History of Photography (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain and summarize the history of photography, what were the first invented devices and its main characteristics.

History of photography

The history of photography is the count of inventions, scientific findings and technical improvements that allowed the human being to capture for the first time an image On a photosensitive surface, using the light and certain chemical elements that react with it.

The history of photography It covers from the nineteenth to the twentieth centurybut it has many background in previous times. It is one of the most revolutionary technologies that man has developed. Its impact has been felt in science, the arts (even creating a new one) and in historical documentation. It also gave rise to later technologies, such as cinema, among others.

The word photography comes from Greek words Phos (“Luz”) and Graphos (“Written” or “engraved”)so that it is a writing with light or a recording made with light.

Background of photography

GEROOLAMO CARDANO - Photography — Gerolamo Cardano experienced with the dark chamber in 1558.

The idea of capturing images and preserving them has accompanied the human being since ancient times. It is the foundation of the appearance of painting, sculpture and, later, photography. There were ancient attempts to capture an image automatically, especially through the principle of the dark camera, which is the same as the cameras.

The dark camera is a closed space or enclosure, totally darkin which the light penetrates by an opening on one of its sides and projects an inverted image of what happens on the outside. This principle was known since the time of Aristotle (around 300 years A. C.) or later of the Arabic scholar Alhazén (around 900 AD).

The first publications in this regard In the West they appeared from the fifteenth centuryas part of the scientific revolution in which philosophers such as Leonardo Davinci participated. One of his students, Cesare Cesarino was the first to publish these studies in 1521.

From that work, scientists such as Giovanni Battista della Porta or Gerolamo Cardano They experienced with the dark camera in 1558. In the 16th century, the German Johann Zahn of the 16th century, developed these principles in a portable wooden device, which was ready to become a camera, having had how to set the images.

First attempts and daguerreotype

History of photography first photographs — This was the first photograph of the story, taken by Niepce in 1826.

The first photographic images obtained in history are the work of French Nicéphore Niepce, a scientist who achieved results through The prolonged exposure to the light plaque light covered in Betúninside a dark chamber. The first image obtained like this was View from a window in le fatfrom 1826, which took eight hours of exposure to broad daylight.

In 1827 Niepce met Louis Daguerre and signed a work agreement that left the latter all the knowledge of Niepce’s photographic techniques after his death in 1833. Daguerre added to the mechanism a polished silver plateon which impressions occurred, thus reducing exposure time.

Thus was born the daguerreotype, baptized in his name. This new technique allowed portraits, and it was The best known form of photography for a long time. However, at the same time and without knowing other inventors such as Hercules Florence, Hippolythe Bayard and William Fox Talbot were studying their own methods to obtain similar impressions.

Other similar procedures that appeared in the nineteenth century were Calotype and Ambrotypia.

Wet collodion

History of photography — Colodion was a varnish that applied on a clean and polished glass plate.

This procedure replaced the daguerreotype in the second half of the nineteenth centurysince it allowed to make copies of the impression, it was much cheaper and reduced the exposure time to a few seconds. The wet colodion was invented by Gustave Le Gray in 1850 and released the following year by Frederick Scott Archer.

It consisted of pour a varnish called a very clean and polished glass plate. The colodion was previously sensitized in silver nitrate, exposed all to the same dark chamber procedure. Once the capture was carried out, it was revealed in ammoniacal iron sulfate.

Since 1855 This technique became the most used And the photographers carried the implements to manufacture it, which was spectacular and went against the fragility of glass sheets. Finally they were displaced by the “dry plates” to the jelly-bromide.

The “dried plates” to the gelatin-bromide

Invented in 1871 by Richard Leach Maddox and perfected in 1878 by Charles E. Bennet, they constituted a leap forward with respect to humid colodion. Allowed to obtain glass negatives that could be positivized on paper To make copies of the photo.

This technique also used glass sheets that were covered with a cadmium bromide solution, water and gelatin Sensitized with silver nitrate, and then exposed in a dark chamber to the image that was desired to capture.

Color photography

History of hand painted photography family portrait — For much of the twentieth century many photographs continued to colored by hand.

During the nineteenth century it was tried to obtain color photographs. The first was obtained by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861through the taking of three consecutive photographs with a red, blue and green filter each, and then overlap them in a projection and obtain the desired colors.

However, There was no way to fix the colors to the photo And generally the photographs of the nineteenth and early twentieth century were hand colored, using watercolors, oils or other pigments.

The first color photographic plaque was patented in 1903 by the Lumière brothersand taken in 1907 to commercial markets under the name of Autochrome. With glass support, they were based on a dot rack system similar to that then had color television.

The colored photographic film was invented only in 1935by the company Eastman Kodak and marketed as Kodachrome (used until 2009). In 1936 the Agfa version, called Agfacolor, arrives to stay.

The photographic film

The photographic film It was invented in 1884 by the American George Eastmanusing long strips of paper coated with photosensitive emulsion.

In 1889 he invented the first film flexible And transparent, in celulose nitrate strips, marking a before and after in the conception of photography. From then on, the photographic roll began to be used more and more, and this was also key to the development of cinematography.

The 35mm format

In 1920 the German inventor and photographer Oskar Barnack introduced the Leica Chamber to the marketwhich used a new film format: the 35 millimeters, also known as Leica format or Barnack format.

This format revolutionized the film and cinema industry. It consisted of a small film, of the 135 format of 35 millimeters wide, with an appearance ratio of 3: 2 and a size in the diagonal of about 43mm. Initially thought for cinema, the manufacturing costs of the cameras enormned and allowed their popularization, thus born the amateur photographers.

The flash or illuminator

The flash or illuminator It began to be used at the beginning of the 20th century. It consisted of a mixture of fine magnesium powders that lit with a detonator, producing a small explosion that illuminated the surroundings, but also a cloud of toxic gases.

Digital photography

Digital photography is the most recently invented aspect, which takes advantage of the technologies that the computer revolution of the late twentieth century brought with it. Allowed among other things the suppression of the photographic roll and of all forms of chemical developmentkeeping the images directly in electronic or computer format.

Thus, it is not necessary to “scan” or digitize the images, and they can also be intervened using specialized software. As if that were not enough, Digital cameras allow the photo to be planned and decide whether to keep it or take it again. They also provide us with electronic help of all kinds, such as autofocus, red -eyed correction, etc.