MIRROR OF MEMORY

MIRROR OF MEMORY

Text & photos provided by Canton 1840 Translation by Leo Photo by Getty Images

Writers record history with a pen. Painters record history with a brush. With the invention of photography, we are able to capture our memories in pictures and relive them like a mirrored image.

The basic idea of photography came from the optical phenomenon of pinhole image formation.

The phenomenon was documented by Chinese philosopher Mo Zi (480-389 BC) and Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC), respectively.

As an important component of the camera, the camera obscura (dark chamber) was described by Arabian physicist and mathematician Alhazen a thousand years ago. In the 17th century, the camera obscura had largely the same form as those in more modern cameras. But it was not until 1824 that the retired military offi cer, Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) captured the world's fi rst permanent positive image using a camera obscura. It took eight hours of exposure to get the image.

That is why the walls of two opposing buildings were captured in the image, a case that is not likely using today's cameras. Niépce termed his invention as“heliography”.

In 1837, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851), a French artist who partnered with Niépce in the latter's fi nal years, found that the use of mercury vapour in the development of images could lead to permanent and clear images on metalplated sheets. Daguerre named this process of photography as “daguerreotype”. This invention signifi cantly reduced the time of exposure for each picture from 8 hours to 30 minutes.

Daguerre publicly presented his invention in the year of 1839, which also witnessed the world's fi rst camera advertisement. The year is often cited as the starting point in the history of photography.

View from His Window, the world's earliest photograph by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce尼埃普斯摄人类最早存世照片《在勒格拉斯的窗外景色》

记忆之镜

作家用文字记录历史，画家用画笔记录历史，而摄影术的发明，好像打开了一面镜子，使得人类可以将记忆完全再现。

摄影术的基本原理来自小孔成像这种光学现象。在公元前300多年，东方的墨子和西方的亚里多德分别记录了对小孔成像的发现。

暗箱是照相机的重要部件。早在一千年前，阿拉伯学者阿哈桑就描述了一种后来被称为暗箱的工作器材。在17世纪，暗箱已经在很大程度上具备了现在意义上的照相机的形态。但直到1824年，法国退伍军官约瑟夫·尼瑟福·尼埃普斯才成功地捕捉到了一个暗淡的永久性的正像。为拍摄这张照片，他用了足足8个小时的时间曝光，因此画面中出现了东西两座建筑的墙面都受光的情景。而这种情况在现在的照片中是不可能存在的。尼埃普斯把他发明的这种摄影方式称为阳光摄影术。

1837年，与尼埃普斯合作研究摄影术的路易·雅克·芒特·达盖尔发现运用水银蒸汽来显影影像，可以在金属板上获得永久且鲜明的影像。达盖尔把这一过程命名为达盖尔铜版摄影术。达盖尔铜版摄影术的出现使得拍摄一张照片的曝光时间从8小时一下子减少到30分钟左右。

一般而言，摄影史以达盖尔公布发明的1839年为摄影术发明之年，同年，就出现了世界上第一个相机的广告。

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