Capturing the Moving Figure

When Louis Jacques-Mande Daguerre made his daguerreotype of the Boulevard du Temple in 1838, the exposure time was so long (probably between 10 and 20 minutes) he was unable to capture the hurrying figures and the moving traffic in this busy Paris Street. Only a man who had to remain still while his shoes were polished by a boot-black, was completely captured on Daguerre's silvered copper plate. Although, as a contemporary noted at the time, the boulevard in question was "constantly filled with a moving throng of pedestrians and carriages", the street in Daguerre's early photograph appeared to be completely deserted "except for an individual who was having his boots brushed." In fact, the shoeshine man himself must also be included as one of the first human figures to be depicted in photography. But as a German magazine of 1839 observed, the man "having his boots polished . . . must have held himself extrenely still for he can be very clearly seen, in contrast the shoeshine man, whose ceaseless movement causes him to appear completely blurred and imprecise."

 

The Boulevard du Temple in Paris, an early daguerreotype view by Louis Jacques-Mande Daguerre ( 1838).



By the 1860s, photographic exposure times had been reduced to a few seconds, but this still meant that a person who moved suddenly while the photograph was being taken would become blurred and indistinct and a figure who passed rapidly in front of the camera would become almost invisible, leaving only a feint ghostly shape on the negative.

 

Figures moving in front of the Regent Foundry Works in North Road (c1862). Due to the long exposure time, the young couple on the left are blurred and the two men walking at a faster pace in the centre of the picture appear as ghostly, almost invisible, shapes.



Specially prepared gelatin dry plates were so sensitive that out of doors and in bright sunlight exposure times could be as brief as one twenty fifth of a second.

 

Promenading visitors on the West Pier ( c1900).The quick exposure times of the gelatin dry plates meant that even swiftly moving figures could be captured by the camera wihout any blurring.


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Website last updated: 23 December, 2002

 

This website is dedicated to the memory of Arthur T. Gill (1915-1987), Sussex Photohistorian

 




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