History of photography

 

History of photography

 

 

Ancient times: Camera obscuras used to form images on walls in darkened rooms; image formation via a pinhole

16th century: Brightness and clarity of camera obscuras improved by enlarging the hole inserting a telescope lens

17th century: Camera obscuras in frequent use by artists and made portable in the form of sedan chairs

1727: Professor J. Schulze mixes chalk, nitric acid, and silver in a flask; notices darkening on side of flask exposed to sunlight. Accidental creation of the first photo-sensitive compound.

1800: Thomas Wedgwood makes "sun pictures" by placing opaque objects on leather treated with silver nitrate; resulting images deteriorated rapidly, however, if displayed under light stronger than from candles.

 

1861: Scottish physicist James Clerk-Maxwell demonstrates a colour photography system involving three black and white photographs, each taken through a red, green, or blue filter. The photos were turned into lantern slides and projected in registration with the same colour filters. This is the "colour separation" method.

•1900: Kodak Brownie box roll-film camera introduced.

•1902: Alfred Stieglitz organizes "Photo Secessionist" show in New York City

•1906: Availability of panchromatic black and white film and therefore high quality color separation color photography. J.P. Morgan finances Edward Curtis to document the traditional culture of the North American Indian.

•1907: First commercial color film, the Autochrome plates, manufactured by Lumiere brothers in France

•1909: Lewis Hine hired by US National Child Labor Committee to photograph children working mills.

•1914: Oscar Barnack, employed by German microscope manufacturer Leitz, develops camera using the modern 24x36mm frame and sprocketed 35mm movie film.

 

1988: Sally Mann begins publishing nude photos of her children

1997: Rob Silvers publishes Photomosaics

1999: Nikon D1 SLR, 2.74 megapixel for $6000, first ground-up DSLR design by a leading manufacturer.

 

2000: Camera phone introduced in Japan by Sharp/J-Phone

2001: Polaroid goes bankrupt.

 

2003: Four-Thirds standard for compact digital SLRs introduced with the Olympus E-1; Canon Digital Rebel introduced for less than $1000

2004: Kodak ceases production of film cameras.

 

2005: Canon EOS 5D, first consumer-priced full-frame digital SLR, with a 24x36mm CMOS sensor for $3000; Portraits by Rineke Dijkstra