picturetom ®

After technological improvements (better optics, short exposure times) and the change from light-sensitive metal plates to glass negatives combined with the “wet collodion” process, photographs could be reproduced at will. Then industry and other social classes took an interest.

This is where the utilization of photography by industry and the middle classes began. This also ended the “artistic flights of fancy” of the first photographers. Now photography had developed to the point were special knowledge was no longer required for its use.

“The rules of a rationalised economy cause people to subordinate themselves more and more to the machine when they work. This tendency is also apparent in the development of photography. It enters into a new phase…” (Freund, Gisele).