b. 1834; d. 1898
In the earliest days of photography, photographic emulsions were sensitive only to blue and white light, giving incorrect tonal values, with red and green objects appearing very dark. Vogel, a German chemist, made a major contribution to the development of colour photography when, in 1873, he discovered that if he added appropriate dyes when making a solution, the plates would respond to green light (essential, obviously, for landscape photography). This led to the manufacture of "orthochromatic" plates (sensitive to all the visible spectrum except red and deep orange). Just after the turn of the century "panchromatic" films, sensitive to all visible colours in the spectrum, began to be produced.
© Robert Leggat, 1999.