HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

FROM THE FIRST EXPERIMENTS TO THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

1. The Invention of Photography – Capturing the World Through Light

Photography is one of the most remarkable inventions in the history of human culture. For the first time, it became possible to preserve the appearance of a person, a landscape, a building or an everyday scene through a process in which light itself created the image. Unlike painting and drawing, photography did not depend primarily on the artist's hand or individual interpretation. It offered a new way of recording the visible world, although the photographer's choices of subject, composition, lighting and perspective would always remain essential.

The word photography derives from the Greek words phōs, meaning light, and graphē, meaning drawing or writing. Photography can therefore be understood as writing or drawing with light. Its invention was not the achievement of a single individual but the result of experiments by several inventors, scientists and artists during the first decades of the nineteenth century.

The basic principle had been known for centuries. The camera obscura, a darkened room or box with a small opening through which light projects an inverted image of the outside world, had been used by artists and scholars since the Renaissance. It allowed painters to study perspective, proportions and the effects of light. However, the projected image disappeared as soon as the light source was removed. The decisive challenge was to find a way of fixing this image permanently.

One of the earliest pioneers was the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833). Around 1826 or 1827, he produced what is generally regarded as the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera: View from the Window at Le Gras. The exposure took many hours, and the resulting image was faint and difficult to reproduce. Nevertheless, it represented a decisive breakthrough: a view of the real world had been permanently recorded by light.

Niépce subsequently collaborated with Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851), a painter and theatrical designer who had been experimenting with light-sensitive materials. After Niépce's death, Daguerre continued the research and developed a process that would become the first commercially successful photographic technique.

In 1839, the French government publicly announced Daguerre's invention, the daguerreotype. The process caused an international sensation. Photography had become a practical possibility, and the world was beginning to discover an entirely new visual medium.

2. The Daguerreotype – The First Photographic Portrait

Thiesson, Paris; Portrait of Louis Daguerre (1787-1851), Daguerrotypie, 1844, Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris 

The daguerreotype was created on a highly polished silver-plated copper plate. The plate was made sensitive to light through exposure to iodine vapour and then placed inside a camera. After exposure, the latent image was developed using mercury vapour and fixed chemically.

The resulting photograph was extraordinarily detailed. It possessed a remarkable clarity that was often compared to the precision of a miniature painting. However, the daguerreotype had an important limitation: each image was unique. There was no negative from which multiple identical prints could be produced.

Daguerreotypes were usually presented in small protective cases, often decorated with velvet, ornamental metal frames or glass. They were precious objects, intended to be handled, displayed and preserved. Their reflective surfaces could make them appear almost like small mirrors.

The first photographic portraits required relatively long exposure times. Sitters had to remain still, sometimes with the assistance of special supports placed behind their heads. Early portraits therefore often appear formal, serious and somewhat rigid. Smiling was uncommon, not necessarily because people were less inclined to smile, but because maintaining an expression for the duration of the exposure was difficult.

Photography gradually became a new form of portraiture. Until then, painted portraits had largely been reserved for aristocrats, wealthy citizens and prominent individuals. The daguerreotype made it possible for a much wider section of society to obtain a likeness of themselves or their families.

This development would transform the relationship between personal identity, social status and visual representation. A photograph could be kept as a reminder of a loved one, exchanged between family members or carried during journeys. It became a new object of memory.

3. From Unique Images to Reproducible Photographs

An equally important development took place in Britain. William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) experimented with a different photographic process, which he called the calotype or talbotype.

Unlike the daguerreotype, Talbot's process produced a paper negative from which several positive prints could be made. This principle of negative and positive would become fundamental to photography for more than a century.

The calotype generally produced softer and less sharply defined images than the daguerreotype. Yet its reproducibility was revolutionary. A single negative could generate multiple photographs, making the circulation of images considerably easier.

During the 1850s, further technical developments transformed the medium. The wet-plate collodion process, introduced by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851, combined relatively short exposure times with exceptional image quality. A glass plate coated with a light-sensitive collodion emulsion had to be prepared, exposed and developed while still wet. This required photographers to carry portable darkrooms when working outside their studios.

The wet-plate process was used to produce several types of photographs. The ambrotype, for example, created a positive-looking image on glass, while the tintype produced a photograph on a thin metal sheet. Both became popular forms of portrait photography.

Another major development was the albumen print, introduced in the 1850s. Made with paper coated in egg white and sensitised with silver salts, it became the dominant photographic printing process during the second half of the nineteenth century. Its fine detail, warm tonal range and relatively low production cost made it suitable for portraits, landscapes, architectural views and photographic albums.

Photography was no longer simply an experimental curiosity. It was becoming an international industry.

4. Portrait Photography and the Carte-de-Visite – Photography Becomes Popular

During the 1850s and 1860s, portrait photography developed into a major commercial success. Photographic studios opened in the large cities of Europe and America, offering portraits to an increasingly broad public. Photography was no longer an exclusive luxury for the wealthy. Members of the middle classes could now afford to have their likenesses recorded.

One of the most influential innovations was the carte-de-visite, introduced by the French photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in the 1850s. The format consisted of a small photographic portrait mounted on a piece of card, approximately the size of a visiting card. Several portraits could be produced from a single photographic plate, making the process considerably more economical.

The carte-de-visite became an international phenomenon, particularly after Napoleon III had his portrait made in this format. Portraits of monarchs, politicians, artists, writers and famous personalities circulated throughout Europe. People exchanged photographs with friends and relatives, collected portraits of celebrities and assembled them in specially designed albums.

Photography thus became an important instrument of social communication. It allowed individuals to construct and preserve their public identity. Clothing, posture, furniture, painted backdrops and studio accessories were carefully selected to communicate wealth, education, profession and social aspirations.

The cabinet card, a larger format introduced during the 1860s, became another popular form of portrait photography. Both formats were widely used until the end of the nineteenth century.

5. The City and the Modern World – Architecture, Streets and Urban Life

Photography quickly became an indispensable instrument for documenting cities and their transformation. During the nineteenth century, European capitals underwent enormous changes. Industrialisation, population growth, new transport systems and urban planning reshaped the appearance of towns and cities.

Paris experienced one of the most dramatic transformations under Napoleon III and his prefect Georges-Eugène Haussmann. Between 1853 and 1870, large sections of medieval Paris were demolished and replaced by broad boulevards, new squares, public parks, monumental buildings and modern infrastructure.

Photography provided an entirely new means of recording these developments. Buildings scheduled for demolition could be documented before they disappeared. New streets, bridges, railway stations and public monuments could be recorded for administrative, historical and commercial purposes.

The photographs of Charles Marville (1813–1879) are particularly important in this context. Commissioned to document Paris, he photographed old streets and buildings before and during the great urban transformation. His work offers an extraordinary visual record of a city that was rapidly disappearing.

Photography also changed the way people perceived architecture. Instead of relying exclusively on drawings, paintings or written descriptions, architects, historians and the general public could now examine precise photographic records of buildings and urban spaces.

A similar development took place in Vienna during the construction of the Ringstraße. From the 1860s onwards, the former fortifications were replaced by a monumental boulevard lined with public buildings, palaces, museums and theatres. Photographers documented this transformation, creating a visual archive of the emerging modern capital.

Photography also recorded everyday urban life: horse-drawn carriages, street vendors, workers, cafés, shops, markets and public gatherings. These photographs are particularly valuable today because they preserve details of ordinary life that were rarely considered important enough to be recorded by painters or official chroniclers.

6. Travel Photography – Discovering the World Through the Camera

The development of photography coincided with the expansion of international travel, railways and tourism. Photographers began to document distant countries, unfamiliar landscapes, archaeological monuments and historical sites.

For the first time, people who had never travelled abroad could obtain relatively accurate visual impressions of places far beyond their immediate surroundings. Photographs of Egypt, Greece, Italy, the Middle East and Asia circulated through albums, books, exhibitions and commercial photographic collections.

Among the important pioneers of travel photography were Maxime Du Camp (1822-1894), Francis Frith (1822–1898) and Felice Beato (1832–1909). Their photographs of landscapes, monuments, cities and archaeological sites contributed to the growing interest in foreign cultures and historical civilisations.

The invention of stereoscopic photography added a further dimension to this experience. A stereoscopic photograph consisted of two almost identical images taken from slightly different viewpoints. When viewed through a stereoscope, the two images merged into a convincing three-dimensional impression.

Stereoscopic photographs became enormously popular during the second half of the nineteenth century. They were produced in large numbers and often sold as souvenirs. Entire collections were devoted to famous cities, landscapes, monuments and exotic destinations.

Photography was also closely connected to the development of archaeology and the study of ancient cultures. Archaeological excavations, monuments and sculptures could be documented with greater accuracy than ever before. Photographs were exchanged between scholars and used in academic publications, helping to establish photography as an important tool of scientific research.

7. Photography, Society and Historical Events

Photography gradually became a powerful means of documenting political events, social conditions and historical change.

One of the earliest photographers to record warfare was Roger Fenton (1819-1869), who travelled to the Crimea in 1855. His photographs of soldiers, military camps and the landscapes of the conflict represent some of the earliest systematic photographic records of war.

Because of the technical limitations of the period, photographers could rarely capture the immediate action of a battle. Long exposure times, cumbersome equipment and the necessity of developing wet plates made spontaneous photography extremely difficult. Instead, they photographed military positions, landscapes after battles, officers and soldiers at rest.

Mathew Brady (1822-1896) and photographers working for him documented the American Civil War (1861–1865). Their images of soldiers, military camps, battlefields and the consequences of war brought the realities of armed conflict to a wider public.

Photography also became increasingly important in the documentation of social conditions. Images of workers, poverty, industrial production and urban life provided material for social reformers, journalists and historians.

At the same time, photography was used by governments and institutions for administrative purposes. Police departments began to introduce photographic records of criminals, while anthropologists and scientists used photographs to classify and document human beings and natural phenomena. Such practices also reveal the problematic relationship between photography, surveillance, colonialism and the unequal distribution of power during the nineteenth century.

The camera was never a neutral instrument. What was photographed, how people were represented and which images were circulated depended on the intentions and values of the photographer, the client and the institution commissioning the work.

8. New Technology – From Glass Plates to the Handheld Camera

The next major transformation came with the introduction of the gelatin dry plate in the 1870s. Unlike the wet collodion process, dry plates could be prepared in advance and stored until they were needed. Photographers no longer had to prepare and develop their plates immediately after exposure.

The new plates were also considerably more light-sensitive. Exposure times became shorter, making it easier to photograph people, animals and scenes in motion.

This development encouraged new forms of photography. The photographer could gradually move away from the fixed studio environment and work more freely in streets, landscapes and public spaces.

In the 1880s, George Eastman (1854-1932) revolutionised photography by introducing practical roll-film systems and increasingly accessible cameras. His Kodak camera, launched in 1888, was marketed with the famous slogan: You press the button, we do the rest.

The new system made photography accessible to people without specialised technical knowledge. Instead of preparing plates and developing photographs themselves, customers could send their exposed camera back to the company for processing.

Photography was becoming a popular activity rather than an exclusively professional occupation.

The introduction of the Kodak Brownie in 1900 further accelerated this development. Small, relatively inexpensive cameras allowed ordinary people to photograph family life, holidays, celebrations and everyday experiences.

The snapshot emerged as a new photographic form: informal, spontaneous and increasingly personal.

9. The Beginning of Colour Photography

Although experiments with colour photography began during the nineteenth century, producing reliable and commercially useful colour images remained extremely difficult.

In 1861, the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated a colour photography experiment based on the combination of three separate images taken through red, green and blue filters. This established an important principle of colour reproduction.

Several photographers and inventors subsequently developed different methods of colour photography. However, most early processes were technically complex and unsuitable for widespread commercial use.

A decisive breakthrough came in 1907, when the Lumière brothers introduced the Autochrome process. It used microscopic coloured starch grains on a glass plate to create colour transparencies. The resulting photographs possessed a distinctive, delicate appearance and often resembled luminous paintings.

Autochrome photography opened a new chapter in the history of the medium. The world could now be recorded not only in shades of black, white and grey, but also in colour.

10. Photography as Art – A New Visual Language

From its earliest beginnings, photography raised an important question: could a mechanically produced image also be considered a work of art?

Some photographers regarded photography primarily as a scientific and documentary instrument. Others explored its artistic possibilities, experimenting with composition, lighting, atmosphere and subject matter.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, photographers increasingly sought recognition as artists. They studied painting, drew inspiration from historical compositions and developed carefully arranged photographic scenes.

The movement known as Pictorialism emerged during the 1880s and 1890s. Pictorialist photographers deliberately challenged the idea that photography should merely reproduce reality. Through soft focus, manipulated printing techniques, atmospheric lighting and carefully constructed compositions, they sought to create images with the expressive qualities of painting and graphic art.

Important figures included Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936), Robert Demachy (1859–1936), Heinrich Kühn (1866–1944) and Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946).

At the same time, photographers such as Eugène Atget (1857-1927) developed a different approach. His photographs of Parisian streets, courtyards, shop windows and disappearing architectural details were characterised by careful observation and documentary precision. Today, his work is recognised as a major contribution to the history of modern photography.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, photography had established itself as an independent visual medium. It had become an instrument of science, historical documentation, communication, personal memory and artistic expression.

Its development would profoundly influence painting, graphic design, journalism, cinema and modern visual culture.

Conclusion – Photography Changes the Way We See the World

The invention of photography transformed the relationship between human beings and visual reality. For the first time, images could be created and reproduced through a systematic process based on light, chemistry and optical technology.

Photography changed portraiture, made distant places accessible, documented cities and historical events, supported scientific research and created new forms of personal memory.

It also introduced a new way of understanding history. Photographs allow us to examine not only important political events and celebrated personalities, but also the appearance of everyday life: clothing, architecture, streets, interiors, objects and social relationships.

Yet photographs are never simply transparent windows onto the past. Every photograph reflects decisions about what to include, what to exclude, where to stand, when to expose the image and how to present the result.

To understand historical photography, therefore, means learning not only about technical processes and famous photographers, but also about the visual language, cultural context and historical significance of photographic images.

The history of photography is ultimately the history of a new way of seeing.