13/02/2025
The history of ❤️
The photography timeline extends back further than you might assume. In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle described the principles of the camera obscura, which entails projecting an image through a small hole. Through a camera obscura’s pinhole, the image of the world is reversed or upside-down. While our notion of a camera has evolved dramatically, the “camera obscura” is considered to be the ancient building block upon which all further revolutionary developments and inventions in the field of photography were built. It defines the timeline of photographic history as we know it.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre are often considered the inventors of photography with cameras, as we now know it. The former started out experimenting with silver chloride and silver halide photography, but could not figure out how to prevent them from darkening when exposed to light.
In 1826, Niépce succeeded in taking the first true camera photograph. He used a sheet of pewter coated with bitumen, which required an exposure time of at least 8 hours! The subject of this photograph hit close to home for Niépce; the view from his workroom in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. The Niépce Heliograph is considered as the earliest known photograph in the history of photography, achieved with the aid of the camera obscura.
Painter Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre was so excited about this achievement that he decided to partner with Niépce. Daguerre continued to develop, refine and tinker with the process by using silver-plated copper sheets and mercury v***r. As he continued to develop this process, Daguerre was able to vastly reduce the exposure time.
