By Clive Gracey — Regarding the invention of photography, three names tower above all others. Credit for the first photograph goes to the Frenchman, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who in 1826 or 1827 created an image of the view from the window of his chateau at Le Gras using a camera obscura loaded with a copper plate smeared with light-sensitive bitumen of Judea.
After Nicéphore Niépce’s death in 1833, his friend Louis Daguerre carried on his work and came up with the faster and commercially viable photographic process, the Daguerreotype, introduced in 1839. With exposure times of just minutes, a whole new realm of photography opened up. Daguerre’s 1838 photograph of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris was the first to capture a human being, an anonymous gentleman who, while having his shoes shined, remained motionless long enough to be froze in the image. The Daguerreotype had a good 20 years of commercial success before being superseded by an alternative process.
This process, known as the Calotype process, was developed by the Englishman William Fox Talbot, probably at the same time as Nicéphore Niépce was working towards his first photograph. The earliest surviving photograph by Fox Talbot is of a window in Lacock Abbey, taken in 1835. The low-cost Calotype process was the precursor of the celluloid film processes used up until the advent of digital photography at the end of the 20th century.
To this pantheon of Photographic worthies, another name should be added, that of John Herschel. Herschel was one of those great 19th century polymaths who quickly became a genius at any discipline to which he applied himself. Happily for us, photography was one of those disciplines and it is Hershel who is credited with coining the word ‘Photography’. In one succinct term, he managed to capture the essence of the medium.
From the Ancient Greek words ‘phōtos (light) and graphé (drawing), the word ‘photography’ literally means “drawing with light”. The corollary of this is that the quality of the light in any given photographic situation will have a strong deterministic effect on the photographic outcome. This apparently obvious point is in my view overlooked by most people when they lift a camera to their face (if you don’t believe me, take a look at the execrable efforts that are daily posted on social media). While it is perhaps excusable for the novice to be fixated only on the subject of the photograph and be oblivious to the quality of the light, the seasoned photographer will not even bother taking a shot unless the light is favourable.
The light which we prefer in our photographs is conditioned by our personal photographic aesthetics. If punchy, high contrast images with vivid colours and deep shadows are what we’re looking for, then mid-morning or mid-afternoon winter sunlight will serve us well. If, on the other hand, we are more inclined towards mellow, somber colours and tones, then an overcast day will provide us with the preferred light. If we are aiming for the chocolate-box type image, then early morning and late afternoon sunlight will imbue our images with an apricot glow and over-saturate our colours. And if we are one of those rare creatures who still photographs in black and white, then we will be driven by other lighting considerations too numerous to go into here. All I will say on this point is that, to a black and white photographer, a white sky is an anathema.
Of course, few of us have the luxury of being able to hang around, camera at the ready, for the light to change in our favour. We have to take what we get. Which makes us all extremely fortunate that we are in a country that provides us with such rich, varied and beautiful lighting throughout the year. Living in Oman, there really is no excuse for photographs taken in poor quality light.
If you glanced at my article in last week’s paper, you will immediately recognize this old house. I park my car right in front of it every time I visit Al Hamra and, over time, have become fascinated by the subtly changes in its appearance rendered by the quality of the ambient light.
I have taken many photographs of this house over the past couple of years and six of them I share with you here to illustrate the point that, according to the time of day, the time of year and the prevailing weather conditions, the light changes and so does the resulting photograph, even though the camera, the viewpoint and the photographer remain the same. On occasion, the light was more favourable for black and white photography than colour, in which case I went to the camera menu and switched to black and white mode.
Wouldn’t it be fascinating to see 365 photographs of this old house, each taken at exactly the same time on a different day of the year? Or maybe 720 photographs, two from each day of the year, one taken in the morning and the other in the afternoon? Or 1460 photographs taken …
Maybe when I move to Al Hamra that will be my first photographic project.
— clivegracey.squarespace.com
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