National Gallery of Canada
Jessica Eaton ~ Photography
Spotlight Feature
When asked about her complex artistic process, photographer Jessica Eaton begins with a story. In 1861, Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, author of a landmark treatise on human colour vision, worked with Thomas Sutton, inventor of the single-lens reflex camera, to produce the first colour photograph. It showed a tartan ribbon tied in a bow.
Sutton had photographed the ribbon three times with three different filters – red, blue and green – applied to the camera lens. That same year, in a lecture to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Maxwell used three magic lanterns, each fitted with either a red, blue or green filter, to project and superimpose the separate images, showing the ribbon in roughly true-to-life colours.
Jessica Eaton, cfaal 306, 2013. Inkjet print, 127 x 101.5 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © Jessica Eaton Photo- NGC
Jessica Eaton, cfaal 346, 2013. Inkjet print, 127 x 101.5 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © Jessica Eaton Photo- NGC
Jessica Eaton, cfaal 340, 2013. Inkjet print, 127 x 101.5 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © Jessica Eaton Photo: NGC
