Category: Archive

This Month in the History of Photography

Claudia Pretelin

The following events occurred this month in the History of Photography: [1] According to historian Naomi Rosenblum, the first instruction manuals to make daguerreotypes arrived in the United States from England in September 1839, shortly after the announcement of the French Government’s acquisition of the new invention. On September 1, 2015, Takuma Nakahira, pioneer of modern Japanese photography and co-founder of the photography magazine Provoke, died at age 77. Nakahira was born in Tokyo in 1938. He graduated from the Spanish Department of Tokyo University. In the 1960s, he became…

Five Masters of Photography that You Should Follow on Instagram

Claudia Pretelin

Instagram has quickly grown into a massive social network. With about 500 million active users taking photographs everyday and sharing them with so many different purposes, it is hard not to feel lost while looking for something interesting to see and think about. I personally have two different accounts, one for my family and friends and the other one to follow and share with people interested in photography and visual culture. So when it comes to my @INSTRUMENTSOFMEMORY account, I am looking for a more selective version of my interests.…

Celebrating 177 Years of Photography

Claudia Pretelin

Do you know why is World Photo Day? On August 19, 1839, the French government acquired the patent of the daguerreotype and announced that the new process would be donated as a gift to the world. The daguerreotype was a revolutionary photographic process developed and named after its inventor Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre. It is a unique image on a silvered copper plate, sensitized with iodine vapors, exposed in a camera obscura, developed in mercury fumes and fixed with salt water or sodium thiosulphate. It has a mirror-like surface and…