Photography: a Short History and Why you need to care about it

I tried to put off starting the photography series for as much as I could because I couldn't figure out how to start it. Then, it hit me. From the beginning.

So, let's get started!

The History of Photography

Antiquity

The idea of photography started when Greek and Chinese philosophers discovered two important principles:

• the one of "camera obscura" a.k.a. the dark room,
• and how a few substances modify if exposed to light.

The New Royal Palace at Prague Castle projected onto an attic wall by a hole in the roof.

Source: Wikipedia

17th & 18th Century

Isaac Newton - besides his other discoveries, was the first to see that white light is actually composed of many other colors.

Johann Heinrich Schulze, saw almost a century later, how some chalk, silver nitrate and nitric acid, mixed together and exposed to the sunlight get darker.

Thomas Wedgwood got even a step closer, making some camera images on durable surfaces using light and some light-sensitive chemical.

Unfortunately, he couldn't make them permanent.

Source: Widewalls

19th & 20th Century

A lot of interesting experiments happened in the 19th century, but I'll try to stick to the important ones today.

Nicéphore Niépce ( try saying his name out loud 3 times faster :) ) succeeded making negatives on paper coated with silver chloride, but he couldn't stop them from darkening when exposed to light.

But the guy doesn't give up, and finally succeeded creating the first permanent photograph, of an engraving of Pope Pius VII, that unfortunately gets destroyed.

He still didn't give up, and later on, he makes, what is known today as the earliest surviving photograph of nature, a landscape, that required an exposure in the camera from 8 hours to several days.

Source: Wikipedia

Henry Fox Talbot is the one to succeed in making the two-step procedure, from negative to positive, that makes it possible to create copies of the photos as well.

He later introduces calotype paper negative process that reduces the exposure time.

Louis Daguerre is the one that presents the daguerreotype process, an interesting process that produces very detailed permanent photographs on silver-plated sheets of copper.

At first, it takes a few minutes of exposure to get the photo, but after some experimenting, he perfects it and is able to reduce the time to only a few seconds.

Source: Wikipedia

The result? Photography goes viral and his process is used worldwide!

Sarah Anne Bright shoots a series of photograms, and some of them still exist and now are known as the earliest surviving photos taken by a woman.

Even though all the photos from that time were only black and white, they were surprising and fantastic.

The first color photos were an experiment by Edmond Becquerel, but needed days of exposure and were extremely sensitive to light.

Thomas Sutton made the first durable color photographs, three black-and-white photographs taken through red, green, and blue color filters after a method proposed by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

Source: Wikipedia

The first commonly used method of color photography was the Autochrome plate, a process commercially introduced in 1907 by brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière.

The 1900s were so important because other awesome things happened: Kodak was born and released the box camera, the first mass-marketed camera, named Brownie.

It was sold with the slogan "You press the button, we do the rest" and it went wildly popular!

Source: Wikipedia

From then on, everything goes wild.

In the following decades, the bulb flash is invented by General Electric, Leica photo cameras are born.

Chester Carlson gets a patent for electric photography (xerography), EG&G develops extreme depth underwater camera for the U.S. Navy.

My favorite, Polaroid instant colored photo cameras are born.

Source: Polaroid

But the awesomeness doesn't stop here. Earthrise, one of the most epic photos ever, is taken from the surface of the moon.

Then, the first point-and-shoot autofocus camera, by Konica, was popularized. After, the fully automatic photo camera, Optima.

Then, the pixels are born, and the megapixel sensors, and thus began the reign of digital photography.

Nikon created the first prototype for an analog electronic SLR camera.

Then Fuji released DS-1, the first camera that could digitally store photos - no film was required.

Source: Widewalls

Kodak DC40 and the Apple QuickTake 100 were the first digital cameras marketed for mass consumption.

In 1997, Philippe Kahn shares the first picture taken via cell phone.

Source: Wikipedia

The 21st century

Welcome to our days, where there's a "war" for supremacy between Nikon, Canon, Sony... and people lost interest in Kodak.

Analog cameras that once were a breakthrough, are only collectibles, and everyone has at least a 5-megapixel camera on their phone.

Today we have so many cameras, lenses, flashes and incredible studio accessories, it get's overwhelming for any young photographer.

With programs like Photoshop, we go even a step further to create surreal images.

No matter how technology evolves, back then were the real magical times.

To see how a shot you took, transforms from film to print, it's a feeling digital photography can't give you. And doing it all with your own hands doesn't compare to the push of a button.

But now, why the hell did I bother telling you all this?

Because you should know how hard it was back then, and how easy it is for us now.

Because you should treat every photo you take, and see, with respect - for its developers, for its history.

And, last but not least, it's important to motivate you to create the best photos you can.

They did magic with far less, so why not take advantage of what their work gave us?

We hope you enjoyed our history lesson about photography, and why you should care about it.

Our question for you is: Digital or film?

Information source: Wikipedia + personal knowledge‍