History of Photography
Pinhole Cameras to The Daguerreotype
"Photography" is derived from the Greek
words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw") The word
was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. It is a method
of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a
sensitive material.
Pinhole Camera
Alhazen (Ibn Al-Haytham), a great authority on optics in the
Middle Ages who lived around 1000AD, invented the first pinhole camera, (also
called the Camera Obscura} and was able to explain why the images were upside
down. The first casual reference to the optic laws that made pinhole cameras
possible, was observed and noted by Aristotle around 330 BC, who questioned why
the sun could make a circular image when it shined through a square hole.
The First Photograph
On a summer day in 1827, Joseph Nicephore Niepce made the
first photographic image with a camera obscura. Prior to Niepce people just
used the camera obscura for viewing or drawing purposes not for making
photographs. Joseph Nicephore Niepce's heliographs or sun prints as they were
called were the prototype for the modern photograph, by letting light draw the picture.
Niepce placed an engraving onto a metal plate coated in bitumen, and then
exposed it to light. The shadowy areas of the engraving blocked light, but the
whiter areas permitted light to react with the chemicals on the plate. When
Niepce placed the metal plate in a solvent, gradually an image, until then
invisible, appeared. However, Niepce's photograph required eight hours of light
exposure to create and after appearing would soon fade away.
The Birth of Modern Photography
Louis
Daguerre was the inventor of the first practical process of
photography. In 1829, he formed a partnership with Joseph Nicephore Niepce to
improve the process Niepce had developed. In 1839 after several years of
experimentation and Niepce's death, Daguerre developed a more convenient and
effective method of photography, naming it after himself the
daguerreotype. Daguerre's process 'fixed' the images onto a sheet of
silver-plated copper. He polished the silver and coated it in iodine, creating
a surface that was sensitive to light. Then, he put the plate in a camera and
exposed it for a few minutes. After the image was painted by light, Daguerre
bathed the plate in a solution of silver chloride. This process created a
lasting image, one that would not change if exposed to light. In 1839, Daguerre
and Niepce's son sold the rights for the daguerreotype to the French government
and published a booklet describing the process. The daguerreotype gained
popularity quickly; by 1850, there were over seventy daguerreotype
studios in New York City alone.