The invention of photography

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The history of photography is the

recount of inventions, scientific
discoveries and technical
improvements that allowed human
beings to capture an image on a
photosensitive surface for the first
time, using light and certain chemical
elements that react with it.

The news of 1839 announcing the existence of a procedure to fix the images by chemical means caused
a sensation: the daguerreotype was perceived as a prodigy. Other procedures soon appeared. The
invention of the visiting card format and the standardization of practices opened the way to important
photography studios specializing in portraiture.

The photography was used for documentary purposes: inventory missions, topographic surveys,
identification cliches, scientific investigations and reports. Spread by books and the first illustrated
magazines with photographic evidence, it accompanied industrial progress in the second half of the
nineteenth century.
Quentin Bajac invites us to explore the limits and advances of photography's first fifty years and shows
how some of the photographers of the time wanted it to be recognized as an art.

First photographic experiments

Around 1800, in England, Thomas Wedgwood managed to produce a negative black and white photograph
in a darkroom on white paper or leather treated with silver nitrate, a white chemical that was known to
darken when exposed to light. .
However, the image was not permanent, as it ended up completely darkening after a few minutes.

The first photograph

Photography, as we know it, was born in France in 1826 when Joseph Nicephore Niepce achieved the first
photograph, "Point of view from the window at Le Gras". This image was made on a pewter sheet covered
with bitumen diluted in lavender oil and recorded after 8 hours of exposure.
Daguerreotypes, emulsion plates, and wet plates occurred almost simultaneously in the mid-19th century
after Niepce's discovery. These next three techniques were the ones that gave rise to the origin of modern
photography.

The first color photograph

During the nineteenth century many chemists began to experiment to move from black and white
photography to color photography. The first color photograph in history was baptized as "Tartan Ribbon"
or "The Tartan Ribbon". This was taken in 1861 by photographer Thomas Sutton following the guidelines of
British physicist James Clerk Maxwell.
The first color photograph was made with three negatives, which were obtained with Red, Green and Blue
filters. (Subliminal dye RGB). During development, these negatives were superimposed on a projection
to create a single image.

This is how the first permanent color photograph was born in Great Britain, taken using a new 3-color
additive system known as trichromacy.

However, this method did not fix the colors to the photo and, therefore, the first color photographic plate
was patented in 1903 by the Lumiere brothers, which was brought to commercial markets in 1907 under
the name Autochrome.

Years later, in 1935, the photographic plate was replaced by the first color photographic film invented by
the Eastman Kodak Company and marketed as Kodachrome. But, in 1936 Agfa's version, called Agfa
color, was here to stay.

PHOTOGR APHY