Research on Photography

The basic idea of photography has been around since the 5th Century B.C. The first attempt to create a camera was made by an Iraqi scientist on the 11th century called the camera obscura. However, images were not created, they were simply depicted in another surface. In the 1930's Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created a portable camera obscura to expose a pewter plate coated with bitumen to light. This was the first documented image that did not fade quickly. There were many experiments before the real camera appear such as: daguerreotypes, emulsion and dry plates. Photography was exclusively for the rich people until the 1880's, when George Eastman founded Kodak. Eastman invented a roll film that did not involve the change of solid plates. This camera was inexpensive and allowed more people to practice photography.

Henri Cartier-Bresson is considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. This French photographer was born on August 22 1908. His work in the early 1930's helped defined modern photography. He was a master in shooting candid photography, and for this reason the title of his first major book was called "The Decisive Moment." He also aid to develop the "street photography" style, which has influence millions of photographers ever since. Cartier-Bresson spend most time in World War II as a prisoner, but when war was over he joined Robert Capa and other photographers in funding Magnum Photo Agency, which allowed photographers to reach publications such as Life Magazine, while still having control over their work. He was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, but on the last years of his life he retired from photography and became a painter. His wife Martin Franck, who is also a photographer, said her husband had an innate intuition in where to be. He was in India when Gandhi was assassinated and in China when the communist arrived. And I think that what's beautiful about his photographs is the sincerity of the subjects. The people in his photographs are not posing. You can clearly see their real emotions emerging from the pictures. And Cartier-Bresson not only knew when and where to be, but he knew how to capture and shoot real moments. I think that Cartier-Bresson's photograph of the kid holding two bottles, is one of the most real photographs he shoot. The expression of the child is priceless. He is proud and happy to be carrying those two bottles, and you can see the girls in the back admiring and applauding him.

William Eugene Smith was one of the most remarkable photojournalist. He was born on December 20th 1918 and died on October 1978. He was known for his vivid and explicit World War II photographs. He worked for Life Magazine as war correspondent and covered many wars in the Pacific. In 1944 during his work in World War II he injured his left hand and was almost forced to retire from photography, but he returned to Life

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