Portrait photography - Key moments

Reading an old photography book I have and I came accross these key moments in Portrait Photography.  I have found a few images on Google for some of those people listed below.

1838 - Louis-Jacques-Mande' Daguerre takes the first photograph of a person

1840 - In new york, US dentist Alexander S Walcott opens the worlds first portrait studio.

1854 - The photographic, Carte de Visite is invented in Paris and leads to a massive rise in the number of portrait studios.

1863 - Julia Margaret Cameron earns her reputation closely framed portraits of artists, writers and other notable figures of the day.

1930s - Angus McBean revolutionizes celebrity portrait photography, using elaborate backrounds and lighting.

2002 - Yousuf Karsh, one of the worlds greatest portrait photographers, dies aged 93.

2009 - In the UK, Jane Bown notches up 60 years as portrait photographer for the observer newspaper, with a portfolio ranging from  Bertrand Russell to Bjork.


Louis Daguerre (Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre) was born near Paris, France on November 18, 1789. A professional scene painter for the opera with an interest in lighting effects, Daguerre began experimenting with the effects of light upon translucent paintings in the 1820s.

Louis Daguerre regularly used a camera obscura as an aid to painting in perspective, and this led him think about ways to keep the image still. In 1826, he discovered the work of Joseph Niepce, and in 1829 began a partnership with him.
 
He formed a partnership with Joseph Niepce to improve upon the photography process Niepce had invented. Niepce, who died in 1833, produced the first photographic image, however, Niepce's photographs quickly faded.
 
After several years of experimentation, Louis Daguerre developed a more convenient and effective method of photography, naming it after himself - the daguerreotype.
 
According to writer Robert Leggat,"Louis Daguerre made an important discovery by accident. In 1835, he put an exposed plate in his chemical cupboard, and some days later found, to his surprise, that the latent image had developed. Daguerre eventually concluded that this was due to the presence of mercury vapour from a broken thermometer. This important discovery that a latent image could be developed made it possible to reduce the exposure time from some eight hours to thirty minutes.

Boulevard du Temple, paris - Joseph Neipce

Julia Margaret Cameron

Photographic portrait of an Italian man, possibly an artist's model called Alessandro Colorossi, by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879). Cameron's photographic portraits are considered among the finest in the early history of photography. She set up a private studio at her Isle of Wight home at the age of 48, after her daughter gave her a camera, and she became expert at using the collodion wet-plate process. This is the only photograph in which Cameron made use of a professional model.

Yousuf Karsh

Albert Einstein 1948

• Born: 23 December 1908
• Birthplace: Mardin, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey)
• Died: 13 July 2002 (complications from surgery)
• Best Known As: Photographer of the famous grumpy Churchill portrait

Yousuf Karsh's dramatic glimpses of public figures like Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemingway made him one of the most famous portrait photographers of the 20th century. Karsh and his family fled Armenia when he was 15 years old.

He ended up in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, where he learned photography and gained access to prominent national and international figures just as World War II was beginning. He worked mostly in black and white, with a large 8x10 view camera, often catching his subjects in surprisingly intimate or pensive moments. (His famous 1941 portrait of a glowering Churchill was snapped after Karsh snatched a cigar from between the prime minister's lips.)

Many of his portraits were printed in Life magazine, giving Karsh even wider exposure. Among his subjects were Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, John F. Kennedy, Pablo Picasso and George Bernard Shaw.

Karsh's younger brother Malak was a well-known photographer of Canadian landscapes... Karsh's portrait of Helen Keller was unusual: a close-up of her hands, pressed together as if in prayer.