Background
Hermann Wilhelm Vogel was born on March 26, 1834, in Doberlug-kirchhain, Brandenburg, Germany.
Hermann Wilhelm Vogel was born on March 26, 1834, in Doberlug-kirchhain, Brandenburg, Germany.
Hermann Vogel entered Free Mason Institute in Friedrichstadt near Dresden in 1846, and in 1851 began trade school at Frankfurt an der Oder. He studied at the Royal Industrial Institute of Berlin, earning his Doctor of Philosophy with Karl Friedrich August Rammelsberg in 1863.
After initial forays as a mechanic, farmer, merchant, sailor, and waiter in a wine tavern, Hermann Vogel became an industrial chemist. In 1860 he joined the instructional faculty at the Vocational Academy and became interested in photography.
Hermann Vogel founded the Berlin Photographische Verein in 1863, and in 1864 was appointed to the chair of photochemistry at the Academy, which he continued to hold after the school became the Techmsche Hochschule.
In 1864 Hermann Vogel founded the journal Photographische Mittheilungen, and by the end of the decade had published one of the major photographic textbooks of the century, Lehrbuch der Photographie. He also took part in many solar-eclipse expeditions and wrote numerous articles.
In addition to his work as a photographic technical innovator, Hermann Vogel taught Alfred Stieglitz between 1882 and 1886. He participated in at least two photographic expeditions to Egypt as well as others to Italy and possibly Asia.