It is pretty obvious that we are a visual species. right from the very beginning, we expressed our selves through images, whether they be cave paintings of hunting animals or carvings of gods. In fact, the superiority of writing as a form of communication has only come about in the last few hundred years -after the Gutenberg press and mass literacy. There is no surprise, that in many cultures the symbols used to write with were formed from actual drawings. 
There is no doubt that imagery has a hold over us that other forms of communication can't compete with. It has been the dominant method of asserting authority, controlling culture and relaying ideas, whether it has been religious iconography or royal prerogative.The imagery of Jesus and Che Guevara and even the anti-imagery of the muslim world has been used to shape our history and cultures.
Often, when we look back at some of the greatest inventions, the seem to have appeared from nowhere and filled a gap that nobody even realized existed. Indeed much of national culture is often built upon the idea that a group of individuals drove the nation forward by inventing things that either revolutionized their industry or invented a completely new one. Think of George Stephenson's Rocket or Henry Ford's model T, or perhaps even the home computer. Photography also seems to have been discovered almost by accident, but I think there was a need for it even if it hadn't been openly expressed.
Both words and pictures are open to misinterpretation. Words can be ambiguous and pictures can be taken out of context. However, when used together they are much more likely to be fully understood. As Europe emerged through the Italian renaissance (and remember what remarkable works of visual art that produced), it turned its attention away from religion and culture to science. As that science became more practical and more complicated, it was obvious that a simple and logical way of illustrating experiments and ideas was going to be required.
Of course, scientists could have produced the images themselves - there are plenty of famous example of scientists who were also artists - or have the pictures produced for them. But that would mean they were always produced after the fact. For greater veracity, the images needed to be produced at the same time. They needed to record events as they happened with accuracy. The first attempt at this was the camera obscura. By channelling light through a lens into a darkened room and projecting it onto a flat surface, it was possible then reproduce images with great accuracy. This was the original camera and it was known about by the Greeks and Chinese hundreds of years ago.
The earliest pioneers of photography were primarily interested in chemistry and metallurgy. In the 1720s silver nitrate and chalk, when mixed together, was found to be responsive to light. A hundred years later Joseph Nicphore Nipce, a frenchman, made the first actual photograph, "View from the Window at Le Gras". He captured an image of the rooftops near his house with a camera obscura focused onto a sheet of oil-treated bitumen. The exposure time was 8 hours. He was later introduced to Louis Daguerre, with whom he went on to develop the process further. After the death of Nipce, Daguerre became known as the man who invented the photography and lived on a pension from the French Government.
At first progress was slow. It demanded an expertise that few people had and the results were often unpredictable and poor. It was another twenty years before the first portrait was produced. Robert Cornelius used the daguerreotype process to produce a self portrait. He was originally a metal polisher and became interested in photography as the daguerreotype process used silver on a copper plate. Cornelius combined his knowledge of metallurgy and chemistry to try to improve the process. Robert Cornelius' self portrait is one of the first photographs of a human to be produced. He went on to run two of the earliest photographic studios in the United States, but there was little money to be made from it at the time and he decided to devote his attention to his family's gas and lighting company.
Whilst there are plenty of famous paintings that depict quiet solitude and pastoral scenes, artists have always been attracted to high drama. War and conflict provide the sort of backdrop that naturally appeal to the curious eye. Roger Fenton was one of the first men to photograph conflict when he provided the public with a unique insight into the Crimean war. He was sent by the British government as an official war photographer, their intention being to use the pictures as propaganda. Due to the limitations of early photography there were no 'action pictures'. All the pictures were either landscapes or posed. He avoided taking pictures of dead or injured soldiers. But his photographs gave the public back in England an idea of what their troops were experiencing in southern Russia.
A few years later that taboo was broken during the American Civil war. Photographers like Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan followed the troops from battle to battle and recorded the aftermath. Gardner's famous picture ' The home of the rebel sharpshooter' shocked the nation when it was published just after the war in1866. It began the tradition of war photography, which ever since has strived to tell the hardship and misery of war.
There is no doubt that imagery has a hold over us that other forms of communication can't compete with. It has been the dominant method of asserting authority, controlling culture and relaying ideas, whether it has been religious iconography or royal prerogative.The imagery of Jesus and Che Guevara and even the anti-imagery of the muslim world has been used to shape our history and cultures.
Often, when we look back at some of the greatest inventions, the seem to have appeared from nowhere and filled a gap that nobody even realized existed. Indeed much of national culture is often built upon the idea that a group of individuals drove the nation forward by inventing things that either revolutionized their industry or invented a completely new one. Think of George Stephenson's Rocket or Henry Ford's model T, or perhaps even the home computer. Photography also seems to have been discovered almost by accident, but I think there was a need for it even if it hadn't been openly expressed.
Both words and pictures are open to misinterpretation. Words can be ambiguous and pictures can be taken out of context. However, when used together they are much more likely to be fully understood. As Europe emerged through the Italian renaissance (and remember what remarkable works of visual art that produced), it turned its attention away from religion and culture to science. As that science became more practical and more complicated, it was obvious that a simple and logical way of illustrating experiments and ideas was going to be required.
Of course, scientists could have produced the images themselves - there are plenty of famous example of scientists who were also artists - or have the pictures produced for them. But that would mean they were always produced after the fact. For greater veracity, the images needed to be produced at the same time. They needed to record events as they happened with accuracy. The first attempt at this was the camera obscura. By channelling light through a lens into a darkened room and projecting it onto a flat surface, it was possible then reproduce images with great accuracy. This was the original camera and it was known about by the Greeks and Chinese hundreds of years ago.
The earliest pioneers of photography were primarily interested in chemistry and metallurgy. In the 1720s silver nitrate and chalk, when mixed together, was found to be responsive to light. A hundred years later Joseph Nicphore Nipce, a frenchman, made the first actual photograph, "View from the Window at Le Gras". He captured an image of the rooftops near his house with a camera obscura focused onto a sheet of oil-treated bitumen. The exposure time was 8 hours. He was later introduced to Louis Daguerre, with whom he went on to develop the process further. After the death of Nipce, Daguerre became known as the man who invented the photography and lived on a pension from the French Government.
At first progress was slow. It demanded an expertise that few people had and the results were often unpredictable and poor. It was another twenty years before the first portrait was produced. Robert Cornelius used the daguerreotype process to produce a self portrait. He was originally a metal polisher and became interested in photography as the daguerreotype process used silver on a copper plate. Cornelius combined his knowledge of metallurgy and chemistry to try to improve the process. Robert Cornelius' self portrait is one of the first photographs of a human to be produced. He went on to run two of the earliest photographic studios in the United States, but there was little money to be made from it at the time and he decided to devote his attention to his family's gas and lighting company.
Whilst there are plenty of famous paintings that depict quiet solitude and pastoral scenes, artists have always been attracted to high drama. War and conflict provide the sort of backdrop that naturally appeal to the curious eye. Roger Fenton was one of the first men to photograph conflict when he provided the public with a unique insight into the Crimean war. He was sent by the British government as an official war photographer, their intention being to use the pictures as propaganda. Due to the limitations of early photography there were no 'action pictures'. All the pictures were either landscapes or posed. He avoided taking pictures of dead or injured soldiers. But his photographs gave the public back in England an idea of what their troops were experiencing in southern Russia.
A few years later that taboo was broken during the American Civil war. Photographers like Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan followed the troops from battle to battle and recorded the aftermath. Gardner's famous picture ' The home of the rebel sharpshooter' shocked the nation when it was published just after the war in1866. It began the tradition of war photography, which ever since has strived to tell the hardship and misery of war.
About the Author:
Andy Pinkham has worked in the photographic industry for more than twenty years. He has a particular interest in digital imagery and good cameras. Find out more about the best digital SLR cameras on his photography site, Camerawize and get top tips on how to improve your photography.
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