The choice of black and white (or another monotone process) may also help lead the eye away from elements which distract from the photographerвЂ™s intended focus. Choosing black and white over color gives a timeless quality to photos and brings elements such as line, texture, and tone to the forefront. Landscape photographers wanting to clearly capture an entire panoramic view may choose the opposite. Portrait and animal photographers wishing to make an individual subject (or a group) the focal point for a shot may use a large aperture for a shallow depth of field to put their subject(s) in focus while keeping the background blurred. The equipment and techniques chosen largely depend on the genre, the photographerвЂ™s individual style, and the overall mood/effect they are attempting to achieve. In addition to choosing the appropriate camera, lens, and film, and then framing and timing a shot, photographers can choose to use filters, lights, special darkroom processes, and digital enhancement (among other tools and techniques) to gain a high level of control over their images. The next major revolution in photography would come in 1990 when the first commercially-available digital camera, the Dycam Model 1, was released. However, these processes proved too expensive for the general public, and it wasnвЂ™t until Kodachrome film (a more affordable and quicker process) was made available in 1936 that color photography came into widespread public use. The first commercially-available color photography process, Autochrome, was released in 1907 and was based on innovations by Louis Ducos Hauron and Charles Cros. Paper-based methods (using translucent negatives) first developed by Henry Fox Talbot would eventually replace the metal-based daguerreotype.

His вЂњdaguerreotypeвЂќ process was commercially released in 1893 and helped popularize photographic technology around the world among the middle classes, especially in the area of portraiture. Later, Louis Daguerre developed a technique of developing images on metal that reduced exposure time and created sharper, more stable pictures. Joseph Nicephore Niepce, in 1826, used a camera obscura to produce the first stable photographic image (a negative) upon silver nitrate-coated paper-but this image took several days of exposure time, and the resulting picture was unclear.

Abstract portraiture photography