Intersting article in its own right, but the last two paragraphs are also of
interest to us!
--George S.
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Oldest Known Photograph to Undergo Analysis
Scientific Experts Will Analyze 1826 Photo for First Time Since
Authentication in 1952
By ANDREW BRIDGES
.c The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (March 13) - One summer morning, Joseph Nicephore Niepce peered
from an upstairs window in his home in the French countryside, framed the
view of a pear tree, the sky and several farm buildings and did something
remarkable: He took a picture.
Opening the lens of a rudimentary camera for eight hours that day in 1826,
Niepce exposed a polished, thinly varnished pewter plate to produce an image
that is acknowledged as the world's first photograph.
In June, 176 years later, the faint image will arrive at The Getty
Conservation Institute, where scientific experts will analyze it for the
first time since it was rediscovered and authenticated in 1952. Before it
turned up, the photo had been missing for decades, misplaced by its owner
after it was last exhibited in 1898.
Exact details of its chemistry remain a mystery, leaving experts with
precious little information about the science behind the photo.
''There are legends about how it was done and with what materials, but no one
really knows,'' said Dusan Stulik, a Getty senior scientist who calls the
work the ''Mona Lisa'' of the photo world.
The analysis is part of a joint photo conservation project involving Getty,
the Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology and
France's Centre de Recherches sur la Conservation des Documents Graphiques.
The goal is to understand all the chemical processes used since Niepce's day
to produce photographs, which conservators say is essential to preserve the
art form.
During the 8-by-6.5-inch photograph's two-week stay in Los Angeles,
scientists will study it with advanced scientific instruments, assess its
state of preservation and construct a new airtight case.
In 2003, it will go on display again at the University of Texas at Austin's
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, its home since 1964.
Conservators have a theory about how Niepce's photograph was produced. They
believe light hardened the bitumen, a petroleum derivative sensitive to light
that Niepce (pronounced NEE-yeps) used to coat the plate. Washing the plate
with a mixture of oil of lavender and white petroleum dissolved the unexposed
portions of bitumen.
The result was a permanently fixed, direct positive picture - the first ever
captured from nature. Niepce called his work a ''heliograph,'' in a tribute
to the power of the sun.
''What we are so familiar with today in terms of images and being able to
snap pictures, this is where it all began,'' said Barbara Brown, who will
accompany the artifact to California as head of photographic conservation at
the Ransom Center.
In the Getty Institute's laboratories, scientists will use spectrometers to
determine the photograph's chemical makeup. They hope to discover what
substances Niepce may have used to enhance the bitumen's properties.
Using a digital microscope, they plan to map the image's surface in detail.
Multispectral imaging will look for oxidation that could threaten the
photograph.
Meanwhile, conservators will repair the gilt frame. And experts will try to
photograph the work, an almost impossible chore because the image is so faint
and can be seen only at oblique angles.
All the methods will be quick, reliable and noninvasive, said Herant
Khanjian, an assistant scientist at the Getty.
Stulik, the Getty senior scientist, said he fears the days of traditional,
nondigital photography are numbered, making the need to understand its
chemistry - from Niepce to Polaroid - all the more pressing.
Ultimately, he said, advances in digital photography may do for its chemical
counterpart what the printing press did to the handwritten manuscript in the
1400s.
''It ended it,'' Stulik said.
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