People have been keeping visual records of themselves and the things

around them since prehistoric times, recording images that range from

carefully drawn hieroglyphics to pictures taken on the surface of the

moon. Each image is an attempt to communicate from one person to

another the things we see.

Photography, which means literally “writing with light”, gives us the

means to record and examine our day-to-day activities and experiences.

Unlike the casual glance, which often “sees” only the major elements of a

scene, a photograph records the tiniest of details. It then allows us time to

study and understand each minute element. A photograph preserves

what memory cannot.

The ability of light to transmit images was apparently first casually noted by the Egyptians some ten thousand years ago. Hiding from the fierce sun in their tents and huts, these ancients noted that when light reflected from objects came beaming through tiny holes in the ten walls, the colored image of an upside-down camel or person was projected onto the tent wall. Inspired by this experience, they began to experiment with ways to capture and preserve images and became the first “photographers”.

Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher, first described the formation of a crude optical image in about 350 B.C. He observed that when a beam of light was allowed to enter a darkened room through a small hole an image was formed. By holding a piece of paper six inches or so from the opening he was able to capture the image. Though blurred and upside down the image was recognizable. Leonardo DaVinci, early in the sixteenth century, diagrammed in his famous Notebooks the workings of a camera, complete with instructions on how to use it.

The phenomenon that Aristotle described and DaVinci illustrated became known as the camera obscura. This term, meaning “dark room”, was introduced by the Italians, whose painters were among the first to make practical use of Aristotle’s discovery. In the early 1500s Italian painters used the camera obscura to improve proportion and perspective in their paintings. During the next two hundred years many improvements were made in the basic camera obscura. A glass lens that greatly sharpened the image eventually replaced the somple opening, the camera was made smaller and more portable, and mirrors were added so that the image was projected in an upright position.

By the early 1700s, the basic optical equipment necessary for manufacturing a camera was available, and the camera obscura had come to look much like the basic camera of today. But the solution to the basic problem of preserving the camera’s image continued to elude scientists and inventors. It took and additional 120 years to solve that mystery.

During the 1700s, several people were experimenting with chemicals that were sensitive to light. The biggest challenge facing photographers was to find a fixing agent that would make the images permanent.

A German professor of anatomy, Schulze was experimenting with the manufacture of phosphorus when he discovered that a combination of chalk, aqua regia (a combination of nitric and hydrochloric acids), and silver nitrate turned purple when exposed to light. By the process of elimination he discovered that silver salts were the darkening agent. Unfortunately, however, he failed to make use of this discovery. The credit for applying Shulze’s results goes to Thomas Wedgwood.

The great English potter Josian Wedgwood used the camera obscura to reproduce accurate drawings for his ornamental china and potter. His son Thomas was the first to apply the idea of light-sensitive chemicals to the camera obscura. Familiar with the camera obscura because of his father’s work, and with Schulze’s discoveries about silver salts because of his fascination with chemistry, Wedgwood produced silhouettes of insect wings and leaves on white leather coated with silver nitrate. However, the process was too slow to be used in the camera obscura, and there was not way to fix and preserve the image.

Partial credit for the inventiono f photography has also been given to Frenchman Joseph Niepce, who, after many disappointments, successfully produced the world’s first photograph in 1827. To create it, he coated a pewter plate with bitumen of Judea, or asphaltum, placed the plate in the camera, and made an eight hour exposure. To develop the photograph, he rinsed the plate with lavender oil. Althought the image was far from perfect, it was a milestone in the advancement of the art.

Another Frenchman, Daguerre, started his own search for the ideal fixing agent when his brief partnership with Niepce broke up. In 1837, after eight years of searching, he found what he was looking for, mercury vapor. Daguerre patented his process as the daguerreotype process. The procedure involved making an exposure on silver foil that had been sensitized with iodine. Following exposure, the foil was brought into contact with mercury vapor for development. The image was made permanent with a solution of common salt. Daguerreotype prints were an instant success. Studios were opened, and professional photographers began giving portrait painters stiff competition for business. Gradually, over the years, refinements were made in the lens and in the light sensitivity of the plates that were use. The popularity of daguerreotype portraits leaped when a method was devised to soften the tones and enrich the image.

Talbot, and English contemporary of Daguerre, made the next major contribution to photography – production of the first negative image. Working with silver nitrate and sodium chloride (salt), Talbot produced silver chloride, a compound more sensitive to light than Daguerre’s foil plates. Talbot coated paper instead of glass or metal plates, to produce the first negative image in 1835. Despite his disappointment at public indifference to his discovery, Talbot made numerous experiments to perfect the process. While working to improve his technique, Talbot discovered the latent image, an invisible image formed on film after exposure but before development. He realized that the resulting negative would enable him to reproduce an image easily. In 1841 he obtained a patent for his process, which he called the calotype photographic process, derived from the Greek word calos meaning “beautiful”.

Although Talbot did not enjoy the instant success of Daguerre, his discoveries and contributions to photography were the keys that unlocked the negative-positive image process, earning him recognition as the father of modern photography.

The same year Talbot patented the calotype process, a Viennese photographer, Petzval, designed the first fast portrait lens- a lens ten times faster than the landscape lenses used in the daguerreotype cameras. The daguerreotype, which was already being replaced by Talbot’s negative process, was further relegated to the past by Petzval’s faster lens, which relieved subjects from the necessity of sitting for excruciatingly long sessions.

The English sculptor, Archer, invented the wet collodion process while attempting to improve the calotype process he used during sculpting. Archer decided to try using collodion, a substance made by dissolving guncotton (nitrocellulose) in ether. Archer made a mixture of the gelatin-like collodion and potassium iodide and spread it thinly over a glass plate. He then dipped the still damp plate into a solution of silver nitrate. The plate had to be exposed immediately because it’s light sensitivity dropped sharply as it dried. As soon as it was exposed, the plate was developed in pyrogallic acid and fixed with sodium thiosulfate. Archer’s original intention was to use the collodion as a process for producing negatives, but it soon became a popular method for positive production too.

The collodion process was more technical and demanding than either the daguerreotype or the calotype processes. It was especially troublesome for outdoor photographers, who had to take a complete portable darkroom into the field. But the process produced excellent results. With an exposure time of less than ten seconds instead of several minutes, it produced sharp, clear, negatives that could easily be reprinted.

Cameron, one of the most remarkable amateur photographers of all time, started work in the 1860s on what she considered a “divine art”. In her photographs she attempted to record “the greatness of the inner as well as the features of the outer man.” She pioneered in the use of close-up techniques, large plates, and unusual lighting. She used an enormous lens and demanded that her subjects sit frozen for exposures lasting five to seven minutes. Her portrait subjects included the great, and the not so great of the period.

Though there are several others who contributed to the progress of modern photography along our history of photography timeline, the next big contribution was made by George Eastman. He began as an amateur photographer in 1877. Within twenty years he controlled the largest photographic manufacturing company in the world. Can you venture a guess at the company’s name?

Introduced in 1888, the Kodak No.1, Eastman’s simple box camera was the first camera to use roll film instead of plates or sheets. The camera appealed to the masses of amateur photographers because it was small (6 ½ inches x 3 ½ inches x 3 ½ inches) and simple to operate. The advertising slogan “You press the button, we do the rest” indicated that anyone who could press the button could get a good picture. Eastman chose the name Kodak because the word mimicked the sound the shutter made and was easily pronounced throughout the world.

The camera came loaded with enough

film for one hundred pictures and cost

twenty-five dollars. When the one

hundred pictures had been taken, the

photographer mailed the camera to the

Eastman plant in Rochester , NY. The film

was then processed, prints were made, the

camera was reloaded with film, and the

pictures and camera were returned to the

owner. Total cost for the prints and new

film was ten dollars.

In the 1890s, following on the heels of Kodak, a host of manufacturers attempted to complete in the vast amateur photography marketplace. The folding bellows camera, the twin-lens reflex camera, and the “nodark” – a camerathat processed its own film- appealed to beginners throughout the world. Small cameras became even more popular with Dr. Paul Rudolph’s invention of a precision lens – the Zeiss Tessar.

Small simple cameras had been developed to appeal to those novice photographers who wanted to preserve on film Jimmy’s sixth birthday or the family vacation to the coast. In 1925 the serious photographer was provided with a small, high-quality, hand-held camera that used 35 mm film and the Zeiss lens – the Leica. Leicas established the standard for the modern-day 35mm cameras. The inventor of the Leica, Oscar Barnack, started work on the camera two years earlier as a means to pretest the exposure of movie film. It worked so well that on mountain hikes he substituted the smaller prototype Leica for his bulky field camera. Leicas have been in production since 1925 and have been refined and improved so that today they are still among the world’s premier cameras.

Harold Edgerton’s electronic flash ushered photography into an era of ultra-high speed, with shutter exposures of less than 1/50,000 of a second. Edgerton’s photographs have shown us a drop of milk hitting a plate, a bullet passing through a light bulb, and a hummingbird resting on air.

After World War II, amateur photography experienced another boom period. Renewed interest was in large part due to the advent of the Kodak Brownie instamatic cameras and the 1947 invention of the Polaroid Land Camera (a camera that bore the name of it’s inventor, Edwin Land). The revolutionary new Polaroid produced a positive print in sixty seconds, because both the negative and the positive images were developed simultaneously. Despite harsh critics who said the Polaroid could not possibly last, it has endured to become a photographic mainstay among amateurs, as well as being used by many professionals in many different media related fields. In 2008 Polaroid stopped production of it’s instant photography line, but in 2009, back by popular demand, the company announced that Polaroid would soon be available once again.