History of photography

The history of photography has roots in remote antiquity with the discovery of the principle of the camera obscura and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. As far as is known, nobody thought of bringing these two phenomena together to capture camera images in permanent form until around 1800, when Thomas Wedgwood made the first reliably documented although unsuccessful attempt. In the mid 1820s, Nicéphore Niépce succeeded, but several days of exposure in the camera were required and the earliest results were very crude. Niepce' associate Louis Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced photographic process, which required only minutes of exposure in the camera and produced clear, finely detailed results. It was commercially introduced in 1839, a date generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography.

The metal-based daguarreo type process soon had some competition from the paper-based calotype negative and salt print processes made by Henry Fox Talbot. Other innovations reduced the camera exposure time to seconds and then to a small fraction of a second, introduced new photographic media which were more economical, sensitive or convenient, including roll films for casual use by amateurs, and made it possible to take pictures in natural color as well as in black-and-white.

The commercial introduction of computer based electronic digital cameras in the 1990s soon revolutionized photography. During the first decade of the 21st century, traditional film based photochemical methods were increasingly marginalized as the practical advantages of the new technology became widely appreciated and the image quality of moderately priced digital cameras was continually improved.

Around the 1800s, Thomas Wedgwood made the first attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance. He used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. Although he succeeded in capturing the shadows of objects placed on the surface in direct sunlight, and even made shadow-copies of paintings on glass, it was reported in 1802 that the images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in any moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver. The shadow images eventually darkened all over because no attempts that have been made to prevent the uncolored part of the copy or profile from being acted upon by light have as yet been successful. Wedgwood may have abandoned his experiments to early due to frail and failing health, he died in 1805.

Boulevard du Temple, a daguarreo type made by Louis Daguarre in 1838, is accepted as the earliest photograph to include people. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure time was about ten minutes the moving traffic wantsnt there .Only the two men near the bottom left corner, one having his boots polished by the other stayed in one place long enough to be visible.

In 1816 Nicephore Niepce succeeded in photographing the images formed in a small camera, but the photographs were negatives, darkest where the camera image was lightest and vice versa, and they were not permanent in the sense of being reasonably light fast like earlier experimenters, Niepce couldn’t find a way to prevent the coating from darkening all over when it was exposed to light for viewing. Disenchanted with silver salts, he turned his attention to light-sensitive organic substances. Robert Cornelius, self-portrait, Oct. or Nov. 1839, approximate quarter plate daguerreotype. The back reads, The first light picture ever taken. One of the oldest photographic portraits known, made by Joseph Draper of New York in 1839 or 1840 of his sister Dorothy Catherine Draper. It was thought to be the first smile ever captured on Camera. The oldest permanent photograph of the image made in a camera was created by Nipce in 1826 or 1827. It was made on a polished sheet of pewter and the light sensitive substance was a thin coating of bitumen, a naturally occurring petroleum tar, which was dissolved in lavender oil, applied to the surface of the pewter and allowed to dry before use. After a very long exposure in the camera the bitumen was sufficiently hardened in proportion to its exposure to light that the unhardened part could be removed with a solvent, leaving a positive image with the light regions represented by hardened bitumen and the dark regions by bare pewter. To see the image, the plate had to be lit and viewed in a way that the bare metal appeared dark and the bitumen relatively light.  Around 1800 Thomas Wedgwood made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance. He used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. Although he succeeded in capturing the shadows of objects placed on the surface in direct sunlight, and even made shadow-copies of paintings on glass, it was reported in 1802 that the images formed by means of a camera obscura have been found too faint to produce, in any moderate time, an effect upon the nitrate of silver The shadow images eventually darkened all over because no attempts that have been made to prevent the uncolored part of the copy or profile from being acted upon by light have as yet been successful. Wedgwood may have prematurely abandoned his experiments due to frail and failing health, he died in 1805.