No single individual discovered this essential principle of photography. It came to be recognized in the course of many experiences, beginning with the alchemists; and developing through the experiments of a number of investigators, until the end of the eighteenth century, when the sensitiveness of various silver compounds to light became well known, and the character of the change produced on these compounds by light became established. Thomas Wedgwood, the fourth son of Josiah Wedgwood, the renowned potter, developed a process by means of which the image printed by photographic means could be “fixed” and made permanent.
WHAT INSTRUMENT BROUGHT THE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS TO A PERFECTED FORM?
The camera. The camera is the photographic apparatus in which the image is projected upon the sensitized plate, thus securing a photographic impression. The word “camera” is Italian for “room,” and the full name of the original instrument, “camera obscura,” means “dark room.”
WHO INVENTED THE CAMERA?
Giovanni Baptista della Porta, who lived in the sixteenth century, has often been stated to have invented the camera, but he appears only to have popularized and improved it. The first use of cameras was not for printing photographs, but simply as an interesting toy or to assist one in tracing the outlines of various objects. There are many applications of the “camera obscura”—a notable one being the periscope of a submarine. It was not until a suitable sensitive plate was discovered that the camera became useful as an apparatus of photography.
WHO WERE MOST PROMINENTLY IDENTIFIED WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS?
Joseph Niépce and Louis J. M. Daguerre. Niépce was successful not only in getting pictures produced in the camera, but he succeeded in “fixing” them permanently, Daguerre developed a process known as “daguerreotype,” which was the first method of photography available for practical purposes. This was in 1837. With the general acceptance of daguerreotypes, photography became a profession. The process had no rival until about 1851, when the “collodion process” was discovered, and, after that, the daguerreotype process became obsolete.
WHO DEVELOPED THE MODERN PROCESS OF PHOTOGRAPHY?
William Henry Fox Talbot, an English inventor (1800-1877). He greatly increased the sensitiveness of paper, and from his negatives prints were produced in much the same way as in the present day.