Childrens Illustrated Encyclopedia

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Photography 404-

Macro, or close-up, photography

magnifies tiny details barely

visible to the naked eye,

such as the beautiful

gold-colored eye of

a leaf frog (right).

different VieWs

photography can

create strange and

dramatic views of

familiar objects.

extreme “fish-eye”

lenses with angles of

view as wide as 180

degrees can produce

highly distorted

images of the world.

A 19th-century photographer tries

to hold a baby’s attention while he

struggles to operate

his bulky camera.

More than tWo hundred million times a day, a camera shutter clicks

somewhere in the world to take a photograph. there are family snapshots

capturing happy memories, dramatic news pictures, advertising and fashion

shots, pictures of the planet beamed back from satellites in space, and much

more. the uses of photography are numerous, and new applications are being

found all the time. the first photographs were made by coating sheets of

polished metal with light-sensitive chemicals, but the images appeared in dull,

silvery gray and could only be seen from certain angles. during the 19th century,

new processes were invented for spreading the chemicals on to a glass plate or

on to a film of cellulose (a kind of plastic). eventually, photographs

could be made in either black-and-white or full color. film is still

in use today, although it is quickly being replaced

by digital photography. digital cameras use

a light-sensitive chip, instead

of film, and store pictures

as digital image files that

can be transferred to a

computer. there, they can

be altered before being

printed or sent anywhere in

the world via the internet.

History of pHotograpHy

a frenchman named Joseph niépce

took the first photograph in 1826.

the exposure took eight hours to

make, and the picture was fuzzy

and dark. in 1837, another

frenchman, louis daguerre,

discovered how to make sharp

photographs in a few minutes. Just

two years later, english scientist

William fox talbot invented the

process that is still used for developing

film today. in the early days, cameras

were bulky, and for each picture

photographers had to carry a separate

glass plate. then, in 1888, american

george eastman

invented the Kodak camera. it

was small and light and came

loaded with a roll of film

rather than plates. taking a

picture became so easy

that anyone could try it.

The Kodak Box Brownie was

so simple that Eastman

claimed even a child

could use it.

PhotograPhy

Circular fish-eye shot of the

view from the top of the Great

Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt

high-speed

photography

With the use of special cameras and

lights, high-speed photography can reveal

movement too fast for the eye to see. a brief

burst of light from an electronic flash, lasting less

than one-millionth of a second, can capture the

image of an object moving at hundreds of miles per hour.

People in early portraits

often look uncomfortable

and stiff because they

had to keep still for

several minutes.

Flash “freezes” the

explosion as the bullet

exits the apple.

A special macro lens is

needed to focus at distances

as close as this.

US_404_Photography_1.indd 404 09/02/16 5:27 pm