History of PhotographyWC Tech Club

Photography

• Photography took several hundred years to reach it’s present state. No one person can be credited with its invention. Inventors constantly worked on new processes and improvements in equipment. There were many failures. Most failures occurred because new techniques were too complex, required great skill, or produced results that were not clear or permanent.

Camera Obscura

• Using only the sunlight reflected off a scene, the camera obscura (dark chamber) directs the light through a small hole and projects an image of that scene onto a screen or wall. This was first seen in Europe in the 1500s. The Chinese knew of the camera obscura as early as the 4th century.

First Photographic Discovery

• The first breakthrough in light sensitive material came in 1725. A German physicist Johann Schulze discovered that when certain silver salts were exposed to light they changed color. He dissolved the mixture of chalk and silver in nitric acid and placed the combination in a clear glass container. Whenever light struck the mixture, it changed to a purple color. He could “print” letters and shapes by attaching paper stencils to the outside of the container. The light would be blocked by the stencil and create an image. They were not permanent.

Image on Light Sensitive Surface

• Joseph Niepce, A Frenchman, was one of the first experimenters in photography. He attempted to produce an image on light sensitive material. In 1816, Niepce made a negative image in a camera that was similar to the basic camera obscura. The image appeared on paper that had been soaked in silver chloride, a light sensitive silver salt. However the image was faint and didn’t last.

First Practical Photograph

• Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, in 1835, discovered that a highly polished silver sheet could be made light sensitive if exposed to iodine vapor. When an exposure was made in a camera obscura, however, no image appeared. He later discovered accidentally that the image was latent, the image is present but is not yet visible. The image was made to appear by heating the sheet with the fumes of hot mercury. Daguerre found that the image could be made permanent by removing the remaining light sensitive particles. They were removed with a hot salt solution.

Print Comes of Age

• In 1835, William Fox Talbot worked on a photographic process as well. He created a paper negative that was waxed to make it translucent. He was able to create negatives and his discovery is the basis of modern chemical photography. Here are example of Calotype paper negatives.

Wet Plate Photography

Using paper reduced the quality of the image so glass was the next material use to create a negative. Potassium iodine was washed over the glass plate evenly. The wet plate was loaded into the camera and exposed immediately. The glass produced high quality images. This began the introduction of tin types.

First Color Photography

• Photographers and experimenters were still trying to copy nature in full color. In 1861, James Maxwell made the first color photographs. His technique, while it produced color, was complicated and expensive. In 1930 Kodak introduced a color film called Kodachrome. This film made it possible for the amateur photographer to take color pictures at a reasonable price.

Roll Film Introduced

• Roll film was introduced in 1880. It was light sensitive gelatin on paper backing. When it rolled up, protected the gelatin from unwanted light. After developing, the gelatin was stripped from the paper backing and attached to a glass plate for printing.

Major Advancements

• During the early 1900s, film and camera design continued to improve. Polaroid introduced instant photography in 1947. Color film was introduced in 1963. Beginning in 1980, electronic images became practical and digital photography has since dominated the photography world.