Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Photography |
PhotographyNoun1. The act of taking and printing photographs. 2. The process of producing images of objects on photosensitive surfaces. 3. The occupation of taking and printing photographs or making movies. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "photography" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1865. (references) |
Etymology: Photography \Pho*tog"ra*phy\, noun. [Photo- -graphy: compare to the French expression photographie.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | If you see photographs in your dreams, it is a sign of approaching deception. If you receive the photograph of your lover, you are warned that he is not giving you his undivided loyalty, while he tries to so impress you. For married people to dream of the possession of other persons' photographs, foretells unwelcome disclosures of one's conduct. To dream that you are having your own photograph made, foretells that you will unwarily cause yourself and others' trouble. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Fine Arts | When the -- or any other type of picture is copied for half-tone reproduction. . Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
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Photography (Greek "drawing with light" from photos = light, and graphis = stylus, paintbrush or graphê = representation by means of lines, drawing) is the technique of recording, by chemical or mechanical means, a permanent image on a layer of material sensitive to light exposure.
Image forming devices
Most commonly a camera or camera obscura is the image forming device and photographic film is the recording medium but other methods are available. For instance, the photocopy or xerography machine forms permanent images but uses the transfer of static electrical charges rather than photographic film, hence the term electrophotography. The rayographs published by Man Ray in 1922 are images produced by the shadows of objects cast on the photographic paper, without the use of a camera.
Uses of photography
Photography can be classified under imaging technology and has gained the interest of scientists and artists from its inception. Scientists have used its capacity to make accurate recordings, such as Eadweard Muybridge in his study of human and animal locomotion (1887). Artists have been equally interested by this aspect but have also tried to explore other avenues than the photo-mechanical representation of reality, such as the pictorialist movement.
History of photography
The first photograph is considered to be an image produced in 1826 by Nicéphore Niepce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. It was produced with a camera, and required an eight hour exposure in bright sunshine. In 1839 Jacques Daguerre developed a process using silver on a copper plate called the Daguerreotype. Almost at the same time, William Fox Talbot developed a different process called the calotype, using paper sheets covered with silver chloride. This process is much closer to the photographic process in use nowadays, as it produces a negative image that can be reused to produce several positive prints.
Having fun with photography: manipulation of the scanned print in a graphics program puts these two brave(?) people on top of an Austrian cable car. To see the three components of this image, click on the picture.
The Daguerreotype proved more popular as it responded to the demand for portraiture emerging from the middle classes during the Industrial Revolution. This demand for portraits, that could not be met in volume and in cost by oil painting, may well have been the push for the development of photography. Neither of the techniques involved, the camera obscura, and the photo sensitivity of silver salts, were 19th century discoveries. Camera obscura were used by artists in the 16th century, as an aid to sketches for paintings, and the photo-sensitivity of a silver nitrate solution was observed by Johann Schultze in 1724.
Ultimately, the modern photographic process came about from a series of refinements and improvements on the foundations laid by William Fox Talbot. Photography became available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak Brownie camera, and, more importantly, with the industrialisation of film processing and printing. Very little has changed in principle since then, though color film has become the standard, and automatic focus and automatic exposure. For the enthusiast photographer processing black and white film, little has changed since the introduction of the 35mm film Leica camera in 1925.
Color photography
Color photography was explored throughout the 1800s. Initial experiments in color could not fix the photograph and prevent the color from fading. The first permanent color photo was taken in 1861 by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell. The first color film, Autochrome, did not reach the market until 1907 and was based on dyed dots of potato starch. The first modern color film, Kodachrome, was introduced in 1935 based on three colored emulsions. Most modern color films, except Kodachrome, are based on technology developed for Agfacolor in 1936. Instant color film was introduced by Polaroid in 1963.
Digital photography
Traditional photography was to be a considerable burden for photographers on remote locations (such as press correspondents) without access to processing facilities. Under increased pressure from television to deliver their images to the newspapers ever faster, photo-journalists on remote locations would carry a miniature photo lab with them, and some means of transmitting their images down the telephone line. In 1990, Kodak unveiled the DCS 100, the first commercially available digital camera. Its cost precluded any other use than photojournalism and professional applications, but commercial digital photography was born.In 10 years, digital cameras have become consumer products, and they are likely to gradually replace their traditional counterparts in most applications as the price of electronic components goes down and the image quality improves. However, "wet" photography will endure, as dedicated amateurs and skilled artists preserve the use of traditional materials and techniques.
Further articles in Wikipedia
Basic topics in photography
- camera
- photograph
- photographer,
- Photographic processes
- Photography as an art form
Historical
- Timeline of photography technology
- List of famous photographers
Technique(s)
- aperture
- bokeh
- contre-jour
- cyanotype
- f-number
- film developing
- angle of view
- depth of field
- panoramic photography
- perspective distortion
- push printing
- red eye effect
- shutter speed
Photographic products
- Camera
- Still camera
- Photographic film
- Film formats
- Flash
Related subjects
- Camera obscura
- Lomography
- Silver nitrate
External Links
- photo.net
- dpreview.com
- Open Photography - if you like Wikipedia you will certainly like this site. It's a place where people around the world share their photographs and photography knowledge. You could contribute too!
See also
- Kirlian photography,
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Photography."
Synonym: PhotographySynonym: picture taking (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Painting | Photography, heliography, color photography; sun painting; graphics, computer graphics. |
Representation | Noun: representation, representment; imitation; illustration, delineation, depictment; imagery, portraiture, iconography; design, designing; art, fine arts; painting; sculpture; engraving; photography, cinematography; radiography, autoradiography, fluorography, sciagraphy. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I've never quit anything in my life except for Chinese calligraphy, my Theses 2, Kangaroo Anatomy, Toe Photography, Booger sculpture and masturbation (Bio-Dome; writing credit: Adam Leff; Mitchell Peck) 3 of the horsemen died two weeks before the ending of principle photography. This is nothing this is nothing (Wag the Dog; writing credit: Hilary Henkin) The camera, you know, will never capture you. Photography, in my experience, has the miraculous power of transferring wine into water (Lillie; writing credit: James Brough; David Butler) Photography is truthand cinema is truth 24 times a second (Petit soldat, Le; writing credit: Jean-Luc Godard) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Photography (1898) Music & Photography of Milt Hinton Keeping Time: The Life (2003) Ulay - In Photography (1998) W. Eugene Smith: Photography Made Difficult (1989) Camera: Early Photography (1979) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | Aerial photo location of bridge vs. reported location Superiority of aerial photography for mapping being demonstrated conclusively. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. | ![]() | Launch getting underway Transportation for aerial photography field inspection crew. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |
![]() | A bizarre effect of time-lapse photography makes Clean Air Facility appear to be illuminated by triangular shaft of reflected sunlight. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. | ![]() | Photography station and panel. Credit: Flying With NOAA. |
![]() | Multiple cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning strokes caught using time-lapse photography during a night-time thunderstorm. Credit: National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). | ![]() | Time-lapse photography captures cloud-to-ground lightning during a night-time thunderstorm in Norman, Oklahoma - home of the NSSL. Credit: National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). |
![]() | Stereo photography allows diver scientists to measure the size of corals. Credit: National Undersea Research Program (NURP). | ![]() | Close-up underwater photography of coral reefs can only be done by divers. Credit: National Undersea Research Program (NURP). |
![]() | Sunrise photography on the flying bridge of the NOAA Ship McARTHUR while conducting operations for STAR 2000 in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. | ![]() | Dr. L. Boutan's first underwater photography apparatus, 1893. In: Reighard , Jacob, 1907, "The Photography of Aquatic Animals in Their Natural Environment. " Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XXVII, 1907, pp. 41-68. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Water closet" by Alejandro Levy Commentary: "It's a photography of a water closet." | "Circular Climb" by Dremeda Commentary: "This is a picture of the ladder on the microwave tower in Lago Patria Italy. I very new to photography so I hope you like it. ." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Play | Caption |
| Photo; photograph; camera; film; photographer; model; modeling; fashion; magazine; layout; photographic; photography. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Lately, multimedia applications and interfaces for digital photography are hot selling features for PCs sold in Saudi Arabia. (references) | |
Economic History | Uae | Currently, franchises are operating in fast foods; dine-in restaurants; auto leasing; apparel; soft drink bottling; beauty products; hotels; toys; photography; jewelry; vending machines; dry cleaning; furniture; hardware stores; office supplies; natural health products; publications; quick printing; garden care and florists; sporting goods; retail/convenience stores; maid and personal services. (references) |
Nicaragua | Registration forms cost $2 each, audiovisual applications cost $70, photography costs $20. There is a one-month delay for issuance. (references) | |
Australia | Other features of the general aviation segment include aerial work such as surveying, spotting and photography, police and customs functions, and aerial medical services; private piloting; large corporations, which own their own aircraft; and agricultural services, of which there are around sixty leading operations. (references) | |
Human Rights | Korea | Some human rights groups argue that a considerable amount of illegal wiretapping, shadowing, and surveillance photography still occurs, and they assert that the lack of an independent body to investigate whether police have employed illegal wiretaps hinders the effectiveness of the Antiwiretap Law. (references) |
Political Economy | MALAYSIA | The 2002 budget eliminates import duties on other film for color photography of paper, paperboard, and textiles. (references) |
Travel | Tanzania | The Department of State's consular information sheet on Tanzania reflects current information on Tanzania entry requirements, areas of instability, medical facilities, crime, photography restrictions, air transport, drug penalties and information concerning the U.S. Embassy; including telephone, telex and fax numbers. (references) |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes -- some of which have a large sale. |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Photography" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 98.08% of the time. "Photography" is used about 1,043 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 98.08% | 1,023 | 7,253 |
| Noun (proper) | 1.44% | 15 | 90,616 |
| Noun (common) | 0.48% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,043 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "photography": adept in photography ♦ aerial photography ♦ air cartographic photography ♦ air survey photography ♦ Aura Imaging Photography ♦ camouflage detection photography ♦ color photography ♦ colour photography ♦ continuous strip photography ♦ digital photography ♦ director of photography ♦ electrostatic photography ♦ endoscopic photography ♦ fan camera photography ♦ fan photography ♦ flash photography ♦ news photography ♦ pinhole photography ♦ powder photography ♦ radar scope photography ♦ schlieren photography ♦ shadow photography ♦ space photography ♦ spectronozal photography ♦ split vertical photography ♦ sports photography ♦ stereo photography ♦ strike photography ♦ thermal photography ♦ view camera photography ♦ view photography. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "photography": air-photography, anti-photography, macro-photography, street-photography, teach-yourself-photography. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "photography"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | fotografi (photo, photograph, picture, print, shot). (various references) | |
Arabic | فوتوغرافيا, تصوير (depiction, description, drawing, figuration, illustration, makings, photograph, picturing, portrayal, representation, reproduction). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | фотография (photo, photograph, picture). (various references) | |
Chinese | 摄影 (cinematography, Photographic, Photographical, Pictorial). (various references) | |
Czech | fotografování (camerawork), fotografické umìní. (various references) | |
Danish | fotografi. (various references) | |
Dutch | fotografie. (various references) | |
Esperanto | fotografio. (various references) | |
Farsi | لوازم عکاسی , عکسبرداری , عکاسی . (various references) | |
Finnish | valokuvaus. (various references) | |
French | photographie (photograph). (various references) | |
German | Fotografie (photograph). (various references) | |
Greek | φωτογραφία (photo, photograph, shot). (various references) | |
Hebrew | צלום (photograph, shot, take). (various references) | |
Hungarian | fotográfia, fényképezés. (various references) | |
Indonesian | pemotretan, fotografi. (various references) | |
Italian | fotografia (photo, photograph, picture, print). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | フェルミ粒子 (a walk, fall, fault, fault-tolerance, fauvisme, fellowship, fence, fencing, fender, Fermi particle, ferret, ferro-alloy, foam, foam rubber, focus, Fodor, fog, fog lamp, fog light, foie gras, folder, folk, folk art, folk dance, folk song, folklore, follow, follow wind, follow-through, followup, follow-up, fondue, font, force, force-out, ford, fore, forecast, foreground, forehand, foreman, forge, fork, fork ball, forklift, forklore, form, formal, formal dress, formal wear, formalism, format, formation, formatter, formatting, form-feed, formula car, formula plan, formula translation, forte, FORTRAN, fortune, forum, forward, forward pass, forwarding, fossa magna, foster child, foster parent, four nines, fox-trot, Fuji, Fuji-TV, pheromone, phone, phonograph, photo, photo library, photo realism, photo story, photo studio, photochromic glass, photocoupler, photodiode, photogenic, photogenie, photograph, photographer, photogravure, photoresist, phototransistor, Volkswagen, VW), 写真術 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | フォトグラフィー , しゃしんじゅつ. (various references) | |
Korean | 사진술. (various references) | |
Manx | fotografeeaght. (various references) | |
Papiamen | fotografia. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | otographyphay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | fotografia (exposure, photo, photograph, picture, portrait, still). (various references) | |
Romanian | tehnica fotografierii, fotografie (photo, photog, photograph, photoprint, picture, print). (various references) | |
Russian | фотографирование, фотография (photographer's). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | snimak (camerawork, picture, recording, shot, snapshot), fotografija (photo, picture, snapshot). (various references) | |
Spanish | fotografía (photo, photograph, picture). (various references) | |
Swedish | fotografi (photo, photograph). (various references) | |
Turkish | fotoğrafçılık. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | фотографія (likeness, photo, photog, photogene, photogram, photograph, picture, smudge), фотографування. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | thuật nhiếp ảnh, thuật chụp ảnh, sự chụp ảnh. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "photography": astrophotography, electrophotography, macrophotography, microphotography, stereophotography, telephotography. (additional references) | |
| |
"Photography" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: fotograph, photoghraph, Photografie, photografy, photographe, Photographie, photographies, photograpy, photogrephy, photogrphy, photopghraphy. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "photography" (pronounced futÄ"grufē) |
| 9 | f u t Ä" g r u f ē | astrophotography. |
| 8 | -u t Ä" g r u f ē | chromatography, cinematography. |
| 6 | -Ä" g r u f ē | autobiography, bibliography, biography, choreography, crystallography, demography, geography, hagiography, historiography, iconography, lithography, mammography, oceanography, orthography, phytogeography, polarography, pornography, radiography, topography, typography. |
| 5 | -g r u f ē | calligraphy, discography. |
| 4 | -r u f ē | apostrophe, atrophy, catastrophe, dystrophy. |
| 3 | -u f ē | philosophy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-g-h-h-o-o-p-p-r-t-y" | |
-1 letter: photograph, topography. | |
-2 letters: typograph. | |
-4 letters: agoroth, atrophy. | |
-5 letters: agorot, hoorah, hooray, photog, ragtop, trophy. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-g-h-h-o-o-p-p-r-t-y" | |
+2 letters: anthropophagy. | |
+3 letters: phytogeography. | |
+4 letters: phosphorylating, phototelegraphy, phytogeographer, phytogeographic, telephotography. | |
+5 letters: astrophotography, macrophotography, microphotography, phosphoglycerate, photographically, photolithography, photomicrography, phytogeographers, phytogeographies. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Sounds 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.