Extraordinary Stories From An Ordinary Guy: The "Images, Images And More Images

It was an ordinary day. Just opened an email and was greeted by the faces of many famous people; a couple of notorious outlaws, a scientist, a few famous artists and the list goes on and on. Most of the faces are in black and white due to the age of the photographs. Some lived before black and white photography and are only sketches of the person. And a few whom I didn't know their names because their portraiture's were taken when they were much younger than when I would have known theme for their contribution to history. Got me thinking about one of my favorite topics: photography. The word photography is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw). Word came about in 1839 when used by Sir John F.W. Herschel for the first time. It is really a method of recording images by the action of light or related radiation onto a sensitive material. The photographs and cameras first used are nothing like what you use today.

The camera obscura

The Camera Obscura, known as a pinhole camera, was invented about 1000 AD, but it wasn't until 1827 that Joseph Niepce developed the first photo- graphic image with the camera obscura. On a summer day that year Niepce coated a metal plate with an semi-solid form of petroleum known as bitumen and created the world's first image, or photograph. But, it wasn't until 1839 that Louis Daguerre, friend and fellow Frenchmen of Niepce, invented the first practical process of photography and named it after himself. Daguerre's daguerreotype process was done using silver-plated copper. Then along came Matthew Brady who opened his first daguerreotype studio in New York in 1844 and made Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams some of his first subjects. When the Civil War started he took a mobile studio to the battleground. Without this photographic pioneer we may never have had images of the Civil War. One of the photos I will show you today was taken by Brady. So, for now, your history lesson in photography is complete, or at least as complete as it will be. Now, if you had been a student in my photography class in high school you would have had a much more in depth history lesson than you had today. I just didn't want to lose you or you may not have gotten to the photos. So, here are the images, mostly in black and white, that I will share with you. I must give credit to my daughter-in-law's mother, Etta, who knew I would thoroughly enjoy the photographs when she sent them to me. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - See how many of the images you can identify before reading the note under it.