History of Photography By Deni Robinson

Pinhole Camera Pinhole Photography is type of photography that doesn’t involve lenses. It is a method of capturing images using a simple light- tight box with a single pinhole in one end. A piece of opaque tape or cardboard can serve as a shutter. Photo-paper is taped to the inside of the camera, opposite the hole, then secured on a stable platform or tripod, you then calculate the exposure and open the hole/shutter. After the shutter is closed the camera is taken into a darkroom and the film removed for processing. You process the photo by using a pair of tongs to hold the photo while you dip them in 3 fluids- the developer, the washer, the fixer and then rinse them in water. This will result in the photos image to last longer without fading. Once you have completed all the steps, you leave the photo to dry while it turns to a negative photo. All these steps have various times to develop different photo exposures. Izahen was the inventor of the first pinhole camera and lived around 1000AD.

Joseph Niepce O Joseph Niepce was a frenchman born in Niepce was the world’s first photographer. Neipce experimented with photography in 1816 until finally, n 1826 he managed to produce the first permanent photo with an 8 hour exposure on a pewter plate. In 1827 Joseph Niepce created an association with louis Daguerre and in 1829 they developed a partnership to help improve Niepce’s Heliographic process. They didn’t have much improvement before Joseph Niepce’s Death in 1833.

Louis Daguerre O As a young man Louis Daguerre spent his time working in theatre making use of the camera obscura to develop the ‘Diorama’. Niepce’s partnership with Dauguerre was due to his fascination in the concept of heliography. After Neipce’s passing, Daguerre accidently found that mercury vapour would develop a latent image on a silvered plate that had been treated with iodine vapour and then fixed with salt solution. This concept of photography was named Daguerreotype. In the 1850’s, Daguerreotype became popular; giving the idea for other photographers to improve the concept. Their improvements made portraiture possible leading to become popular in fashion when William Fox-Talbot created the negative positive process.

William Henry Fox O William Henry Fox-Talbot was born in William introduced the negative-positive process in 1834 and to develop these photos, you had to use the three primary elements of photography: developing, fixing, and printing. William’s printed images were a lot more grainy compared to the daguerreotype, however William’s made breakthroughs in research which lowered exposure times.. With the negative image, Fox Talbot realised he could repeat the process of printing from the negative, consequently, unlike the Daguerreotypes, his process could make any number of positive prints. He called these the 'calotype' and patented the process in For his work with the development of daguerreotype and calotype, William Henry Fox-Talbot was rewarded with a medal from the Royal Society.

Richard Leach Maddox O Richard Leach Maddox is an English physician. He wrote on various photographic topics and worked on photo-micrographyx in which Maddox then accomplished his greatest contribution to the science of photography. Maddox first started looking around for a substitute to collodion when he found his health being affected by the ether vapor of the collodion process. In an article in 1871 he suggested a process whereby the exposing chemicals could be covered on a glass plate in a Gelatin mixture, instead of wet collodion. This lead to great discoveries and breakthroughs in the future photography. Some years later other photographers such as Charles Bennet made the first gelatine dry plates for sale on the open market, a innovative improvement in the science of photography. By the end of that decade the dry plate process had replaced the wet plate one entirely, and within a further ten years the emulsion would be coated on celluloid roll film. Maddox received the Royal Photographic Society’s Progress Medal In 1901 for the inventions that led to the establishment of the dry plate and film industry

George Eastman O George Eastman is known as the founder of Kodak as of 1883 because of his invention of the photographic film rolls. Eastman wanted to have a simple photography available to everyone so he thought up his invention on the photographic film roll. Kodak was launched in 1888 when the first Kodak camera entered the market. George Eastman invented transparent, dry, flexible photography film (or rolled photography film) and the Kodak cameras that could use the film. Eastman was a devoted and enthusiastic towards his job as the founder of Kodak.

Digital Photography O Digital photography is a modern type of photography that uses lenses to focus on an image using a various electronic photo detectors unlike the old cameras that used exposure on photographic paper. This new technology has allowed multiple images to be taken and stored on memory cards ready that can then be printed. Digital photography is enormously popular around the world and 80% of Australians own a digital camera or a gadget with an installed digital camera. Everywhere you look there are photos and probably all of them have been taken with digital photography. Today, people uses photography to capture moments to keep as memories.