Prof. Boerner's Explorations

At the beginning of photography, it appeared to be a miracle that one could let light into a little (or not so little) box that held a light-sensitive material upon which the image passing through the “lens” of the primitive camera. We can still obtain such pin-hole cameras! However, this primitive camera would not satisfy those wanting to obtain images of their family members as a result of the industrial revolution.

Before the early innovators of photographic processes, Louis Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot, could produce their amazing “light drawings,” they needed a means of refining the process of focusing the light on the sensitized media in the camera.

An early Russian photographer, Sergei Levitsky, developed the concept of the bellows. This bellows allowed the distance between the photographic lens and the recording media to be adjusted for optimal sharpness. As a result, Daguerre, Fox Talbot, and others were able to record their images. Thank you, Mr. Levitsky.  GLB

Today we look back on the start of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The Supreme Court’s decision that states could not regulate bus transportation standards set by the federal government put the equality of the federal policies against the Jim Crow law found in many Southern states. The sides were set: civil rights advocates (both white and black) against the “red necks” and Jim Crow South.

When a group of civil rights advocates, the Freedom Riders, boarded that bus in Washington, D.C., destined for New Orleans, the fuse was lit. And explode it did. It tooks sacrifice, repeated confrontations, and the intervention of federal troops to enforce federal standards. In the end, the rights of blacks were obtained. The rallying cry of “we shall overcome” became “we have overcome” by the decades end.  GLB