LearnEnglish would like to thank Suzi Raymond, Education Manager, Chelsea FC, for providing these materials.
You are going to listen to an interview with the official photographer of Chelsea football club. Before you listen, do an activity in which you match the names and descriptions of the different types of commercial photography.
Download the mp3 file or else listen on your PC.
For information on downloading and listening on your PC see the left-hand column.
You can also see/print the audioscript of the interview (pdf doc)
Do an activity in which you say if statements about the interview are true or false.
There are many idiomatic expressions in English that contain the word ‘picture’. Do an activity in which you test your knowledge of these idioms.
Read the following text about the early history of photography and then do an activity in which you put the events in the correct chronological order
Early history of photography
The first photograph was an image produced in the 1820s by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. Produced with a camera, the image required an eight-hour exposure in bright sunshine. Niépce then began experimenting with silver compounds based on a Johann Heinrich Schultz discovery in 1724 that a silver and chalk mixture darkens when exposed to light.
"Boulevard du Temple", taken by Daguerre in late 1838 or early 1839, was the first ever photograph of a person. It is an image of a busy street, but because exposure time was over ten minutes, the city traffic was moving too much to appear. The exception is a man in the bottom left corner, who stood still getting his boots polished long enough to show. (click photo to enlarge)
In partnership, Niépce, in Chalon-sur-Saône, and Louis Daguerre, in Paris, refined the existing silver process. In 1833 Niépce died of a stroke, leaving his notes to Daguerre. While he had no scientific background, Daguerre made two pivotal contributions to the process. He discovered that exposing the silver first to iodine vapour, before exposure to light, and then to mercury fumes after the photograph was taken, could form a latent image. Bathing the plate in a salt bath then fixes the image. In 1839 Daguerre announced that he had invented a process using silver on a copper plate called the Daguerreotype. A similar process is still used today for Polaroids. The French government bought the patent and immediately made it public domain.
William Fox Talbot had earlier discovered another means to fix a silver process image but had kept it secret. After reading about Daguerre's invention Talbot refined his process, so that it might be fast enough to take photographs of people. By 1840, Talbot had invented the calotype process. He coated paper sheets with silver chloride to create an intermediate negative image. Unlike a daguerreotype a calotype negative could be used to reproduce positive prints, like most chemical films do today. Talbot patented this process, which greatly limited its adoption. He spent the rest of his life in lawsuits defending the patent until he gave up on photography. Later George Eastman refined Talbot's process, which is the basic technology used by chemical film cameras today. Hippolyte Bayard had also developed a method of photography but delayed announcing it, and so was not recognized as its inventor.
In 1851 Frederick Scott Archer invented the collodion process. Photographer and children's author, Lewis Carroll, used this process.
Slovene Janez Puhar invented the technical procedure for making photographs on glass in 1841. The invention was recognized on July 17 1852 in Paris by the Académie Nationale Agricole, Manufacturière et Commerciale.
Herbert Bowyer Berkeley experimented with his own version of collodian emulsions after Samman introduced the idea of adding dithionite to the pyrogallol developer. Berkeley discovered that with his own addition of sulphite, to absorb the sulphur dioxide given off by the chemical dithionite in the developer, that dithionite was not required in the developing process. In 1881 he published his discovery. Berkeley's formula contained pyrogallol, sulphite and citric acid. Ammonia was added just before use to make the formula alkaline The new formula was sold by the Platinotype Company in London as Sulpho-Pyrogallol Developer.
This text comes from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License
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A Day with a Photographer: Imagine you can accompany the club photographer from your favourite sports team on the day of an important game. Describe the day. Send us your text
Ludovica Chiavaccini writes “Last summer I had the unique opportunity to join Mr. X during the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany. Actually it was my first time as part of the press in such an important event. Of course, I had just attended several international and important events, as a rider first, a fan, and later as a vet, but the last one was terrific.
But, let’s start from the beginning. I had taken part in a draw open to the readers of our national equestrian magazine. I had filled in the coupon with all my data and finally ... won the prize. Actually, I wasn't alone, for other than me, there were other two winners.
We had to turn up the day before the Games began, in front of the main tribune, to meet the official photographer of the Italian Equestrian Team, Mr. X, and receive our press badges. We spent the following 5 days trailing around, as we could access all areas, into the stables, at the grounds, during the horses' training and later during the real competition. We helped in organizing the daily work, preparing different tools, sometimes even holding the horses to take a snapshot. Moreover, we took part in the press-conference at the end of the show, where all the most important and famous international riders were present, and gave interviews about their performances, or, more widely, regarding horses in training or their future plans. It was an extremely rewarding experience. I felt like part of the team, not only the photographers' working team but, moreover, as part of the main Italian team. I met several riders, of whom I was a great fan, indeed, I had the opportunity to spend time with them (get some autographs) and, last but not least, to meet a lot of horse-people, who could become interesting for my job as well.
The experience ended on Sunday evening, after the last competition. Mr. X thanked us, dropping the whole group at the airport, from where we came back home, tired, with no energy left, but satisfied and proud of our job!”
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Eric Ramirez Rodriguez writes “I arrived at the house of the club photographer. Immediately we drove to the stadium. The photographer and I went on to the pitch and he took some photos of the fans in the stands and the footballers when they came on to the pitch. The match started and the photographer took lots of photos during the match in which the teams drew. The photographer then took some photos when the footballers went off the pitch and entered the dressing room. The photographer and I drove to his house and he developed the photos. When he finished we drove to the office of the club newspaper and he handed in the photos and finally we drove home.”
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www.chelseafc.com: read more about education activities
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