This guide on who invented photography shows the detailed timeline of this wonderful craft.
From the camera obscura in the 14th century to digital cameras in the 20th century, photography has evolved a lot. This was all built on the early inventors’ outstanding contributions.
As a photographer, it’s important to know more about the history behind creating a permanent image, the very first camera, and when digital photography became a thing.
Who Invented Photography First?
Various remarkable scientists and craftsmen made significant contributions toward the invention of photography. One figure stands a bit ahead of the rest, though: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.
The French physicist and inventor started experimenting with light and capturing images in the early 1800s using a camera obscura fitted with a pewter plate. It took him 26 years to finally get a permanent image on paper.
The camera was already in use when Niépce took an interest in optics and photography. It was an artifact, or a gimmick, that many socialites found quite amusing.
Some references date the device back to the 15th century. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), Giambattista della Porta (1538-1615), and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) mentioned the camera obscura and wrote extensively about its possible uses.
The importance of Niépce’s work lies in his ability to use the camera obscura to freeze an image rather than watching it or projecting it.
The bulk of his work was discovering a light-sensitive medium that would etch a reflected scene onto a solid surface.
Who Invented Modern-Day Photography?
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce pioneered creating images from a camera obscura, but he was not the sole inventor of that process.
Several other remarkable inventors further developed the craft of photography, as it evolved to where it is today.
Louis Daguerre: Fine-Tuning the Photographic Process
Portrait of Daguerre, Daguerrotype, George Eastman Museum, Public Domain, Wikimedia.
Louis Daguerre was a French painter and inventor completely fascinated by light and color. He knew Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, and together they collaborated to develop practical imaging processes.
The daguerreotype was an image development process that Louis Daguerre invented around 1839, and it soon gained commercial interest – primarily because the photographs developed using the daguerreotype were sharper and more stable.
William Henry Fox Talbot: Introducing Negatives and Positives
The Building of Nelson’s Column, Henry Fox Talbot, calotype, c.1843
Talbot was an English inventor who carried the daguerreotype further and eventually commercialized the calotype process in 1840.
While the daguerreotype process worked by giving a single positive image, the calotype process created a negative image from which photographers can reproduce any number of positives.
This was an important milestone in the history of photography, as it opened the door for mass-producing prints. Industrializing photography became possible at that point.
Frederick Scott Archer: Sharper Faster Images and Portrait Photography
Frederick Scott Archer, albumen print from wet plate collodion negative, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Until the 1850s, there was still much room for improvement in parameters like the time of exposure, image clarity, and ease of developing a photograph.
Frederick Scott Archer worked on these precise matters. The British sculptor and inventor came up with the wet collodion process in 1851.
It improved photography overall, but portrait photography seemed to gain even more. The added sharpness and quicker takes made facial expressions much more nuanced.
George Eastman: Democratizing Photography
Kodak, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
With all the individual contributions of inventors, scientists, and artists, photography was still relatively exclusive in 1880.
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Professional photographers and serious hobbyists had to carry around massive equipment, and they needed extensive practice before taking decent photos.
In 1889, George Eastman, who was an American entrepreneur, founded the Eastman Kodak Company. He introduced the Kodak camera, which was quite affordable and contained a roll of ready-to-photograph film.
The Kodak camera and easy film development drew the masses to photography like never before. This simple addition popularized taking photos for documentation, news, fashion, and fun.
What Is the First Photograph Ever Taken?
View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, Public Domain, via Wikimedia
“View from the Window at Le Gras” is considered by many historians and curators to be the very first photograph. Not too surprisingly, it was Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who took it.
In 1826, Niépce stood at the window of his house in Gras, France. The view was quite picturesque, and it moved him to the point of trying to immortalize it.
The French inventor had been experimenting with a technique called heliography for several years. In this process, he exposed a piece of paper coated with a light-sensitive material. Then, after a few hours, he extracted a negative of the exposed image.
The exposure time often took five to ten hours to create a recognizable image. Imagine having to wait that long just to take a photograph of your garden!
What Was the First Color Photo?
First durable color photographic image, James Clerk Maxwell, 1861, Public Domain, Wikimedia
The first color photograph was taken in 1861. Interestingly, it was a feat of science rather than a work of art.
The Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell was deeply immersed in experimenting with optics at the time, as well as light, magnetism, and electricity. It was almost inevitable that he would contribute to the nascent science of photography.
Having reached the conclusion that visible light consisted of seven different colors, Maxwell applied the same concept to photography. He photographed a tartan ribbon three times by using red, green, and blue filters.
The process of recreating the original color using three filters was the foundation of color film and digital photography. Unfortunately, it was tedious and impractical.
Years later, in 1903, the Lumiere brothers invented the autochrome method to produce colored photographs. The result was still crude and amateurish, but it paved the way for modern-day photography.
Who Was the First Famous Photographer?
“Annie, my first success” by Julia Margaret Cameron, National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford, Public Domain, Wikimedia.
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was the first photographer to achieve fame and celebrity status.
The English artist started her craft pretty late in life. At 48, she was primarily a mother of six and also a successful socialite. Incidentally, one of her daughters gave her a camera as a novel gift “for amusement.”
The moment Cameron touched the camera, she felt that it had become “as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.”
Cameron was known for creating incredibly artistic portraits of prominent Victorian social figures.
She was a pioneer in soft focus and the use of dramatic lighting. This gave her work an ethereal romantic air that no one else could imitate.
In 1864, Cameron exhibited her photographs. She faced a wider audience and professional critics for the very first time. The unique portraits were an instant sensation with their softness and imaginative qualities.
The artist’s work was reproduced in newspapers and magazines, and her services were highly in demand. The critics found her work much too sentimental and unreal. But that was half of its charm!
She set up a studio in London, and many high-profile characters were happy to get their pictures taken there. She photographed prominent people like Charles Darwin, Alfred Tennyson, and Florence Nightingale.
Having reached the pinnacle of success as a photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron started a school to teach aspiring artists the craft. She was also a benefactor of young talent, which placed her as an influential figure in Victorian society.
Who Took the First Selfie?
Self-portrait, Robert Cornelius, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The selfie, as we know it today, refers to someone taking their own photograph. While the term was coined in 2002, the technique was first used in 1839.
Robert Cornelius was an amateur American photographer, and at the time, he was still trying to learn the Daguerreotype process. It was rather complicated both in terms of the cumbersome equipment and the position.
To create a self-portrait, Cornelius had to set up the camera, remove the lens cover, and then quickly run and stand in front of the camera.
He had to be perfectly still throughout the time needed for effective exposure, which was around 10 minutes back then.
Who Invented Digital Photography?
Like most of the important milestones of photography, several important contributors and collaborators worked on taking optics from the mechanical to the digital space. The most referenced of them is Steven Sasson.
Steven Sasson was an Engineer at Eastman Kodak, which explains his interest in this field and how he got the support to innovate. After all, Kodak was all about making leading-edge products.
In 1975, Sasson developed the first digital camera known as the Kodak DCS-101. He implemented a charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor to capture images in a manner that was quite close to pinhole cameras.
The captured image was then transferred to a digital storage device. This was a bit of a snag, as the available digital storage media were not as large as our present-day drives.
In 1988, another player joined the digital photography arena.
Fujifilm focused on making larger storage to accommodate high-resolution images. They came up with the Fuji DS-1, which had a CCD sensor with a 1-megapixel resolution. That was huge back then!
The high price of the camera together with the limitations of storage and batteries kept digital cameras from becoming too successful commercially.
Regular cameras and lenses were quite advanced in the early ’80s, and they were easily affordable, so there wasn’t much motivation to get a digital one.
The digital scene changed drastically in the 1990s. Processing speeds, digital storage, and battery capacities all went up. Simultaneously, the prices of everything digital went down.
The CCD sensors became smaller and far more affordable. Additionally, image-processing software, like Adobe Photoshop, was accessible to the public. This encouraged various photography gear companies to focus on producing digital cameras.
In 1994, personal computers adopted the nascent technology. Apple was the first to incorporate a camera in a PC. That was the Apple QuickTake. Soon afterward, everyone did the same.
Digital camera storage and sensor sensitivity were the primary factors manufacturers focused on. That was until Canon launched the PowerShot G2, which included a built-in zoom lens.
Around the turn of the millennium, digital cameras surpassed film cameras in convenience, popularity, and affordability.
A decade later, in 2010, digital photography ruled the industry. Sasson’s work revolutionized advertising, journalism, and entertainment.
Why Was Photography Invented?
Credit: unknown illustrator, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photography is one of the greatest inventions of our time. However, as the history of photography shows us, it was no easy feat, and many people came together to make it happen.
So, what was the motivation behind inventing photography? And how did photography change our world?
Capturing reality
Humans are always fascinated by the nature around them, the places they visit, and the people they care about. For quite some time, painting and drawing were the only tools available to capture reality.
Art is beautiful, and it did copy reality faithfully, but it wasn’t as accurate, or as objective, as a photograph.
Preserving memories
Reconnecting with the past is much easier when one has permanent photographs of important events.
Families get to look at images of loved ones who are living too far away or who have passed on. Photo albums rank pretty high among the most valued possessions.
Scientific documentation
Science has contributed to photography as much as photography has contributed to science. The ability to keep a permanent record of a sample, experiment, or natural phenomenon is priceless.
Observing change
Time-lapse photography helps in watching and understanding nature. Changes are best recognized when we take photographs of the same subject at regular intervals.
Artistic expression
The invention of photography was concurrent with various artistic movements. Artists like Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Horace Vernet (1789-1863) were quick to try the new art form.
Photography provided a new medium that helped artists express feelings, play with light and shade, and tell stories through photographs.
Visual communication
A photograph is worth a thousand words. That’s what the early photographers soon came to realize. Images convey compelling messages and illustrate complex ideas in a simple way.
Photographs can easily engage audiences, capture the attention of readers, and even evoke powerful emotions in viewers. Visual communication is an effective way to persuade, sell, or educate.
Commercial and promotional uses
Photography plays a pivotal role in marketing, advertising, and branding. It’s easy to influence viewers through images, especially when these images target specific audiences.
Magazines and fashion brands used images and photography for decades to influence consumer behavior. This approach is still as effective today as it was a hundred years ago.
Historical preservation
Photography has kept a faithful record of events, places, people, and even social trends. For example, it’s hard to imagine how a city or a street looked before the great wars, but photographs remind us of every detail.
It’s also quite amusing, and educational to see how fashion trends, architecture, and lifestyles changed since the 1900s. That’s only possible because of all the historic photographs we have.
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