Full Answer
What type of photography was used during the Civil War?
The type of photography used during the civil war was known as wet-plate photography. The process of capturing photos was complicated and time consuming. Photographers had to carry all of their heavy equipment, including a portable dark room, to the battlefield on a wagon. The cameras were large and hard to move around on the battlefield.
What camera was used in WW1?
A wet plate camera made by Dallmeyer, the type of camera used during the Crimean War. (Image source: John Wade.) World War One, from 1914 to 1918, was the first to be seriously documented photographically.
How many photos were taken during the Civil War?
These images were taken by small-town photographers and traveling camp photographers, which combined topped 5,000 by the time war broke out in 1861, Zeller said. More than a million such images were produced during the war. Officers had their photos taken as well and often passed them out to the men as a morale booster.
What was the first war to be documented by photography?
The Civil War was one of the first wars to be documented by photography. The invention of photography in the 1820s allowed the horrors and glory of war to be seen by the public for the first time.
What were cameras used for in the Civil War?
During the course of the war, photographers recorded images of unburied dead soldiers on seven occasions—following the battles of Antietam (1862), Corinth (1862), Second Fredericksburg (1863), Gettysburg (1863), Spotsylvania (1864), and, in 1864, on the occasion of burials at Fredericksburg and Petersburg.
Was camera used during the Civil War?
While photographs of earlier conflicts do exist, the American Civil War is considered the first major conflict to be extensively photographed. Not only did intrepid photographers venture onto the fields of battle, but those very images were then widely displayed and sold in ever larger quantities nationwide.
How did they take pictures in the Civil War?
During the Civil War, the process of taking photographs was complex and time-consuming. Photographers mixed their own chemicals and prepared their own wet plate glass negatives. The negatives had to be prepared, exposed, and developed within minutes, before the emulsion dried.
What technology was used during the Civil War?
The Civil War was fought at a time of great technological innovation and new inventions, including the telegraph, the railroad, and even balloons, became part of the conflict. Some of these new inventions, such as ironclads and telegraphic communication, changed warfare forever.
Were all Civil War soldiers photographed?
Although nearly every soldier had his photograph taken, tens of thousands of the images have been lost over the past 150+ years. And of the tens of thousands of soldier images that survive, the vast majority are unidentified.
How did cameras work in the 1860s?
For daguerreotype images, popular between 1840 and 1860, the photographer put a sheet of copper, coated with silver and exposed to iodine vapor, into the camera. Once the sheet was exposed to light during the taking of the picture, the photographer used a mercury vapor to bring out the image, and then set it with salt.
Why are there no Civil War battle photos?
Because wet-plate collodion negatives required from 5 to 20 seconds exposure, there are no action photographs of the war. The name Mathew B. Brady is almost a synonym for Civil War photography.
Who took pictures during the Civil War?
Mathew Brady and his associates, most notably Alexander Gardner, George Barnard, and Timothy O'Sullivan, photographed many battlefields, camps, towns, and people touched by the war.
Who took photos during the Civil War?
Mathew Brady and his associates, most notably Alexander Gardner, George Barnard, and Timothy O'Sullivan, photographed many battlefields, camps, towns, and people touched by the war.
How did cameras work in the 1860s?
For daguerreotype images, popular between 1840 and 1860, the photographer put a sheet of copper, coated with silver and exposed to iodine vapor, into the camera. Once the sheet was exposed to light during the taking of the picture, the photographer used a mercury vapor to bring out the image, and then set it with salt.
How long did it take to take a photo during the Civil War?
The majority of civil war photos are still shots of soldiers, dead and alive. This is due to the primitive nature of photography. Cameras during the days of the civil war required a 5 to 20 second exposure for each photo, thus making action shots impossible.
What were the 2 most common types of photography during the Civil War?
The first was portraiture, which is, by far and away, was the most common form of photography during the war. The second was the photography of battlefields, camps, outdoor group scenes, forts and landscapes – the documentary photography of the Civil War —most commonly marketed at the time as stereoscopic views.
Why are Civil War photos still taken?
The majority of civil war photos are still shots of soldiers, dead and alive. This is due to the primitive nature of photography.
What is tintype photography?
Tintype photography involved creating a direct positive on a sheet of iron blackened by paint lacquer or enameling. Much like the wet-plate photography, after the image was burned onto the tin, the tin was then placed in a collodiun mixture.
Why are photos faster to take?
The photographs were quicker and faster to produce because they did not require drying and could be produced within minutes of taking the photograph. This new technology greatly advanced the art of photography and made it a faster process.
What was the first war to be documented?
The Civil War was one of the first wars to be documented by photography. The invention of photography in the 1820s allowed the horrors and glory of war to be seen by the public for the first time. Dozens of photographers, some private and some employees of the army, snapped photos of the soldiers as well as the locations of Civil War battles.
How long did it take for a camera to remove the cap?
The photographer then removed the cap on the camera for 2 to 3 seconds to expose it to light and imprint the image on the plate. The cap was replaced and the plate glass, still in its light-tight container, was taken to the darkroom where it was placed in a bath of pyrogallic acid.
What is stereo view?
Photographers also learned how to make sophisticated 3D images with these cameras, known as “stereo views.” Stereo view images were created using twin lenses placed at different angles on the same target.
What chemicals were used in the process of taking pictures?
Chemicals used in the process were made up of a mixture known as collodion. This mixture included dangerous chemicals like ethyl ether, acetic and sulfuric acid that had to be mixed by hand. The act of taking a photo was a very detailed process. First the photographer positioned and focused the camera.
What did Alexander Gardner's photos of dead soldiers at Antietam change?
Alexander Gardner ’s 20 photos of dead soldiers at Antietam changed the perception of Civil War – and warfare in general – as civilians’ romantic notions of war were upended by inglorious, grotesque images of young men laying face-down in the dirt. Union troops crossing the Rapidan River at Germanna Ford, taken May 1864.
How big are Civil War negatives?
The negatives produced by the wet-plate process were usually about four inches by ten inches in size but could be even larger. This makes them 20-30 times larger than negatives produced by a 35mm camera, thus having a much higher resolution. Furthermore, unlike 35mm negatives or even modern digital images which have grain or pixels, Civil War photos were fixed on chemical sheets, which had neither. As a result, we can zoom into these negatives and notice tiny details that the photographer himself may have never noticed. These details – that inform material culture, battlefield appearance, and more – add an incredible depth of humanity to the study of the Civil War.
How did photographers take pictures away from their studio?
In order to take photographs away from their studio, photographers had to bring all the essentials from their studio out to the field, usually via wagons. This included the darkroom, a cramped space from which the photographer worked with dangerous chemicals to prepare and develop images.
How many times did photographers photograph dead soldiers?
Fact #7: Photographers photographed dead soldiers where they fell on nine occasions. Some of the most striking Civil War photos are those that depict dead soldiers. However, these photographs only make up a small fraction of Civil War documentary photos.
Why did Southern photographers take Civil War photographs?
However, Southern photographs would become less and less common. Due to the tightening Union blockade, the South ran low on chemicals needed for photography. As a result, the overwhelming majority of Civil War documentary photographs were taken by Northern photographers, who had a seemingly endless supply of the materials they needed for their craft. Yet even they were limited by geography. Because the battles in the Eastern Theater were concentrated in a relatively small area, photographers were able to follow the armies and quickly move from site to site. But in the West, this was much more difficult, as battles there were separated by vast distances, which also limited the availability of photography chemicals. This imbalance leaves us with a dearth of photos of Confederates and westerners in the field.
What is a tintype?
Tintypes were actually made on thin iron plates, which were so thin that they resembled tin. Hence the name tintype. Photojournalism, or documentary photography, first emerged as a field during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. Photography had an important impact on the homefront and on civilians' perception of the war.
What is the wet plate process?
Fact #4: The wet-plate photographic process allowed for the inifinte reproduction of an image through prints or artistic engravings. The first iteration of practical photography and the predecessor to the wet-plate technique was the Daguerreotype.
What was the name of the gun that could fire more than one bullet?
This was inefficient and dangerous. By 1863, however, there was another option: so-called repeating rifles, or weapons that could fire more than one bullet before needing a reload.
How far did muskets go before the Civil War?
Before the Civil War, infantry soldiers typically carried muskets that held just one bullet at a time. The range of these muskets was about 250 yards. However, a soldier trying to aim and shoot with any accuracy would have to stand much closer to his target, since the weapon’s “effective range” was only about 80 yards.
Why was it impossible to use a rifle in the 1850s?
However, until the 1850s it was nearly impossible to use these guns in battle because, since a rifle’s bullet had roughly the same diameter as its barrel, they took too long to load. (Soldiers sometimes had to pound the bullet into the barrel with a mallet.)
What was the Civil War?
The Civil War was a time of great social and political upheaval. It was also a time of great technological change. Inventors and military men devised new types of weapons, such as the repeating rifle and the submarine, that forever changed the way that wars were fought. Even more important were the technologies that did not specifically have ...
What is the difference between Southern and Northern railroads?
Furthermore, Northern tracks tended to be “standard gauge,” which meant that any train car could ride on any track. Southern tracks, by contrast, were not standardized, so people and goods frequently had to switch cars as they traveled–an expensive and inefficient system.
How many shots did the Spencer carbine fire?
The most famous of these guns, the Spencer carbine, could fire seven shots in 30 seconds. Like many other Civil War technologies, these weapons were available to Northern troops but not Southern ones: Southern factories had neither the equipment nor the know-how to produce them.
Who was the first president to communicate on the spot with his officers on the battlefield?
The Telegraph. Abraham Lincoln was the first president who was able to communicate on the spot with his officers on the battlefield. The White House telegraph office enabled him to monitor battlefield reports, lead real-time strategy meetings and deliver orders to his men.
What were the pictures of the Civil War?
We've all seen photographs of the Civil War: black-and-white images of bearded Union generals or mustachioed Confederate colonels posing to one side of the camera, dead bodies stacked on the battlefield or common soldiers around a camp tent.
Why are Civil War photographers criticized?
Some of the Civil War photographers, including Brady, have been criticized in recent years because it appears they moved corpses to create more graphic images. But Zeller said it wasn't a common occurrence. Given that each photographer need an entire wagon worth of equipment and chemicals, he said, these post-battle photographers faced their own set of challenges.
Why did Trachtenberg hire photographers?
Trachtenberg said military leaders on both sides also hired photographers to gain intelligence about enemy emplacements, roads, bridges and railroads. Images of everyday life are also depicted for the first time in the Civil War, men playing cards, playing instruments or cleaning equipment.
How did photography change the war?
Historians say that photography changed the war in several ways. It allowed families to have a keepsake representation of their fathers or sons as they were away from home. Photography also enhanced the image of political figures like President Lincoln, who famously joked that he wouldn't have been re-elected without the portrait of him taken by photographer Matthew Brady.
Where were the battlefield horrors first displayed?
Intense images of battlefield horrors were presented to the public for the first time at exhibits in New York and Washington, many later reproduced by engravings in newspapers and magazines of the time.
How did Mathew Brady die?
Depressed by his financial situation and devastated by the loss of his wife in 1887, Mathew Brady died penniless in the charity ward of Presbyterian Hospital in NYC in January of 1896 from complications following a streetcar accident.
What war was the first to be photographed?
Continue Reading. The Photographic Gallery. The photographers who documented the Crimean War from 1854 to 1856 would be very upset to hear that the Civil War was the first conflict to be photographed.
What was the solution to the Dred Scott decision?
The Dred Scott decision had made slavery legal throughout America. The only solution to that problem was to get a Constitutional amendment ratified – the one that did in fact come later: the 13th Amendment.
What were the cadets in the Citadel?
Of 64 regiments raised that year, 22 were commanded by VMI graduates. Of 1,900 VMI undergraduates from 1839 to 1865, almost 1,800 served in the Confederate Army. This included professor Thomas J. Jackson, who would be called “Stonewall.” In April 1861 the Corps of Cadets, 200 strong, performed training duties in Richmond for the Confederate army. The Citadel pioneered the use of Cadet Drill Instructors, also known as "Drillmasters," to teach militia units. Of the 240 alumni that graduated from The Citadel between 1846 and 1861, there were 224 alive when the Civil War began. Of the living graduates 209 served in combat.
How long does it take to take a wet plate photo?
Wet plate photography require several minutes to take a picture so the only photographs were of things not moving. Pictures had to be posed for. Natural the dead pose best. This there are no action pictures such as became available when high speed film and motion pictures were developed.
What is the Ken Burns documentary?
The Ken Burns Documentary "The Civil War" presents these wet plate photos in as dynamic a manner as was possible.
When was wet plate photography invented?
Wet plate photography was invented in the 1840s. There were wet plate cameras in use during the Civil War. Mathew Brady was the best known of the Civil War photographers. His most important project was photographs of the dead at Antietam Creek (Sharpsburg MD) after the battle ended.
What was the Cold War?
A Cold War that began as Second World War hostilities ceased, and born out of a mutual distrust between America and the Soviet Union, was epitomized photographically by cameras for espionage. The Minox subminiature was an obvious contender with its small size making it ideal for clandestine work and document photography.
What is the best known camera for air combat?
Williamson G45. As well as their use for reconnaissance, specialized cameras were also placed in aircraft to record the accuracy of a pilot’s shooting during air-to-air combat. One of the best known was the G45.
What size film did the Medalist shoot?
If ever a camera looked like it should be a military model, this was it. The Medalist shot eight big images to a roll of 620 size film. Used a lot for colour photography, it ensured better quality than images from a 35mm camera and was easier to use than the Speed Graphic, which it rapidly replaced.
How many exposures can a F52 take?
In 1942, the camera was further developed as the F52, whose image format was a massive 8½ by seven inches, using film magazines that could shoot up to 500 exposures. Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta, model 530/16.
What is a VPK?
The VPK, as it was popularly known, was a small folding model that amateur photographer soldiers kept in their tunic pockets and often used illicitly to snap shots in places where professional war photographers couldn’t easily reach. Speed Graphic. (Image source: John Wade.)
How does a mirror work on a camera?
Such a style of camera incorporated a mirror behind the lens to reflect its image onto a ground-glass viewing screen under a hood on top of the body. As the shutter release was pressed, the mirror flipped up and allowed light from the lens to then reach the film at the back of the camera.
What was the purpose of the Lewis machine gun?
It was used to train First World War pilots in air-to-air combat, where it was impractical to use live ammunition. In 1915, English manufacturer Thornton Pickard engineered the weapon-shaped camera with the lens in the barrel so that every time the trigger was pulled, a frame was captured on a special roll of film. The images, once developed, indicated how accurate the airman had been a mock dogfight.
