fix and reproduce , through chemical reactions and on surfaces prepared for it, the images that are collected at the bottom of a camera obscura.
The principle of the camera obscura consists of projecting the image that is captured by a small hole on the surface. In this way, the size of the image is reduced and its sharpness can be increased. The storage of the image obtained can be done on a sensitive film or in CCD and CMOS sensors or digital memories (in the case of so-called digital photography ).
Development of photography
The daguerreotype , invented by Louis Daguerre in 1839 , is considered the precursor of modern photography. Daguerre used a layer of silver nitrate on a copper base. The positive was captured in mercury and the image was fixed by placing the plate in a solution of sodium chloride or diluted sodium thiosulfate.
George Eastman was a great promoter of photography when, in 1888 , he introduced the first Kodak camera with a roll of photographic paper. This technique replaced glass plates. Another important step occurred in 1948 , with the launch of the Polaroid technique that allowed photos to be developed in just one minute.
Nowadays, photographs are usually retouched with software to eliminate those imperfections that have been recorded and perform all kinds of actions, such as enhancing colors, playing with focus or superimposing various images on the same one, for example.
It is important to keep in mind that, in addition to being used for scientific purposes, photography has managed to establish itself as an art . Images taken by art photographers are often exhibited in exhibitions and museums.
To take good photographs you have to take into account the lighting conditions, among other factors.
Part of a reflex camera
The most important parts of a reflex camera are:
– the objective (made up of the lenses that are responsible for directing the light towards the sensor to achieve the best fidelity to the scene to be captured. Depending on the aperture, the objective can be more or less bright);
– the shutter (it is made up of a set of blades that allow light to pass through, controlling the amount that must enter);
– the viewfinder (allows the photographer to see the scene and choose the subject of the image);
– and the sensor (it is responsible for capturing information about the scene; it is made up of pixels that are sensitive to light that record the image data that will later be processed).
Photography as a record of life
Throughout history, human beings have known how to use different tools at their disposal to leave records of their passage through this world and of those events that would mark a before and after in the history of humanity.
And the discovery of photography and the advances that occurred over the years in it, allowed us to later have a notion of certain things that happened a long time ago and that considerably affected societies around the world , such as the Second World War. It was thanks to photography and literature that we had a true notion of the atrocities committed by human beings against their own species under artificial arguments and supremacist discourses .
With the advancement of technologies, photography has become available to everyone, allowing everyone who has a mobile device to capture images and keep them forever, sharing them with their friends. Also, the rise of social networks like Facebook makes it possible for tools to share images to be increasingly instantaneous and public, allowing an image to travel to all corners of the globe in just seconds.