History of photography- narrative text

My little history of photography- original version While I am hanging on the wall, the museum guide enters the hall with the fifth visitors’ group this day and begins to tell the history of photography. I always find it funny to listen to him because it should actually be me, the Daguerreotype of Louis Daguerre himself, telling it as I am a witness of the complete development. If I had to narrate the history, I would begin with my creation in 1844 when Louis Daguerre developed an effective method of photography. What the museum guide never often forgets to mention, but I consider as important,is the fact that creating pictures like me used to be an extremely difficult process.  When my fellow images and I were brought into being, we had to go through an extremely long exposure of iodized silver plates to light. The end products were unique and very expensive. However, our invention paved the way for a rapid development. While I am thinking back of the good old days of my creation and the following success of the tiny little pictures called miniatures in the 1840s, the museum guide carries on telling the visitors’ group about early photography. In those days, people did not dare to look back at the camera because they were afraid that the images of themselves could look back at them. The tourist group and the guide then move on to a wall where there are numerous pictures hanging on it. He points at the first one and explains that these kind of pictures, namely retouched negatives, were seen as the “revenge for art” because the aim had been to create more beautiful pictures. “In the following years”, narrates the tourist guide, ”early photography went through several developments, such as the period of studio photography, were pictures with absurd props in their background were taken or the introduction of the mezzoprint process, where pictures were reproduced.” He forgets to add that through this new technique the prestige or the “halo”, a circle of light on the picture created through the long exposure time, disappeared. After 1880, photographers tried to recreate this unique effect through faster lenses by suppressing darkness but they were not successful. The museum guide then says that several years later the photographer Eugène Atget started focusing on inconsiderable objects and set the basis for Surrealism. Thereafter, he and the visitors leave the hall and I wonder, as always, why he never mentions the most important fact that photography has been and will always remain a close connection of science and art.

[424 words]

Brief summary of peer feedback

According to my fellow students the content of my text was good because I included many historical facts of the history of photography but the text itself was too long. They advised me to shorten it down. Apart from that, I had made several expression and grammatical mistakes and some sentences were too long. My fellow students recommended rewriting all of this. In general, they liked my text and could also identify most of the elements of story grammar in it.

My little history of photography- final version

While I am hanging on the wall, the museum guide enters the hall with the fifth visitors’ group today and begins to tell the history of photography. I always find it funny to listen to him because it should actually be me, the Daguerreotype of Louis Daguerre himself, telling it as I am a witness of the early days of photography. If I had to narrate the history, I would start with my creation in 1844 when Louis Daguerre developed an effective method of photography. What the museum guide never mentions is the fact that creating pictures like me used to be an extremely difficult process.  When I was brought into being, I had to go through an extremely long exposure of iodized silver plates to light. As end product, I was very expensive. Also, my invention paved the way for a rapid development. While I am thinking back to the time after my creation and the success of the tiny little pictures called miniatures, the museum guide carries on telling about early photography. People did not dare to look at the camera at that time, fearing that the images of themselves could stare back at them. The tourist group and the guide then move on to a wall were numerous pictures are exhibited. He points at the first one, which is a retouched negative, and explains that these kind of pictures were seen as the “revenge for art” because the aim had been to create more beautiful pictures. “In the following years”, narrates the tourist guide, ”early photography developed to studio photography, were pictures with absurd props in the background were taken. Then the introduction of the mezzotint process, which enabled the reproduction of pictures, followed.” He forgets to add that through this new technique the prestige or the “halo”, a circle of light on the picture created through the long exposure time, disappeared. After 1880, photographers tried to recreate this unique effect through faster lenses by suppressing darkness but they were not successful. The museum guide then says that several years later the photographer Eugène Atget started focusing on inconsiderable objects and set the basis for Surrealism. Thereafter, he and the visitors leave the hall and I wonder, as always, why he never mentions the most important fact that photography has been and will always remain a close connection between science and art.

[395 words]