U N I T 1 THE HISTORY BEHIND THE PICTURES In this Unit you will explore significant events in the history of photography and will learn some basic terms relating to photography. You will also explore the relationship between image, history and memory. A. YOU PUSH THE BUTTON AND WE DO ALL THE REST The era of mass-market photography was launched by this slogan introducing the first Kodak camera in 1889, but in the beginning when this important technological tool was discovered, things were slightly more difficult. The ability to produce drawing with light which is the literal meaning of the word photography was discovered simultaneously in the 1830s by a Frenchman, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, and an Englishman, William Henry Fox Talbot. However, Daguerre s compatriot Joseph Nicéphore Niépce had succeeded in fixing images with a camera obscura a good decade earlier. The daguerreotype process shown here represents a pioneering way of recording images. Over the next few decades, additional inventors made adjustments to this technology. Nowadays, while traditional analogue photography is losing its influence in its traditional territories, such as photojournalism or amateur photography and snapshots, photography, even at its ripe old age, is more relevant than ever before. Television, videos and the Internet at best produce a visual surge , while the conventional photographic picture is alone in having the power to produce something similar to a memory. The media scientist Norbert Bolz has spoken of the large, quiet image that grants something like a secure foothold in the current torrent of data. A daguerreotype GLOSSARY amateur: dilettante analogue: analogico decade: decennio to draw (drew-drawn): disegnare foothold: appiglio, punto 216 d appoggio to grant: (qui) assicurare however: tuttavia pioneering: pionieristico ripe: maturo snapshot: istantanea slightly: leggermente surge: picco immediato, slancio tool: strumento