History of Photography Essay Example

Introduction:

When cameras first became available to the public, people around the world marveled at the newfound ability to see themselves frozen in time. Those who could afford this new invention scrambled to purchase this fascinating object that could preserve landscapes forever. These original cameras were the start of a timeline of photography, a world that would never be the same. As technology improved, cameras changed and evolved to eventually produce the clear images we see today. This paper explores the technology of everything from the first cameras to the most recent ones, and the scientists who made modern-day photography possible. 

Before Photography:

Before photography, there was one major discovery that eventually led to the invention of the camera. The Arab mathematician Ibn Al-Haytham is credited with the invention of the camera obscura in the Middle Ages during his study of optics. The camera obscura, meaning “dark chamber”, was simply a small dark room where light was allowed to enter only through one small hole. Light only travels in straight lines, so the light from the top of the object outside the room will travel through the hole and appear on the bottom of the image cast on the opposite wall of the camera obscura, and vice versa. This caused the outside object to be projected upside-down and reversed onto the other wall of the room. This invention eventually led to the creation of the pinhole camera, which is very closely related to the camera obscura. The camera obscura was the foundation of photography as we know it, and the building block for the first cameras centuries later.

Early Photography:

Centuries passed before the first photographic image was produced, by French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. In 1827, he put an engraving onto a metal sheet, which had been covered with bitumen, and placed it near a constant light source. The darker areas of the engraving didn’t absorb light, while the whiter areas allowed the light to react with the bitumen chemicals on the metal sheet. Therefore, when Niépce deposited the metal sheet into a liquid capable of dissolving another substance, also known as a solvent, an image slowly began to show. Niépce is widely considered to be the inventor of photography, which he called heliography, because of his findings. However, Niépce’s discovery wasn’t entirely practical, as it took more than eight hours of exposure to light to form an image, and it began to disappear once formed. Nevertheless, Niépce created the earliest surviving photograph, despite being extremely faded. It was not until Louis Daguerre, famously known as the inventor of daguerreotype photography, began experimenting with similar ways of creating photographs that images did not fade away. Having previously worked with Niépce, Daguerre continued to conduct experiments relating to heliography after Niépce’s death in 1833. His most successful creation was the daguerreotype, which began with a copper plate that he sensitized with silver iodide, the ionic compound of silver and iodine. When placed in a camera, the image on plate began to develop after exposure to light for about half an hour. This was a significant improvement to Niépce’s process, which required eight hours of light exposure. The daguerreotype was then developed using hot mercury and a solution of sodium chloride, or salt. This created a lasting image that did not fade away over time like Niépce’s. Daguerre sold his process to the French government in 1839, and the daguerreotype quickly became popular all over Europe and the United States. Daguerre’s invention is considered one of the most fundamental developments in photography, because of its short exposure time and ability to create lasting images. 

Advancements in Photography:

A major setback of the daguerreotype was that each was unique, and it was impossible to create multiple copies of the same photograph. Very soon after the release of the daguerreotype, this problem was solved by Henry Fox Talbot, an English chemist. Talbot is known for his invention of the calotype, a process that created negative images. A negative image is one in which the lightest areas are dark, and the darkest areas are light, essentially the opposite of a positive image. Talbot’s process began with paper that had been coated with a mixture of silver and salt. After light exposure, the negative image was formed, with the person or object in the photograph shown in different shades of gray and the background being black. These were called photogenic drawings, and they were contact prints. A contact print refers to an image that is produced using film that is in direct contact with the photographic paper, and then exposed to light. Contact prints create prints that are the same size as the film, and help details to be shown more prominently. Therefore, multiple prints of the same image can be produced. By 1841, Talbot had fully developed his calotype process and patented it. Other scientists created new processes for taking pictures, such as Frederick Scoff Archer, who invented a process known as the wet-plate negative that produced more detailed images in 1851. However, both his and the photographic processes of other scientists all had one major problem. Whatever the process may be, they all had to be developed quickly before the solution evaporated. This meant portable darkrooms had to be carried around, which contained dangerous chemicals. This made developing photographs a quick and potentially dangerous process, sometimes leading to diseases and other health problems. A drastic change was brought by Richard Leach Maddox, an English photographer. In 1879, he invented the dry plate, which was made of a glass sheet, similar to Archer’s process. However, there was one component that differentiated Maddox’s invention from the rest: gelatin. The dry plate had a thin layer of gelatin, which allowed it to be stored for larger amounts of time, meaning it did not have to be developed as soon as it was exposed to light. Portable darkrooms were not required anymore, and the images could be developed months after the initial shooting of the image.