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First Permanent Image Taken
Joseph Nicephore Niepce used a camera obscura that burned a permanent image of the countryside in Le Gras, France. It was burned onto a chemical-coated pewter plate. He named this technique Heliography meaning sun drawing. It takes eight hours to get this black and white photo. The image is still visible on the plate today. -
First Permanent Photograph of a Person
In 1839 the French painter and chemist Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre photographed the first person. When he took a picture of a paris street scene from his apartment he used a camer obscura and his newly invented daguerreotype process. The several minute exposure time captured an unidentified man who was getting his shoe shined. This was an accident but the man became the first photographed! -
First Photo of the Sun
Using the Daguerreotype method, Frech physicists Louis Fizeau adn Leon Fourcault sucessfully took the first photo of the sun. The photo was taken on April 2, 1845. The image was taken with 1/60th of a second and captured many sunspots. -
First Photograph(s) of War
During the Mexican-American war, Charles J Betts followed an American Army taking photographs of "the dead and the wounded." Charles J. Betts used the daguerreotupist method. -
Positive Photographic Prints on Paper
Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrad invented a type of paper using eggwhites, table salt and silver nitrate. The paper was used as photographic paper because it creates exposure in a relatively short time. (minutes to hours) It also produces a positive image without the need for development. This was a big improvement for photographers at the time. Blanquart-Evrad's paper allowed it to easily be mass produced and be accesable to amateurs. -
Wet Plate Process is Invented
During 1851, the english inventor Fredrick Scott Archer discovers how to use collodin, a viscous liquid in the crimean War to cover soldiers wounds, as a light-sensitive liquid. It worked by using the liquid to wet the plate, hence the name "wet plate process", then develop the photograph on the wet plate. It had fast expsosure times and sharp images making it perfect for amateurs. -
First Color Photograph
James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish psysicist, was the first to create a color photograph. He took three black and white images and put then onto a single screen then passed them through three filters (red, green, and blue) creating a picture of a multicolored ribbon. This proved the productivness of the three-color method, that had before been just a theory. -
Dry Plate Process is Invented
R.L. Maddox, an english inventor, sucessfuly produces a dry plate photograph using silver bromide and gelatin. This is a very forgiving process that is then improved over the years. -
First Action Photographs
To settle a disagreement about whether all all four of the horses hooves come off the ground when they gallop, Engligh photographer Eadweard Muybridge used emulsions to take nearly instanteous photography. He created 12 cameras set up with trip wire to capture the pictures of the horse. After mastering this technique he then went on to take many action sequences of humans and animals. -
Eastman Dry Plate Company is Established
George Eastman was the first to patent a coating machne for mass producing gelatin dry plates. By using a seconhand engine, he poduced the plates for all. The Eatman Dry Plate Company later leads to the Kodak Company. -
First Kodak Camera Released
"You press the button, we do the rest" was the slogan the Eastman-Kodak Company used to sell the first camera ever released. The owner of one of these cameras would take pictures, send the whole camera to the company, they would deveolp it for them, and then send back the camera with their new pictures. -
First Introducdtion of Nitrocellulate Film Photography
This flexible film helped make photography accesable to amateurs, but was very flammable and deteriorated over time. This was introduced by the Eastman Dry Plate Comapny. -
Kodak "Brownie Box" Camera Released with Roll Film
This dollar camera was very popular for its time with amateurs and children. This simple box camera was sold by Kodak, which sold 100,000 units in the first year. -
First Underground Photographs
This first underground color photograph was taken in New Mexico's Carlsbad Cavern. -
First Underwater Photographs
Using an Autochrome camera and a raft full of explosive magnesium flash powder, William Longley and Charles Martin take the first underwater color photos in Flordias Dry Tortugas. -
Electric Flash Invented
Harold Edgergoton invented a device that is fast, reuseable, and allows clear photographs to be taken. He called it the stroboscopic light, and knows as the flash on our cameras. -
First Photocopying Technique Patnted
Chester Carlson, and American physicist, was the first to patent his electrophtography process, also know as photocopying. He invented a way to tansfer images to paper using a sulfur-coated plate and lycopodium powder. He started his own company that later was known as Xerox. -
First Space Photograph
John Hopkins University straped a 35 millimeter camera to a German V-2 missile. While the missile ascends into space, the camera snaps a picture every second and a half. The camera is then dropped back down to earth and lands on the ground. This process does not hurt hte film, wihch is kept in a steel cassette. The developed photos were the first to ever show our world from space. -
First Digital Camera Released by Kodak
