297
panoramic format carried out in juxtaposition to the
format of plates sized 12,5 × to approximately 18,5
cm. Some images testify, in addition to the views of
Dié and of the roads of Toulon, a view of the arenas of
Nimes and amphitheatre of Arles as well. In January
1846 Arago, presented in front of the unquestionable
Academy of Science the images taken during this
period, which again were considered “very admirable
ones.”
Their last known work, “La Grande galerie du Louvre
et les quais de la Seine” and “Le Pavillon de Flore et les
Tuileries” were dated 1849. Currently, it is diffi cult to
say if they continued to practise photography beyond
this point. The complete absence of their names in
critical reviews by the Academy of Science, the press,
as well as their separate personal accounts, especially
after this date, would imply that their collaboration
stopped at this time.
In 1848, Ratel left Paris for Tours and joined the
company of the railroads Paris-Orléans as an engineer.
Two years later he married Marie-Angel Zoe Choiselat,
the sister of Charles. The latter died on December 20,
1858 in Paris, 34 street Cassette. Ratel survived him for
nearly the fi fty years.
In 1847, the daguerreotypist Thierry in his shortened
Histoire générale abrégée de la photographie, (general
History of photography), placed them in fi fth position
among the “remarkable daguerreotypists,” behind
Fizeau, Séguier, Claudet and Gaudin. Since then, their
names have become forgotten. Their production that
is now known is made up of only approximately thirty
images, mostly of landscapes and images of architecture
of South-east and South of France and images of Paris.
It is necessary to add that some plates were erroneously
attributed to one of their parents who moved away,
François Adolphe Certes. Of their talent as portraitists
and hired by their contemporaries, one knows today of
only two examples which are two extraordinary self-
portraits. Among the collections of institutions, one fi nds
examples at the musée Carnavalet among them, with the
museum of Orsay, the musée français de la photographie
de Bièvres, with the musée Réattu à Arles, l’Agfa-foto
Historama de Cologne, the Cana Centre canadien
d’architecture de Montréal like in Getty Museum, and
Metropolitan Museum of New York.
Quentin Bajac
Further Readings
Anonyme, Essai de théorie daguerrienne et résultats pratiques
par un professeur de Sciences, Paris, Gros, 1844.
Comptes-rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, Firmin-Didot, Paris,
années 1840–1845.
Quentin Bajac, “Choiselat et Ratel, une décennie de daguerréo-
type,” Revue de l’Art, septembre 2003.
Quentin Bajac et Dominique de Font-Réaulx (direction), Le
daguerréotype français, un objet photographique, catalogue
d’exposition, Paris, musée d’Orsay, New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Réunion des musées nationaux, 2003.
Georges Potonniée, Histoire de la découverte de la photographie,
Paris, Paul Montel, 1925.
Françoise Reynaud (dir.), Paris et le daguerréotype, Paris, musée
Carnavalet, Paris-musées, 1989.
Thierry, Histoire générale abrégée de la photographie, Lyon,
1847.CHRONOPHOTOGRAPHY
The term chronophotography applies to a loosely con-
stituted group of photographers who used the medium
to freeze rapid action for analysis and study. Emerging
from the instantaneous photography movement, chro-
nophotography is distinguished by the use of various
measurement systems to quantify distance travelled in a
short period of time. Although it is occasionally used to
describe twentieth-century practitioners such as the time
photographers Harold Edgerton (1903–90), the term is
mainly used to describe those who worked shortly after
stop-action photography fi rst became possible. The term
appears to have been coined by the French scientist and
photographer Etienne-Jules Marey and consequently it
is sometimes wrongly asserted that chronophotography
began with his time photography experiments on the
1880s. However, Marey was just one of a number of
practitioners who worked around the same time in a
similar vein. No precise dates can be established for
the existence of chronophotography; however, it can be
said to have fl ourished from the 1870s to the turn of the
twentieth century. The photographers most often associ-
ated with chronophotography are Eadweard Muybridge,
Etienne-Jules Marey, Georges Demeny, Albert Londe,
Thomas Eakins, and Ottomar Anschütz.
Chronophotography depended on two separate tech-
nological developments: instantaneity and automatic
exposure. Photographic materials common in photogra-
phy’s fi rst four decades, including Daguerreotype, paper
negative, waxed paper negative, and wet-plate collodion,
required substantial exposure times to register a sharp
image. Photographers struggled to capture even slow-
moving objects such as ocean waves or fl ags fl apping in
a breeze. Hundreds of minor advances in chemistry and
optics during these years gradually reduced exposure
times, but it was not until the introduction of gelatine
dry-plate negatives (commercially introduced around
1880) and bromide chemistry (invented 1879) that ex-
posures exceeding the capacity of the unassisted eye be-
came commonplace. One notable exception to this is in
the area of fl ash photography. Even with slow materials,
phenomena briefl y bathed in extremely bright light such
as a spark or thunderbolt will still register on the plate;
William Henry Fox Talbot demonstrated this principle
at a lecture before the Royal Institution in 1851.
There is some foreshadowing of the chronophotography