Essay On 19th Century Photography

Imagine you are asked to keep your posture for longer than you are able to hold it. It doesn’t sound so easy. Definitely you would become tired after seconds and will change your pose. However, in the 19th C. photographs because of the basic technique, models had to stay in one position. This is the main reason why people in the portrait photographs from 19th century are standing still. The photographs of the 19th century can tell you what the subject’s status society and their occupation was according to their style and clothing. The people in the portraits did not smile and instead looked very serious which brings many questions to mind. These questions include: was it the fashion which caused them not to smile, was there a restrictions

The next and last change of photographic processes was made in the year of 1866 with the so called Cabinet Cards. These were like the Carte de Visite just much bigger. The image quality did not improve through the size of the photography material because the image quality was caused by the camera and lenses which have been used at this time. All these different photographic processes had one thing in common: they were not very light sensitive. The later processes were more sensitive than the earlier ones. Therefore portraits were best taken in bright sunlight, preferably outdoors with no clouds what so ever. The daylight studios used by photographers made them able to shorten the exposure time of their images by several minutes. However, the exposure time of several seconds or even minutes still forced the portrayed people to hold their posture for a long time. Therefore it wasn 't possible for them to get captured while jumping, making fast movements, or any movements at all. To prevent people from dropping their head or moving their arms or bodies while the exposure lasted, they got mostly seated and their hands or arms were placed in a comfortable easy to hold position. For their heads, photographers used self-constructed clamps and holders to place behind the head to hold it in the desired position. In images of the late 19th century you can see more often people standing in postures which are more playful and light due to the improved light sensitivity.