Memento Mori

Before photography was invented and popularized people had their portraits painted. This was very expensive and only for the richer families. When photography was invented, people who didn’t have that much money could also have their portraits taken. It cost a lot less money and people now had a way to remember their deceased family members. 

Photography was still quite expensive, although not nearly as expensive as paintings, and some people would spend their money on a photograph only after a family member had died. This was especially popular during the Victorian era when childhood mortality rates were very high. When a child died a post-mortem photography was maybe the only picture the family would have to remember the child. The subjects where often positioned in a way that would make them seem like they were alive or just asleep. 

Picture from Wikipedia

Parents with their deceased daugther

The families were very proud of the photographs, and for them they were a way of dealing with their loss and remembering the deceased. Today, people would probably look at this in a very different way. For many it will seem unnatural and even creepy, maybe because we have a different relationship with death. The mortality rates are much lower and people don’t usually like to be reminded of death or to talk about it. 

Post-mortem photography became less popular in the 20^th century and died out almost completely when “snapshot” photography became popular and people started to get their own cameras.

Daguerreotype

 

Louis Daguerre Picture from http://en.academic.ru

The daguerreotype, named after Louis Daguerre, became the first popular and practical process for photography. This method created sharp images and the exposure didn’t take forever like Joseph Niépce’s first method. The picture is developed on a copper plate coated with mercury that is exposed to mercury vapour. The first sucsessfull picture taken using this method was “L’Atelier de l'artiste”. This picture was taken by Daguerre in 1837 and is a still life showing two angel figures, a bottle and a framed picture and some other things:

 Picture from Wikipedia

 

The First Photograph

Picture from Wikipedia

This is a picture of the view from the window in this mans workroom:

 Picture from Wikipedia

He’s name is Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and the picture is the first photograph ever taken. It was taken in 1826 and shows Mr. Niépce’s courtyard outside his house in France with landscape and trees. The exposure was 8 hours and you can see that the sunlight illuminates both sides of the courtyard. The picture was taken with a camera obscura:

  Picture from http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/index.html

A camera obscure is a box that projects the image trough a hole an on to a surface like an overhead. It was used for drawing over the image to create a picture and was very popular at the time. Instead of drawing, Niépce put a plate that was treated with light sensitive bitumen. That way the motive was imprinted on the plate and became visible after it was washed. The photographer called he’s new method “heliography” but died in 1833 without any success in his attempt to interest the Royal Society with his new invention. His friend Louis Daguerre continued his work and had success with the new Daguerreotype method, which was much more efficient.

Hello! :D

Welcome to my blog! My name is Marie. I live in the south of Norway, I’m 18 years and I am really interested in photography. In this blog I will write about everything that has to do with photography. It can be about famous photographers and photographs, different techniques, cameras and maybe some pictures that I have taken. Just anything related to photography. I think there are a lot of people who like to take pictures sometimes and like to read about photography, so I hope some people will find this blog interesting.  

This is me:

 

And this is my camera Nikon D40:

 

 From http://www.diggpix.com