A streetcar ride through time

Take a ride through San Francisco in April 1906 – a week before the great earthquake.

Water on Mars

Residual water ice in Vastitas Borealis Crater

Via European Space Agency

Dieter Rams: Less and More

First underwater photo

The first underwater photos were taken by Louis Boutan – a 19th century French marine zoologist. Boutan conducted most of his underwater photography experiments at the Arago Marine Laboratory at Banyuls-sur-Mer, on France’s Mediterranean coast.

The first underwater photograph by Louis Boutan

Illustration of the underwater camera prototype

Boutan's experiments, 1890's

Boutan’s earliest, rather blurred pictures were made with a modified detective camera using 9 × 12 cm (3 1/2 × 4 3/4 in) plates. Focusing was difficult, and exposures lasted up to 30 minutes. (Matters were complicated by the lack of underwater timing devices.) A second camera, built by the laboratory’s technician Joseph David, was designed to be completely flooded, using specially varnished Lumière plates, but was also unsatisfactory. More successful was another custom-built apparatus, watertight and incorporating a magazine of six 18 × 24 cm (7 × 9 1/2 in) plates, supported on a metal frame.

One of Boutan's cameras

In September 1898, despite its massive size and weight—on land, three men were needed to lift it—Boutan took acceptable pictures of himself, David, and various underwater objects at depths of c.3 m (10 ft). A year later, finally, a remotely activated exposure of a plaque fixed in front of the lens and inscribed photographie sous-marine was made 50 m (164 ft) down, lit by battery-powered underwater arc lights. However, the unnerving experience of handling the heavy and unwieldy gear in the open sea demonstrated that little more could be achieved with existing resources.

Via Oxford Companion to the Photograph

Papercutting