BRIEF HIS T O R Y O F

PHOTO G R A P H Y
MONA L IZ A PAC IA AFA B L E

MEDIA ARTS 101

BRIEF HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Camera Obscura

Long before experiments in printmaking led to a fixed image

created by light in the early 1800s, the camera obscura was
being used by scientists for observation and by artists as a
tool to draw and paint. A camera obscura is literally a
chamber that is dark; a dark room.
Scientists have used the camera obscura as a
way to view celestial bodies and
astronomical occurrences.

In this diagram from 1545, the image of the

solar eclipse on the left is projected through
the hole in the wall of the dark room on the
right.

You can see that the image of the eclipse is

upside down and reversed on the opposite
wall.
An illustration of an artist using
a portable camera obscura to
draw.

An artist drawing from life with

an 19th century camera obscura,
labeled: B (lens), M (mirror), O
(line of light if mirror not in
way). The artist used thin
tracing paper to capture the
outlines, transferred those to
canvas, board or paper and
finished the drawing.
As the camera develops from these practices in
art and science, we see the “dark room”
becoming more portable and, eventually, the
image is fixed using chemicals that react to the
light rather than drawing.
BASIC PARTS OF A CAMERA
• Camera – the dark box
• Aperture – the hole through which light and the image is projected. The
aperture can be controlled to allow more light in (for example, at night) or
less light in in order to impact the exposure. The aperture works like the
pupil of the eye.
• Lens – the lens, often shaped glass, like eyeglasses, focuses the image on
the back wall of the camera
• Shutter – the shutter opens and closes to control the amount of time that
light enters the camera. The shutter is like the eyelid blinking.
• Film or other light sensitive material – as the camera obscura advances,
light sensitive material, often containing silver, is used to capture the image
that is then fixed and permanent. Think about the way that silver jewelry or
silver eating utensils tarnish in the light. Similar basic principles apply in
the camera.
THE NIEPCE HELIOGRAPH
Joseph-Nicephore Niépce (1765–1833) gets the historical credit for the first fixed
photographic image in 1827 (or 1826).

He called this a heliograph, or “sun writing.”

Niépce set his camera on the windowsill of his studio, pointing it at a tree and the rooftops
of neighboring buildings.

Inside the camera was a pewter plate coated with light-sensitive bitumen (a type of
asphalt).

After exposing this plate for a few days (and other plates for a few hours) by leaving the
aperture open and keeping the camera still, this image (above) was produced on the
surface of the plate.
This heliograph had a very, very long exposure time, and it is a single
image. The image is not very clear. As photography develops, you will see
improvements like:

• Exposure time decreases

• Lenses that increase the clarity of the image
• The invention of the photographic negative from which multiple
photographs can be made of the same image
THE DAGUERREOTYPE

Louis-Jacques-Mandé
Daguerre, Boulevard du
Temple, Paris, 1838,
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) continued improvements to
photography with his developments that he called the daguerreotype.

Like the heliograph, the daguerreotype is a single image, but the exposure
time is much less, about 10-15 minutes.

Daguerre coated a copper plate with a silver substance that reacted to the
light projected inside the dark box of the camera.

He fixed the image with a salt solution so that the plate would not continue
to react to light and to fade. This and improvements to the camera lens
produce a crisper image.
THE CALOTYPE (NEGATIVE)
Oldest photographic
negative made by
William Henry Fox
Talbot, a latticed
window in the South
Gallery of Lacock
Abbey, 1835.
In England, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) experimented
with photographic processes simultaneously with Daguerre.

Talbot is credited for inventing the negative and contributed by

using paper treated with light sensitive substances for negatives
and for prints made from paper.

The significance of the calotype negative is that multiple images

could be made from a single snap of the camera. Multiple images
could then be shared widely.
Between 1944 and 1946, Talbot published one of the first books
containing photographs as illustrations.

The photographs were tipped-in prints attached to the pages of

text that were made with the printing press.

William Henry Fox Talbot, The

Open Door, late April 1844,
salted paper print from a paper
negative, 14.9 cm. x 16.8 cm.
(5 7/8″ x 6 5/8″), The J. Paul
Getty Museum, Los Angeles.