The history of photography began in antiquity with the discovery of two principles: the camera obscura (dark room) or pin hole image, and the observation that some materials are physically affected by exposure to light. A camera obscura can project a reversed vision onto an opposite surface through a small hole. This principle could have been recognized and applied as early as prehistoric times. The camera obscura is mentioned for the first time in Chinese texts by Mozi, who lived in the 4th century BCE.
The first “cameras” were used to study optics rather than create images. Ibn Al-Haytham (945–1040), better known as Alhazen, an Arab scholar, is commonly considered with being the first to research how we see. To show how light may be used to project an image onto a flat surface, he developed the camera obscura, which was the ancestor to the pinhole camera.
When finely made lenses were invented, artists began using the camera obscura to help them draw and paint sophisticated real-world scenes around the mid-1600s. At this time, magic lanterns, the forerunners of today’s projectors, began to appear. The magic lantern, which worked on the same optical principles as the camera obscura, allowed people to project images, which were usually painted on glass slides, onto big surfaces. They quickly gained popularity as a sort of mass entertainment. Johann Heinrich Schulze, a German chemist, conducted the first studies with photo-sensitive materials in 1727, discovering that silver salts were sensitive to light. However, Schulze did not attempt with creating a permanent image with his discovery. That would have to wait until the next century.
The word “photography” is usually attributed to Sir John Herschel in 1839. It is based on the Greek word “phōs” meaning “light” and “graphê” meaning “drawing, writing”, together meaning “drawing with light”.
In 1827, French scientist Joseph Nicephore Niepce used a camera obscura to create the first photographic image. Niepce engraved a design on a bitumen-coated metal plate and then exposed it to light. He calls his method “heliography,” which means “sun drawing.” The dark areas of the engraving blocked light, but the brighter spots permitted light to react with the chemicals on the plate.
When Niepce soaked the metal plate in a solvent, a picture clearly evolved. These heliographs, also known as sun prints, are thought to be the first photographic image. However, Niepce’s process required eight hours or even several days of light exposure to create an image that would soon fade away. The possibility to “fix” or “make permanent” an image appeared later. Louis Daguerre, a French painter and scientist, was also experimenting with ways to capture an image, and he formed a collaboration with Niepce in 1839 to develop the process Niepce had invented. Daguerre created a more practical and efficient technique of photography and named it “daguerreotype” after several years of experimentation and Niepce’s death.
The procedure begins with the images being fixed to a sheet of silver-plated copper. He finally polished the silver and placed an iodine coat, creating a light-sensitive surface. After that, he placed the plate in front of a camera and exposed it for a few minutes. Daguerre washed the plate in a solution of silver chloride after the image was painted by light. This method produced a long-lasting image that did not fade when exposed to light.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre uses a camera obscura and his newly created daguerreotype method to shoot a Paris Street scene from his apartment window. Because of the long exposure period (several minutes), moving items such as pedestrians and carriages are not visible in the photograph. However, an unknown man who pauses for a shoe shine unintentionally becomes the first person ever photographed.
In 1839, Daguerre and Niepce’s son sold the rights to the daguerreotype to the French government and released a booklet explaining the process. The daguerreotype immediately achieved popularity in Europe and the United States. In New York City alone, there were approximately 70 daguerreotype studios by 1850.
The disadvantage of daguerreotypes is that they can’t be copied; each one is a one-of-a-kind image. Henry Fox Talbot, an English botanist, mathematician, and Daguerre’s colleague, invented the abilities to create multiple prints. Talbot used a silver-salt solution to light-sensitize paper. The paper was then exposed to light.
Talbot’s early silver chloride “sensitive paper” tests needed hour-long camera exposures. Talbot developed the calotype technique in 1841, which, like Daguerre’s, relied on chemical development of a faint or invisible “latent” image to cut exposure time to a few minutes. In the camera, silver iodide-coated paper was exposed and processed into an opaque negative image. A calotype negative could be used to create a large number of positive prints by simple contact printing, unlike a daguerreotype, which could only be copied by photographing it with a camera. The background became black, and the subject was displayed in gradations of gray. This result was a “negative” image. Talbot made contact prints from the paper negative, inverting the light and shadows to create a detailed image. He completed the paper-negative process in 1841 and named it a “calotype,” which means “beautiful picture” in Greek.
James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist, makes a primitive color image in 1861 by superimposing three black-and-white images onto a single screen, each processed through three filters—red, green, and blue. His photograph of a multicolored ribbon is the first to demonstrate the practicality of the three-color technique, which was previously only a theory, and it opens the way for future color innovation, particularly by the Lumière brothers in France.
Eadweard Muybridge, a photographer, begins shooting image sequences of animals and humans in motion using new emulsions that allow almost instantaneous photography. His 1878 photo series of a trotting horse creates a discussion about the camera’s ability to study movement. Muybridge goes on to make hundreds of picture sequences featuring humans and animals. The origins of cinematography can be attributed to these photo series.
Talbot’s developed-out silver halide negative method is still utilized by chemical film cameras today. George Eastman, a photographer and industrialist, invented film with a flexible, unbreakable, and rollable base in 1889. The mass-produced box camera was accomplished by emulsions coated on a cellulose nitrate film substrate, such as Eastman’s. Kodak invented the 35 mm film that most people are familiar with in 1913 for the early motion picture industry. Leica, a German camera manufacturer, used this technology to develop the first 35 mm still camera in the mid-1920s. In the 1920s, Kodak and other manufacturers began using a celluloid base, which was fireproof and more permanent. Triacetate film was introduced later and was more stable, flexible, and fireproof. This technology was used in the majority of films until the 1970s. Polyester polymers have been utilized in gelatine-based films since the 1960s. The plastic film basis is significantly more solid than cellulose and poses no risk of fire.
Kodak, Agfa, and other film companies introduced commercially viable color films to the market in the early 1940s. These films used dye-coupled color technology, which involves a chemical process that connects the three dye layers together to provide an apparent color image. Color prints were initially problematic due to the usage of organic dyes to produce the color image. As the dyes faded, the image would practically vanish from the film or paper basis. Kodachrome was the first color film to generate prints that might survive a half-century, dating back to the first third of the twentieth century. New techniques are now being used to create permanent color prints that can stay up to 200 years. New printing technologies based on computer-generated digital images and highly durable pigments provide color photographs with permanence.
Edwin Herbert Land, an American physicist and inventor, invented instant photography. Land was already well-known for producing polarized lenses using light-sensitive polymers in eyeglasses. In 1948, he launched the Land Camera 95, his first instant-film camera. Land’s Polaroid Corporation would refine black-and-white film and cameras that were fast, cheap, and surprisingly smart over the next several decades. In 1963, Polaroid introduced color film, and in 1972, it released the legendary SX-70 folding camera. In 1975, engineers at Kodak developed the very first camera creating a digital image. It used a cassette recorder to store data and took more than 20 seconds to capture a photo.
The roots of digital photography, which would revolutionize the industry, began with the development of the first charged-coupled device at Bell Labs in 1969. The CCD converts light to an electronic signal and remains the heart of digital devices today. The Nikon F-3 camera body is modified with a digital sensor and sold as a component of this incredibly expensive accessory, which is targeted toward photography professionals. The Nikon F-3 camera body is modified with a digital sensor and sold as a component of this incredibly expensive accessory, which is targeted toward photography professionals. In the following five years, a lot of manufacturers released models that were more affordable to consumers’ budgets. Today, the market is filled with thousands of different digital still camera models and most mobile devices—particularly smartphones—have cameras built into them.