Teaching photography

I spent a couple of mornings last week guest lecturing a course entitled “Art and Technology," offered at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. The course surveys the relationship between those two most human expressions of creativity – art and technology.

I was there to talk about “How we got to photography.” I showed lots of slides and talked about vision theory through the Renaissance, the development of optical tools like mirrors and lenses, and the important role played by the camera obscura in the history of optics and in the development of art, hundreds of years before photography’s announcement in 1839.

Reading history is a favorite leisure activity. I have certain times and places that always interest me, none more than early photo history through the Pictorial period. There's so much going on during those years. But that interest has led me to looking into the pre-history of photography to find out why all the parts of photography were in place – the optics by the 15^th century and the chemistry in the early 18^th century – nearly 100 years before anyone thought about photography. But then between 1802 and 1839 there's a tidal wave of activity with at least 24 separate claimants around the world who can carry the mantle of proto-photographers. 

Talbot's camera obscura ca 1830s

I brought in a camera obscura to let students peer inside, to see for themselves the ephemeral magic that inspired William Henry Fox Talbot in 1831. On his honeymoon that year, he tried making some sketches only to be frustrated by the effort. Later, he wrote in his journal, “How charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed upon the paper!" By 1839, he announced the results of his experiments and photography was born!

I’ve always loved teaching and I’m grateful for these occasions to share my enthusiasm for the subject.

See my website:  woodsedge.net