History of Photography

In this age of digital cameras, people take photography and the history of photography for granted. But the history of photography dates all the way back to the 16th century. The cameras then didn’t really capture a fixed image, but rather projected what was in front of a wall opening of a dark room onto a surface then artists would trace the image.

The beginning of the history of photography as we know it began back in 1826. It was then that Nicephore Niepce, a French inventor, produced an image on a polished pewter plate. It was blurry, but it was a beginning. The process involved an eight hour exposure to bright sunlight. Because this was not a good way to produce images, Niepce started experimenting. He had read that a silver and chalk mixture would darken when exposed to light. Niepce died before he could finish his work, but his partner, Jacques Daguerre took his notes and carried on. He invented a process by which images could be taken by exposing silver to iodine vapor then sunlight called Daguerreotype. Believe it or not, Polaroid, a pioneer in photography, still uses a process similar to this today.

William Fox Talbot read about Daguerre’s discovery and improved upon it, inventing the calotype process. This was the first photo from which a negative could be used to reproduce the photo. However, he patented his idea and spent his life defending the patent. The process of photography was finally perfected by George Eastman. Eastman later went on to produce Kodak cameras. By 1901, anyone could take a picture, not just a photographer with specialized equipment. Photographers who like to develop their own black and white film will find that nothing has changed in the developing process since 1925.

The point and shoot cameras were developed in the late Seventies. This meant users no longer had to focus the camera themselves (although professionals still do their own focusing). The history of photography was changed again with the invention of the digital camera. Not only could you take your own pictures, and immediately see the results, but you also could print them out from your computer on your own printer in a matter of seconds.