With the invention of photography in the 19th century, photographers opened the spectacle of the natural world to the scientific community and to an awestruck public. After the introduction of faster dry plate emulsions, photography as a tool for research of unseen realities extended scientific knowledge beyond the observable, and photography routinely presented the previously…
Tag: digital infrared photography
St. Kilda—Nature, the Sublime, the Picturesque
The term nature evokes mountains, waterfalls, deep forests, and Ansel Adam’s landscape photographs. This popular association of nature with beautiful outdoor splendor began in the 16th and 17th centuries. The landscaped gardens of the British and French aristocracy, which emphasized the precise control of nature, were an early expression of burgeoning nature and landscape consciousness. The rise…
At Lacock Abbey: Talbot’s Latticed Window
In early June 2022, I toured Lacock Abbey, the large ancestral home of William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of the negative-positive photographic process. The highlight of the tour was the opportunity to look through the latticed window in the south gallery of Lacock Abbey, the subject of one of the world’s first camera-generated photographs….
Photographing at the Sage Crest Drive-in
The first commercial drive-in movie theatre in the United States opened in 1933, just outside of Camden, New Jersey. In the car-centric late 1950s, drive-in theatres became very popular and reached a peak of over 4000 drive-in movie screens, nationwide in 1958. [1] One of the largest drive-in movie theatres featured spaces for 2500 cars,…
At Spenceville, Reflections in an Ephemeral Pond
In early January 2022, I had a chance to experiment with photographing reflections in an ephemeral pond in the Spenceville Wildlife Refuge in the Sierra Nevada Foothills of Northern California. After heavy December and January rains, seasonal streams were flowing and ponds were full. I was treated to a still morning and clear skies, perfect…
Experimenting with Infrared Full-Spectrum Photography
Early 19th-century photography was only able to record light falling in the blue and the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This very limited spectral range is best seen in the blank white skies in landscape photography in the mid-19th century. [1] By the 1880s and following the addition of sensitizing dyes to silver gelatin…
British Cemeteries in the Ganges Valley, India
The British East India Company was formed by royal charter in 1600 for the profitable exploitation of trade with India and Asia. Acting as an agent for the British government and through monopolies on the importation of cotton, tea, silk, and other fabrics from India into Britain, the company became a catalyst for British expansion…
Experimenting with Infrared Digital Capture
Constructed in 1955, MS Aurora was the first ship wholly made in German shipyards following World War II. MS Aurora began service as a day cruiser named the MV Wappen Von Hamburg, serving the ports of Hamburg, Cuxhaven, Heligoland, and Hornum in the North Sea. Later the ship was sold to new owners who converted…