Brief History of Photography

The word photography derives from the Greek words, light and graphein (to draw). The method of recording images using the action of light onto a sensitive material.

Around 330 BC, Aristotle pondered on the question... why the sun could make a circular image when it shined through a square hole?

It was around 1000AD, when Alhazen invented the first pinhole camera, also known as a camera obscura.

In 1872, Joseph Niepce made the first photograph using a pinhole camera. Before this, people simply just used the pinhole camera for viewing or drawing. Joseph's photographs were the starting point for the modern photographer by letting light draw the picture. Neicpe's photographs however, were not yet advanced enough as they required 8 hours of light exposure to create. Soon after the image appeared, it would disappear almost straight away.

Louise Daguerre inventor of the first practical process of photography went on to join with Neicpe in 1829 to develop his work.

In 1839, after several years of experimentation, and the death of Joseph Neicpe; Daguerre developed a better and more effective method of photography, and named it after himself 'The Daguerreotype'. This involved fixing the image onto a sheet of silver plated copper, coating it in iodine, placing the plate in the camera and exposing it for a few minutes. After the image was exposed to the light, the plate was then bathed in a solution of silver chloride, creating an image that lasted.

Shortly after this Daguerre sold the rights for the 'Daguerreotype' to the French government. By 1850 over 70 'Daguerreotype' studios were opened up in New York City alone.

Henry Fox Talbot, an English botanist and mathematician; invented the first negative, meaning multiple positive prints could be made. In 1841, he perfected the art of his invention and called it 'The Calotype', the Greek meaning for 'beautiful picture.'

In 1879, since the discovery of tintypes and wet plate negatives, dry plate negatives were developed. This was a glass negative plate with a dried gelatine emulsion, allowing the ability of being stored for a longer period of time. There wasn't any need for portable dark rooms, and because the dry process absorbed light so quickly, the hand held camera was now possible.

It was George Eastman in 1889, who invented the flexible roll film, this was a film with a base that was flexible, unbreakable and could be rolled.

By the early 1940's, colour film was developed, using modern technology of dye coupled colours in which a chemical process connects the 3 dye layers together to create an apparent colour image.