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History of Photography

  • Historical Event: Ultraviolet Radiation Discovered

    Historical Event: Ultraviolet Radiation Discovered

    Johann Ritters discovered that silver chloride turned black in light which led to the discovery of light sources outside of the visible spectrum.
  • Wedgewood and Davy: Photography on Pottery

    Wedgewood and Davy: Photography on Pottery

    The two men were able to make images on pieces of pottery using a silver nitrate technique. However, they were unable to make the images stop darkening in light.
  • Historical Event: Louisiana Purchase

    Historical Event: Louisiana Purchase

    The U.S. bought the piece of land on the west of the Mississippi river from France for $15 million.
  • Niepce: First surviving Photograph

    Niepce: First surviving Photograph

    The photograph took 8 hours to make and was fairly poor quality but is the first photograph to survive.
  • Invention: First Typographer

    Invention: First Typographer

    The first typographer was created by W.A. Burt. This invention preceded the typewriter.
  • Henry Fox-Talbot: The Calotype

    Henry Fox-Talbot: The Calotype

    His invention would create a negative of the image which would then need to be transferred to create the final photograph. This is his first photograph of a latticed window.
  • Historical Event: Trail of Tears

    Historical Event: Trail of Tears

    The Cherokee Nation was forced to give up their land east of the Mississippi and move to the Oklahoma area. It had devastating effects for the Cherokee people.
  • Charles Wheatstone: Stereoscopic images

    Charles Wheatstone: Stereoscopic images

    A device called a stereoscope used to view 3D images created by Charles Wheatstone
  • Louis-Jacques	Mandé Daguerre's: Daguerreotype

    Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre's: Daguerreotype

    Using copper plates with silver iodine allowed Daguerre to create higher quality images and he was able to do it with a much shorter exposure time. This image is thought to be the first of a person since the man getting his shoe shined was standing in one place for such a long time.
  • Anna Atkins: Photographs of British Algae

    Anna Atkins: Photographs of British Algae

    The first ever photographic book. Atkins documented her scientific illustrations using cyanotype.
  • Historical Event: U.S. Mexican War

    Historical Event: U.S. Mexican War

    The war was part of America's Manifest Destiny quest to expand its territory across all of North America.
  • Historical Event: California Gold Rush

    Historical Event: California Gold Rush

    Over 300,000 people migrated to California from the eastern United States to California, in hopes of getting rich by mining for gold.
  • Frederick Scott Archer: Wet Collodion Photographic Process

    Frederick Scott Archer: Wet Collodion Photographic Process

    This process produced glass negatives and highly detailed prints. They created high quality photographs and were easy to produce. This was the process used by Lewis Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron.
  • Historical Event: Crimean War

    Historical Event: Crimean War

    The Crimean War fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish.
  • Roger Fenton: War Photographs

    Roger Fenton: War Photographs

    Best known photographer of the Crimean War, mainly took photographs of the scenery and soldiers not in active war.
  • Lewis Carroll: photographs of children

    Lewis Carroll: photographs of children

    Carroll is best known for his book Alice in Wonderland. He was also a photographer. Unfortunately his work is often tainted by rumors of pedophilia and inappropriate relations with children.
  • Charles Darwin: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

    Charles Darwin: The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

    Darwin used photography to prove that emotions were inherently expressed the same through common facial expressions regardless of culture.
  • Unknown Photographer: The Battle of Melegnano

    Unknown Photographer: The Battle of Melegnano

    The first known case of photographs of death during war being taken. Since exposure times were still long, the photographs were taken after the war had ended. This was also the first occasion when the gruesome side of war was featured rather than the romanticized version previously shown.
  • Matthew Brady: Portrait of Abraham Lincoln

    Matthew Brady: Portrait of Abraham Lincoln

    Matthew Brady is one of the best known Civil War photographers. Interestingly, the photograph was carefully taken in a specific way in order to enlarge Lincoln's hands.
  • Nadar: Arial Photography

    Nadar: Arial Photography

    Although the earliest surviving arial photograph was by James Wallace Beck in Boston (right), Nadar was the most famous first arial photographer. His earliest surviving photograph was in 1862 (center). Many of his photographs did not survive due to needing a dark room for wet‐collodion prints.
  • Historical Event: U.S. Civil War

    Historical Event: U.S. Civil War

    The war between the southern and northern United States primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people.
  • Alexander Gardner: Sketchbook of War

    Alexander Gardner: Sketchbook of War

    One of Matthew Brady's assistants, Alexander Gardner, published a book of war photographs from the civil war. At the time, making such a book was extremely labor intensive so only 200 copies were made.
  • Photographic Movement: Pictorialism

    Photographic Movement: Pictorialism

    1885-1915: This movement allowed photographers to experiment with altering photographs to enhance or change the focus of the photograph.
  • Invention: Basketball

    Invention: Basketball

    Basketball was invented by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith as a less injury-prone sport than football.
  • Historical Event: First Modern Olympic Games

    Historical Event: First Modern Olympic Games

    The first olympic games was held in Athens, Greece in 1896 with athletes from 14 countries participating.
  • The Photo‐Secession movement

    The Photo‐Secession movement

    1907-1917: This movement opposed pictorialism and focused on moving away from photo altering and toward straight object photography. These photographers appreciated the objects they photographed for what they were and felt they didn't need altering.