This article was a brief study about the early pioneer photographers of the Alhambra who came from all of Europe to document its beauty.
As background information, cameras were invented in 1839, originally being printed as daguerrotypes, which were single inverted image onto a steel copper plates. After this great invention the first photographers came to the Alhambra a year later in 1840. Their names were Theophile Gautier and Eugene Piot. The two were so taken aback by the beauty they even wanted to live in it.
After this preliminary trip, daguerrotypes began to be commissioned by the elites of society. Some of the most notable photographers were Alexander Dumas and Edward King Tension in 1841. Tension in 1841 is regarded as the taker of the best early photographs. Technology rapidly advanced in these few years, but it was still very rare to be a photographer back then.
A couple of interesting themes to early photography was that people didn’t realize it was still a subjective form of art. The photographer still portrays his own views onto the photographer. Photographs are filtered, everyone looking at a photo is once removed from the artistic process. The second is that photography spread the popularity of alhambra through commercialization of photographs. The photography for commercial purposes is first time you can start to see commercialization and financial gain out of the beauty of the monument.