History of Photography - Coursework Example

According to Alain Briot (2005), Photography is "both an art and a science". He explains that "Photography allows us to express our feeling and emotions, but to do so we need to master the scientific part of the medium. Unlike a painter, who is in direct contact with his subject and his canvas, a photographer is separated from his subject by the camera and from his "canvas" by computers and printers today and by darkroom equipment previously." (Briot, 2005). But not all of Photography can be considered to be art as Briot (2005) states that "an artistic photograph is created when the technique is used to express a vision and an emotion, not when the technique is used for its own sake.

" As we will see there has been a long and heated debate over the issue whether Photography can be considered to be an art form or not. Even in the present, many people don't think that Photography can be an expression of art. But the influence of Photography has been exerted in the art world since its invention by a French lithographer called Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1827 when he captured the view outside the window of his house on a metal plate coated with bitumen (Weiss, 2001). Its invention didn't stop there and it was improved by Daguerre later on after Niepce's death.

The French government gave away this invention as a gift to the world as Sanford L. Weiss clearly explained it in his article "A History of Photography": "In 1839 the French government purchased both the patent it had granted to Niepce and the one they had granted to Louis Jacque Mande Daguerre for a process by which he was able to capture images on silver-coated copper plates. The French presented both inventions to the world as a gift and news of the discoveries spread rapidly." (Weiss, 2001).

There was an evolutionary process in which Photography was highly improved, and many different inventions helped Photography be available to the masses. It was easy to capture any moment just by clicking a button, and the exposure time was greatly reduced. The popularization of Photography has enriched our lives in many ways, but the controversy around its artistic status has been very prolonged along the way. Richard Pitnick gives a detailed account of how Photography has earned a prestigious status as an art form in a long article entitled "The Emergence of Photography as Collectible Art.

As we can see from this account, it has not been easy for photographers over the years to establish themselves as artists and to make their works known. It has been a long process that began in the second half of the 19th century when one photographer sued another in 1862 in France according to New York Times Photography critic Vicki Golberg, who was interviewed by Linda Grace-Kobas for a Cornell Chronicle article.