History of Photography

5th-4th Centuries B.C.

Chinese and Greek philosophers describe the basic principles of optics and the camera.

ANGELO SALA (1576 - 1637)

Self-educated chemist that experimented with silver salts. In 1614 published that the paper containing silver nitrate reacted with sunlight causing it to darken. Same observations were made by Robert Boyle, who unfortunately gave the wrong explanation by stating that the above reaction occurred due to air and not by sunlight.

1664-1666

Isaac Newton discovers that white light is composed of different colors. Colour was considered to be property of materials until 1666.Issac Newton-property of light

1727

yJohann Heinrich Schulze discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light.

JOHANN HEINRICH SCHULZE (1687 - 1744)

 German professor at the University of Altdorf. With experiments, proved that silver nitrate becomes dark due to sunlight and not by temperature. He is the first, who created photograms with paper masks, which unfortunately could not last due to lack of paper fixer. His observations that opened the path, for the creation of photography became known after his death.

 Before mentioning the stages that led to the development of photography, there is one amazing, quite uncanny prediction made by a man called de la Roche (1729- 1774) in a work called Giphantie. In this imaginary tale, it was possible to capture images from nature, on a canvas which had been coated with a sticky substance. This surface, so the tale goes, would not only provide a mirror image on the sticky canvas, but would remain on it. After it had been dried in the dark the image would remain permanent. The author would not have known how prophetic this tale would be, only a few decades after his death.

CARL WILLIAM SCHEELE (1742-1786)

 Swedish scientist, self-educated. He used to work as an assistant in pharmacies and showed a talent in chemistry from a very young age. In spite an offer made to him to study in London or Berlin, he operated a pharmacy in K ping where he spend the rest of his life and made all his important inventions. He was especially interest on chemical analysis and worked particularly with the chemical reactions between silver nitrate and sunlight, therefore making a break through in the chemistry of photography. The records from his experiments were of a great importance for the next generations of scientists.

1814
Joseph Nicphore Nipce achieves first photographic image with camera obscura however, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded.

JOSEPH NICEPHORE NIEPCE (1765-1833)

The first picture which is known to us with an eight hour exposure and the insistence of Niepce. The view from the window of his laboratory.

second known to us picture by Niepce.The original was lost during its transfer for restoration in the beginning of the 19th century

 French multi-talented inventor. In 1826, (after trying since 1814), invented the "heliogram" and became the first man ever to fix a print. The "heliogram" as a method was extremely time consuming, since it required long time exposures (his first photograph needed eight hours of exposure time). In 1829 he signed a contractual agreement with Daguerre in spite of the fact that the latter developed a photographic method of his own after Niepce died in 1833.

 First, the name. We owe the name "Photography" to Sir John Herschel , who first used the term in 1839, the year the photographic process became public. The word is derived from the Greek words for light and writing.

THOMAS WEDGWOOD (1771-1805)

 Son of a well known pottery maker called Josef Wedgwood. In spite of his health problems and the interruption of his studies, continues to experiment with silver nitrate, in order to record photograms and images from camera obscura. He finally made it with the help of his friend Davy, one of the most important chemists of all times. Unfortunately he had no way to fix the prints, so he was destined to view them under very dimmed light in order to prevent them from darkening

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY (1778-1829)

 Chemistry genius, friend and assistant of Wedgwood in his experiments whose results were published at Royal Society, in 1802 by Davy. The problem of "fixing" the images remained in spite of Davy's breakthroughs in chemistry.

LOUIS JACQUES MANDE DAGUERRE (17871851)

 Began his carrier as an architect, then moved on to painting and became a successful commercial artist by inventing diorama. He used camera obscura as a helping tool for his painting and became persistent on finding a chemical, easy way to record images. In 1826 became aware about Niepce's experiments and signed a contractual agreement with him. After Niepce died, he continued alone and created a method of his own called Daguerreotype. This method, was announced in August 1839 by Arago at the French Academy of Sciences. The French government adopted Daguerreotype and "donated" the method to the whole world and Daguerre became famous and rich.

1837
Daguerre s first daguerreotype - the first image that was fixed and did not fade and needed under thirty minutes of light exposure.

The first daguerrotype ,method which first gave the world the joy of photography

SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1792-1871)

 .In 1819 he had already discovered the ability that "hypo" had to fix the photographic images and he is the one who solved the "fixing" problem of pictures that his friend Talbot had .He was the one who first used the terms "photography" "negative" positive" and "snapshot". He was the first to photograph glass negatives and in the end he discovered a different photographic method called cyanotype.

Cyanotype

WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT (1800-1877)

The first paper negative, the most popular photographic procedureup the the appearance of digital photography

 Professor of literature, egyptologist, mathematician, classicist, physicist, transcriber of chaldean cueiform texts, who with his inventions on photography created the foundations for the development of this art and science for the next one hundred and fifty years..

 After a trip to Italy, where he used camera lucida for complicated designs, decided to discover a more practical and easy way to record images. He succeeded quite early, in 1835 by creating the first negative. His greatest discovery the negative process, minimizes exposure time considerably compared to passed methods. With the help and guidance of his friend Herschel achieves extraordinary results, which announces on January 1839 at the Royal Society and since then English and French argue on who first announced the discovery of photography.

Calotype
Calotype or talbotype is an early photographic(Positive/Negative) process introduced in 1841 by Henry Fox Talbot, using paper coated with silver iodide. The term calotype comes from the Greek for 'good', and for 'impression'.

 The sensitive element of a calotype is silver iodide. With exposure to light, silver iodide decomposes to silver leaving iodine as free element. Excess silver iodide is washed away after oxidizing the pure silver with a second application of gallo-nitrate. As silver oxide is black, the resulting image is visible. Potassium bromide then is used to stabilize the silver oxide

 As silver oxide is black, the resulting image is visible. Potassium bromide then is used to stabilize the silver oxide. The salted paper's sensitive element is silver chloride formed when the salt (sodium chloride) reacts with silver nitrate.(A piece of paper was brushed with weak salt solution, dried, then brushed with a weak silver nitrate solution, dried, making silver chloride in the paper)

Disadv comp todaguerreotype

its popularity was to a great extent arrested by patent restrictions; the materials were less sensitive to light, therefore requiring longer exposures; the imperfections of the paper reduced the quality of the final print; Calotypes did not have the sharp definition of daguerreotypes. the process itself took longer, as it required two stages (making the negative and then the positive); the prints tended to fade.

Advantages
it provided the means of making an unlimited number of prints from one negative; retouching could be done on either negative or print; prints on paper were easier to examine, and far less delicate; the calotype had warmer tones.

1840
First American patent issued in photography to Alexander Wolcott for his camera.

1841
William Henry Talbot patents the Calotype process - the first negative-positive process making possible the first multiple copies.

Van Dyke Brown(1842)

Van Dyke Brown is an early photographic printing process. The process was so named due to the similarity of the print color to that of a brown oil paint named for Flemish painter Van Dyck.

 This process relied on the action of(UV) light on Ferric salts. AMMONIUM FERRIC CITRATE Tartaric Acid Silver Nitrate

1843
First advertisement with a photograph made in Philadelphia

1851-Colloidion or Wet Plate Technique Frederick Scott Archer invented the Collodion process - images required only two or three seconds of light exposure. The collodion process is an early photographic process, which was quickly replaced at the end of the 19th century with today's gelatin emulsion process

 In 1851, Frederick Scott Archer introduced the wet plate process, sometimes referred to as the collodion process after the carrier material used.

 Bromide, iodide or chloride salts were dissolved in collodion, which is a solution of pyroxylin in alcohol and ether. This mixture was poured onto a cleaned glass plate, and allowed to sit for a few seconds.

 The plate was then placed into a solution of silver nitrate and water, which would convert the iodide, bromide or chloride salts to silver iodide, bromide or chloride, respectively.

 Once this reaction was complete, the plate was removed from the silver nitrate solution, and exposed in a camera while still wet. It was developed with a solution of iron sulfate, acetic acid and alcohol in water.

An old deteriorated wet plate featuring Theodore Roosevelt

 It was the first widely used photographic process which resulted in a negative image on a transparent photographic medium. The other methods of its time, such as the Daguerreotype, produced a one-of-a-kind positive image, which could not be replicated easily. With the collodion process, however, the photographer could make an unlimited number of prints from a single negative; this was typically done on albumen paper.

Tintype-1853
The tintype, also known as a ferrotype, is a variation on this, but produced on metallic sheet (not, actually, tin) instead of glass. The plate was coated with collodion and sensitized just before use, as in the wet plate process. It was introduced by Adolphe Alexandre Martin in 1853

 the original name for Tintype was "Melainotype." The print would come out laterally reversed (as one sees oneself in a mirror);

Dry Process
The extreme inconvenience of shooting wet collodion in the field led to many attempts to develop a dry collodion process, which could be shot and developed some time after coating. A large number of methods were tried, though none were ever found to be truly practical and consistent in oper

1871
Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process - negatives no longer had to be developed immediately.

 The gelatin-silver process is the photographic process used with currently available blackand-white films and printing papers. A suspension of silver salts in gelatin is coated onto acetate film or fiber-based or resin coated paper and allowed to dry (hence the term dry plate). These materials remain stable for months and years unlike the 'wet plate' materials that preceded them.

 The Gelatin-Silver process was introduced by R. L. Maddox in 1871 with subsequent considerable improvements in sensitivity obtained by Charles Harper Bennet in 1878. Intense research in the last 125 years has led to current materials that exhibit low grain and high sensitivity to light.

 When small crystals (called grains) of silver salts such as silver bromide and silver chloride are exposed to light, a few atoms of free metallic silver are liberated. These free silver atoms form the latent image. This latent image is relatively stable and will persist for some months without degradation provided the film is kept dark and cool

 Films are developed using solutions that reduce the free silver atoms. An 'amplification' of the latent image occurs as the silver salts near the free silver atom are also reduced to metallic silver.

 The strength, temperature and time for which the developer is allowed to act allow the photographer to control the contrast of the final image. The development is then stopped by neutralizing the developer in a second bath.

 Once development is complete, the undeveloped silver salts must be removed by fixing in sodium thiosulphate or ammonium thiosulphate, and then the film or paper must be washed in clean water. The final image consists of metallic silver embedded in the gelatin coating

Kallitype (1889)
Discovered by W.W.J. NICOL This first iron- silver process was also called imitation platinum print. A paper is coated with a solution of ferric oxalate and silver nitrate. When Dried, the sensitised paper was exposed to a negative under UV Light. The colour of the results varied from deep sepia to a lighter shade.

LIQUID EMULSION
A Silver based sensitiser was applied on a surface, exposed by an enlarger and processed. It was roughly the same emulsion found on an ordinary paper photographic paper. Its liquid form allowed the emulsion to be coated on a wide range of surfaces When the liquid is freshly-made, light is relatively slow and lacks full contrast.

Lith Prints
This is an unusual black and white printing Technique, using normal black and white or colour negatives, a suitable black and white paper and Lith developer. It involves heavily overexposing a suitable black and white paper-usually by two or three stops and then only partially developing it in a highly diluted Lith developer.

Platino-Palladiotype
This is a method of printing in platinum, palladium or a mixture both metals. Palladium gives a finer image on a wider range papers, however its less durable than platinum. The sensitized paper acquires a controlled degree of humidity, which allows formation of the platinum-palladium image during the exposure.

ARGYROTYPE
User- friendly iron-based silver printing process that produces brown images on plain paper. It is simple with great image stability and longer sensitizer shelf-life. The process used silver sulphamate, which is known to be manufactured in-situ. The acidic sensitiser is then washed clean out of the paper.

Colour Photography
James Clerk Maxwell(1831-1879)

 In 1861, Scottish Physicist James ClerkMaxwell demonstrated a colour photography system involving three black and white photographs, each taken throuh a red, green and blue filter. The photos were turned in to Lantern slides and then projected in registration with the same colour filters. Thus the colour separation method was born.

Hermann W Vogel(1834-1898)

 In 1873,Hermann Wihelm Vogel(1834-1898), a German Photochemist, discovered how to increase sensitivity of emulsions from blue and UV Light to green light by adding dyes. By 1884, he discovered how to extend emulsion sensitivity to orange. A full panchromatic sensitivity in to reds had to wait till dye discoveries in early 1900s, shortly after his death.

1900 First mass-marketed camera the Brownie

The Lumiere Brothers

 In 1907, the first commercial colour film, the autochrome plates, were manufactured by the Lumiere brothers in France. The Lumiere brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas (1862-1954) & Louis Jean (18641948),were also among the earliest filmmakers as well. lumiere in French translates as Light in English

Hans Fischer(1881-1945)

 In 1912, Hans Fischer discovered that just as the silver compounds in black and white film reacted to light, other chemicals responded differently to various coloured lights. Germanorganic chemist, 1930 Nobel prize for chemistry(pigments)

Leopold GodoskyJr.&Leopold Mannes

 In 1935, Godowsky(1900-1983) and Mannes (1899-1964),American musicians working with the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories, initiated modern colour photography with the invention of Kodachrome reversal colour film, based on three coloured emulsions suitable for projection and for reproduction.

George Eastman (1854-1932)

 Eastman founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented the roll-film, bringing Photography to the mainstream. In 1942, Kodak introduced the kodacolour negative film that, 20 years later, after many improvements in Quality, speed and a great reduction in price, would become the most popular film used for amateur photography.

 In 1932:Inception of tecnicolour for movies 1963:Instant colour film was introduced by Polaroid 1973:C-41 Colour negative process introduced, replacing the C-22 process 1975:Steve Sasson at Kodak builds the first working CCD- based digital still camera

 1978: Konica introduces first point-and-shoot, autofocus camera. 1982:Sony shows the Mavica still video camera 1984:Canon demonstrates first digital electronic still camera

 1990: Adobe Photoshop released 1991: Kodak DCS 100, First DSLR a modified Nikon f3