Information and discussion on all aspects of British photographic history
Time: April 25, 2012 to April 28, 2013
Location: Swiss Camera Museum
Street: Grande Place
City/Town: CH-1800 Vevey
Website or Map: http://www.cameramuseum.ch
Phone: 021 925 34 80
Event Type: exhibition
Organized By: Swiss Camera Museum
Latest Activity: Feb 5, 2012
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In 1871, Richard Leach Maddox revolutionised photography when he discovered a way of producing sensitive plates which conserved their light sensitivity durably. This made them much easier to use, for it was no longer necessary to prepare a plate just before taking a photo. As a result, they could now be manufactured on an industrial scale.
It was this new type of plate that opened the way to instantaneous photography, capable, in a fraction a second, of fixing movement and thus « bringing time to a standstill ».
Cameras became more compact. They were equipped with a shutter which made it possible to set a precise exposure time and in addition they could be handheld.
Due to the ingenuity of the manufacturers combined with the fact that photographers wanted to capture images without anyone else realising, cameras became more and more miniature in size, resulting in some very strange designs.
This exhibition will remind us of this groundbreaking period in the history of photography with a number of fascinating documents and a display of a great variety of amazing objects, showing the visitor how cameras have become more and more modernistic over the years.
Victoria and Albert Museum's photography collection
National Science and Media Museum
RPS Journal 1853-2012 online and searchable
Photographic History Research Centre, Leicester
Birkbeck History and Theory of Photography Research Centre
William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné
British Photography. The Hyman Collection
The Press Photo History Project Mapping the photo agencies and photographers of Fleet Street and the UK
The correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot
Historic England Archive
UAL Photography and Photography and the Archive Research Centre
Royal Photographic Society's Historical Group
www.londonstereo.com London Stereoscopic Company / T. R. Williams
www.earlyphotography.co.uk British camera makers and companies
Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock.
National Portrait Gallery, London
http://www.freewebs.com/jb3d/
Alfred Seaman and the Photographic Convention
Frederick Scott Archer
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