The History of Photography

Did you know that the camera predates photography by at least a thousand years? The camera is a Latin word for room. These are originally large wooden boxes constructed for architectural purposes. The box was light tight. There would be a pinhole at one side and white paper on the other side in which the image was projected. There were two drawbacks to this however. One was that the artists block the light with his body as he tries to trace the lines of the image. And two that the image was upside down and reversed.

Despite the above drawbacks, the ancient scientist, mechanics knew they had something unique at hand. And soon figure that by downsizing the cameras, they would have a more functional recording device.

For centuries that it had been observed that some light produces a chemical reaction on certain surfaces. Around the 17th century, scientist had noticed a various surfaces would immediately darken when expose to light. For instance, a leaf placed on a chemically treated surface and left in the sunlight will produce negative but remarkable lightness of that leaf. But the image soon faded. The answer was to come out with a chemical mixture that would fix the image permanently.

As this serve no purpose at the time outside entertainment, this challenge was something that got low priority. At the turn of the 19th century however, Josiah Wedgwood of Wedgwood China Fame was using his camera to make sketches for his designs to be applied to his family’s China products. He had the idea that there must be some way that the details cast upon the tracing paper could be made permanent and begun experimenting with chemicals based on the earlier research. He had some success, some success initially, but the image is still faded.

Now the one interesting thing about the history of invention is that if you are working on something, you can be sure there are others unknown to you as you are to them who would be working on the same challenge. Most of the famous inventors we know are only famous because they’ve got to the patent office before anyone else.

Now from the year about 1799 to 1839 throughout Europe, North America and South America, there were those who are trying to combine the ancient camera with photo chemistry that will react to light and create an image and then to extend that camera true to keep the image from fading.

In January of 1839, an English man by the name of Talbert and a French man by the name of Daguerre announced and demonstrated to the world that which we know is photography. These inventors gave us this gift which literally means to record with lights. We are know at the point in photo technology where the digital cameras about to make the film camera in an extent. It is important to note however that we are still using light, focus through a lens, into a box, onto a photo receptor surface to make an image. All right, let’s go out and look at the world of cameras in creating images.