The year the first photo was taken. The history of photography: from the first shots to selfies

The art of photography, unlike painting, sculpture, architecture, appeared relatively recently and many are interested in how it all began. Almost 200 years have passed since the first photograph was taken. Much has changed since then, and photographic equipment has become incredibly high quality and diverse, but those very, very first pictures still arouse great interest and excite the imagination.

The very first photograph in the world, which was made in 1826 by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niepce. His invention was the very first step towards the ability to take photographs, and subsequently to television, cinema, and so on. The picture is called: "View from the window on Le Gras." To create this image, Joseph Niépce smeared a metal plate with a thin layer of asphalt and exposed it to the sun for eight hours in a camera obscura. After an eight-hour exposure, an image of the visible landscape from the window appeared on the plate. Thus, the very first photograph in the world appeared.

The first photograph of a person. The photograph was taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838. The photo is called: Boulevard du Temple. View from the window to a busy street. Due to the fact that the shutter speed was 10 minutes, all the people on the streets were blurred and disappeared, except for one person who stood still and became visible in the lower left part of the photo.

In 1858, 32 years after the first photograph, Henry Peach Robinson made the first photomontage. Fading Away is a composite of five negatives. The picture shows a girl who died of tuberculosis, and relatives gathered around.

First color photography appeared in 1861. It was created by the Scottish mathematician and physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

The first self-portrait (what is now called buzzword- selfie) was created in 1875. Photographed by Mathew B. Brady. It was he who first came up with the idea to photograph himself.

First photo from the air. It was made in 1903. The inventor of this method was Julius Neubronner. For this purpose, he attached cameras with a timer to the pigeons.

In 1926, the first color underwater photograph was taken. The picture was taken by Dr. William Longley Charles Martin in the Gulf of Mexico.

Photography is a landmark invention of mankind not only in the nineteenth century, but even throughout the history of civilization. This invention belongs to science and art, allows scientists to record significant historical events and personalities, ordinary people - to find in themselves Creative skills and generally provides a lot of boundless opportunities. And photography also served as the first and key step towards the emergence of the most important of modern arts - cinema, which is a part of the life of almost every inhabitant of the planet. About the very first photographic frames belonging to various fields of science, technology and public life, I want to talk below.

First photo

The founding father of photographic art is called Joseph Nicéphore Niépce - it is this French inventor who owns the palm and the fame of the world's first photographer. The famous first photograph is called "View from a Window at Le Gras" and was taken in 1826 at Niepce's mansion in Burgundy using heliography, a process that would give Louis Dagger the idea for a more accurate and efficient photographic method of daguerreotype.

First color photograph

The debut photo in color was taken across the English Channel by the Scottish physicist, mathematician and mechanic James Maxwell, who, in the course of his research on color mixing, began experimenting with photographic apparatus. During a lecture at the Royal Institution, which took place on May 17, 1861, as proof of his theory of the three primary colors, the physicist presented the world's first color photograph. The photo shows a three-color bow.

The first photograph of a person

Along with Joseph Niepce, the famous chemist and artist Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre is considered a pioneer of photography. It is symbolic that it is this brilliant experimenter who owns the premiere photo frame of a person. Even a few people. After all, the exposition lasted about ten minutes and during this time several citizens passed along the Parisian boulevard du Temple. It is difficult to notice them in the picture, but if you look closely, you can see in the lower left corner the figure of a man whose shoes are being polished by another exhibitor.

First digital photograph

Image resolution - 176×176 pixels. The square photo was originally taken on film, and then Kodak engineer Russell Kirsch obtained a premiere digital photo frame as a result of scanning, in the picture - Walden Kirsch, the engineer's son.

The middle of the last century is the beginning of the space race, so the premiere photo frame of the rocket launch also belongs to the treasury of world photography. The shuttle is called "Bumper-2", it was launched in July 1950 from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral.

First selfie

The term "selfie" is an invention of the present century, but the debut "self-photo" was taken in the initial period of the existence of photography - in 1839. The experiment belongs to the Philadelphia engineer-inventor Robert Cornelius, who installed the camera in his factory, spent several minutes in front of the lens, producing the first selfie.

In addition to Niepce and Daguerre, there is another inventor in history who fought for the title of founding father of photography. This man's name is Hippolyte Bayard. And even though he lost the championship to his compatriots, in retaliation, Bayard published his own dead photograph in 1840, accusing his competitors of committing suicide because of their intrigues. In fact, the author of his own direct positive photo process died much later - in 1887, and went down in history as the author of the first photo falsification.

Interesting articles

First photo from the air

In the photo - the city of Boston in 1860 from a height of 609 meters. Photographer James Black captured hometown from the cart hot air balloon and titled "Boston through the eyes of eagles and wild geese."

The first photo of the Sun

Physicists Leon Foucault and Louis Fizeau studied the center solar system most of his scientific career, and when photography appeared, they took the first picture of a star using the Daguerre method. The historic achievement occurred on April 2, 1845.

Many scientists claim that the German V-2 rocket is a key invention in space exploration, including orbital flight and landing on the moon. The first space photograph was also taken with this German superrocket on October 24, 1946. It was launched by the Americans at the test site in New Mexico, installing a 35 mm Devry camera on the rocket, which took pictures every one and a half seconds. This photo frame of the Earth was taken at an altitude of 104 km.

History does not remember the name of the journalist and the heroes of the picture, but it is reliably known that this is 1847 and the arrest of a person suspected of a crime is an event that hit the newspapers with a photo illustration for the article.

The 11th President of the United States, James Polk, is the first owner of the White House to be photographed in 1849 during his term in office, but the first time a human president was caught on camera was in 1843. It was the 6th president, John Adams, who left the presidency in 1929.

The first photo of lightning

Lightning frightened ancient people and aroused great interest among scientists of the recent past, but it was not until 1882, when the photographer William Jennings took the premiere photograph of lightning, that ordinary people saw for themselves how complex and physically attractive the phenomenon of an electric spark discharge in the atmosphere was.

Subscribe to our page facebook- it will be interesting!

On September 17, 1908, the famous Orville Wright, brother of Wilbur Wright, made his next dangerous flight, which this time ended in disaster. A few minutes after the launch, when the altitude was about 30m, the propeller of the aircraft broke, leaving the pilot without control. Together with the aviator, there was a passenger in the car - Thomas Selfridge, who died during a plane crash. Orville survived with four broken ribs and an injured leg, which doctors only miraculously managed to save. Rehabilitation took many weeks, after which the aviation pioneer took to the skies again.

Five years before the debut photo of the Sun, John Draper took the first photograph of a satellite of the Earth using the daguerreotype method. A daguerreotype of the Moon taken from the roof of the New York University Observatory on March 26, 1840.

Color photography pioneer Louis du Hauron photographed nature in color in 1877. The landscape in the photo is the south of France, so it is not surprising that the name of the historical photo frame is “Landscape of Southern France”.

Of course, for this photo story, you first needed to come up with spaceship and fly to the moon. The rest is a matter of technology, which showed itself on August 23, 1966. It was on this day that the lunar probe flew around the satellite and took a unique picture of the Earth from the Moon.

The distance to the tornado is 22 km. That is how many kilometers away from the fierce elements was the amateur photographer A. Adams, a simple farmer armed with a body camera. An amateur managed to capture a tornado in 1884 and get into history.

The Viking 1 spacecraft was launched to the Red Planet on August 20, 1975, and after ten months of flight began to transmit the first images of the Mars disk to Earth. The landing was planned for July 4th, in honor of American Independence Day, but the surface looked unsafe for landing, so NASA decided to move the date to the 20th. It was on this day that an epoch-making event took place - the landing of a spacecraft on the Red Planet, and the first photographs from Mars went to Earth.

Barack Obama is the darling of America, which, through the efforts of the computer scientists of the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of Creative Technologies, decided to immortalize the politician as the first president-hero of 3D photography.

Photography is rightfully considered one of the greatest inventions of the last century.

In 1826, he creates the first photograph of a real environment - a view from his window. This required an 8-hour exposure.

(28 March 1819 - 8 August 1869) was a pioneer of photography in Britain, and one of the first war photographers. He played a big role in general development photos.

Storyinventions and photography development

Translated from Greek, the word "photography" means light painting. Photography is a set of methods for obtaining images as a result of the action of light on special light-sensitive materials and the subsequent chemical processing of these materials.

The invention of "instant" photography, that is, a technology that allows you to capture a moment on a negative, was a huge success at the end of the 19th century. The fashion for photography grew. Associations were created that united numerous lovers. This movement was called pictorialism - from English word picture, meaning "picture". One of the pictorialists, the American Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), demonstrated that photography allows you to display all the nuances of the state of the atmosphere and the time of year and day at the time of the picture. These landscapes sometimes resemble Impressionist paintings.

The invention of photography became possible thanks to the work of scientists and inventors from many countries of the world. They studied the effect of light on light-sensitive substances, developed methods for producing durable light-painted images with their help, and improved the camera obscura (the device was the predecessor of the camera; in literal translation it means "dark room").

Back in 350 BC, the famous ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle noted in one of his works that light penetrating into a dark room through a small hole in the shutter forms an image of objects on the street in front of the window on the opposite wall. At the same time, the scale of the image is the larger, the farther from the window the wall is. This effect has been used for various experiments and drawings.

One of the earliest descriptions of a camera obscura (stenope) belongs to the famous Italian artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci. Many other researchers also wrote about the camera obscura in their works.

On fig. depicts a drawing of a camera obscura by the Goldand physicist and mathematician Gemm Frisius, with the help of which he observed a solar eclipse in 1544.

Later, the camera obscura effect was used in a number of portable instrument designs. Some of them outwardly resembled modern pavilion cameras.

In 1568, the Venetian D. Barbaro first gave detailed description a pinhole camera with a plano-convex lens, which makes it possible to increase the effective opening for the rays penetrating the camera and to enhance the brightness of the optical image obtained with its help.

A great merit in improving the optical system of the camera obscura belongs to the famous German astronomer I. Kepler. In 1611 he created optical system, consisting of concave and convex lenses, which made it possible to increase the field of view of the camera obscura.

Observations of the chemical action of light on various substances were also of great importance.

Famous Russian statesman and the researcher A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin observed in 1725 a change in the color of ferric chloride, which, under the action of light, turned into chloride.

The first targeted studies on the change in the properties of silver salts when exposed to light belong to the German scientist I. Schulze. In 1727, he discovered that when chalk is impregnated with a solution of silver in nitric acid, the mixture acquires the property of changing color in those places where sunlight acts on it.

The next important step in expanding knowledge about the properties of silver salts was made by the Swedish chemist K. Scheele, who in the 70s of the 18th century. conducted research on the effect of various colors of the solar spectrum on silver salts. At the same time, he noted that the rays of the blue-violet zone have the greatest activity.

Studies of the sensitivity of various compounds to light were carried out in the 18th-19th centuries. and other scientists.

The invention of photography was preceded by the work of the British T. Wedgwood and G. Devi. At the end of the XVIII century. T. -Wedgwood conducted a series of experiments to obtain light-painted drawings on paper and leather coated with silver nitrate.

T. Wedgwood was one of the first researchers who tried, although not entirely successfully, to get an image using a camera obscura. The works of T. Wedgwood were continued by G. Devi. To obtain an image in the camera obscura, he used silver chloride. Despite the fact that T. Wedgwood and G. Devi could not find a way to fix images, they are rightfully considered the forerunners of the invention of photography.

The Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was the first to get a lasting image. For the first time, he was informed about the new method in 1822. In 1829, Nicéphore Niépce started working together with the French artist and inventor Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre.

N. Niepce's method, which he called heliography (sun-painting), was as follows: a solution of asphalt in lavender oil was applied in a thin layer on a metal plate, then a translucent line drawing was applied to it and long time left it in the light, which tanned the asphalt in the illuminated areas. After that, the plate was transferred to a vessel with lavender oil, which washed away the unhardened areas of asphalt, resulting in a relief image. Using it as a cliché, it was possible to make typographical prints on paper. In 1826, N. Niepce used a camera obscura to obtain images on the asphalt layer.

The French artist and inventor Jacques Daguerre is considered to be the inventor of the first method of obtaining photographic images: on photographic layers with silver halide. Using a camera obscura for drawing, he began in 1824 to look for a means to fix the image received in non. In 1829-1835. J. Dagsre carried out this work together with N. Nieps. After the death of N. Pisps, J. Daguerre published a new original method for obtaining photographic images and called it daguerreotype.

The message about the new invention was made on January 7, 1839 by the famous physicist and astronomer Arago at a meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences. The essence of the method was outlined on August 19, 1839 in Arago's report to the joint meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Fine Arts. IX International congress scientific and applied photography, held in 1935, decided to consider January 7, 1839 as an anniversary date - the day of the invention of photography.

The principle of obtaining photographic images by the daguerreaux method was that the silver plate was first carefully cleaned and then placed in a special box above a vessel with a metal hearth. Evaporating, iodine settled on its surface and, interacting with silver, gave silver iodide - a substance sensitive to light. After that, in the dark, the plate was placed in a camera obscura cassette and brightly illuminated objects were exposed to it with an exposure of several minutes. Under the action of light on the plate, a faint image was obtained. It was enhanced, that is, it was shown with mercury vapor, which settled on areas exposed to light. This process was carried out in a special box, at the bottom of which a vessel with mercury was placed. To speed up the process of mercury evaporation, the vessel was heated.

In order to remove from the unexposed areas the remnants of singed silver and thereby fix the image, a solution was used. table salt. Somewhat later, sodium thiosulfate began to be used for these purposes.

The image on the daguerreotype consisted of areas covered with a thin layer of mercury and silver. At a certain angle of inclination, a positive image was clearly visible on the daguerreon.

Thus, as a result of the daguerreotype process, a single image was obtained, which was one of its significant drawbacks. In addition, the high cost of images should be pointed out. Despite these shortcomings, daguerreotypy quickly attracted attention.

In 1840, the English researcher D. F. Godard managed to significantly increase the photosensitivity of daguerreotype plates by treating them with a mixture of iodine and bromine, which made it possible to reduce exposure times. The improvement of shooting optics also contributed to the reduction in shutter speeds. Thus, already in 1840, that is, a year after the official publication of the first method of photography, I. Petzval, a professor at the University of Vienna, developed a method for calculating photographic lenses. In the same year, he designed the first portrait lens, which was then built by the famous German optician P. F. Vochtländer.

A great contribution to the development of photography was made by the English scientist William Henry Foke Talbot. He received a relatively highly sensitive paper, which he made by applying a layer of a chloride salt solution and then sensing it with a solution of silver nitrate. Dry paper was exposed in a camera obscura. The resulting image was fixed in a salt solution. This method, called photogenic drawing, was outlined by Talbot in his first official communication to the Royal. Society January 31, 1839

Talbot also used sensitized paper to print from the paper negatives obtained during the shooting, which he exposed under the paper negative on strong light. Upon reaching a sufficient density of the image, it was fixed.

The emergence of the terms "photography", "negative", "positive", proposed by the English scientist D. Herschel, also belongs to this period. He also suggested using sodium thiosulfate solution to fix photographic images. Continuing his work in the field of photography, in 1840 Talbot invented the calotting process, the essence of which was as follows. A solution of silver nitrate was applied to a sheet of paper and, after a short drying time, it was immersed in a solution of potassium iodide and dried. Next, the paper was covered with a solution of silver nitrate, gallic and acetic acid and dried again. The paper was developed with the same solution after exposure. At the same time, a negative image was obtained on paper. If the density negative was weak, then it was strengthened by heating. To fix the image, Talbot first used a solution of potassium bromide, and later a solution of sodium thiosulfate. From the negative obtained in this way, contact printing of positive copies was made on paper, sensitized and developed in the same way.

It should be noted that until 1851 daguerreotype remained the most competitive way of photography. By this time, the English researcher Frederick Scot Archer had developed new way photos - wet collodion process.

The principle of the wet collodion process is as follows. Nitrocellulose (a product of processing cotton waste with sulfuric and nitric acids) is dissolved in a mixture of alcohol and ether. Salts of iodine and bromine are introduced into the resulting mass - collodion, and the solution is poured onto a glass plate. After the layer hardens slightly, the raw plate is immersed in a vessel with soluble silver nitrate, i.e., the collodion layer is sensed. All operations are performed under non-actinic lighting. As a result chemical reaction in the collodion layer, silver halides are formed - substances that are sensitive to light. After that, the raw plate is placed in the camera and the object is photographed. It is developed in a solution of pyrogallic acid, or pyrogallol, and fixed in a solution of sodium thiosulfate.

The plates could not be dried, as the print collodion cracked and flaked off the glass. This was a significant drawback of the wet collodion process, and it was used mainly in stationary photo studios. There were also enthusiasts - landscape photographers who took with them camping laboratories in the form of tents when leaving for shooting, which were transported assembled on carts.

Simultaneously with the improvement of the wet collodion process, theoretical work was carried out. In 1855-1861 English physicist D.K. Maxwell develops the theory of three-color photography.

Due to the shortcomings of the wet collodion process, many researchers have attempted to replace collodion with other substances. So, in the 90s of the 19th century, experiments were carried out on the use of gelatin as a binding medium for the emulsion layer. During this period, one of the works described an alkaline developer containing an organic developing substance in its composition.

Based on the work of his predecessors, the Englishman Richard Medox, a doctor by profession, proposed in 1871 the first practical method for making a silver bromide gelatin emulsion. Thanks to this method, it became possible not only to keep photographic plates dry, but also to significantly increase their photosensitivity. It should be noted that the main method of modern photography is also based on the use of silver halide gelatin photolayers. Since the invention, this method has undergone significant improvements. The overall light sensitivity of the photo layer was increased, and the zone of its spectral sensitivity was expanded up to infrared rays. The principle of sensing photographic plates to the long-wavelength region of the spectrum was developed in 1873 by the German scientist G. W. Vogel. For these purposes, i.e., for the orthochromatization of photographic plates, he used coralline.

At the end of the 80s of the XIX century. The American company Kodak mastered the production of negative photographic films on a flexible celluloid substrate.

Thus, the entire period of development of photography can be divided into three stages: daguerreotype, wet collodion process and the process using silver halide gelatin emulsions.

Despite the abundance of photographers, often self-made, few can tell in detail about the history of photographs. That is what we will do today. After reading the article, you will learn: what is a camera obscura, what material became the basis for the first photograph, and how instant photography appeared.

Where did it all begin?

ABOUT chemical properties people have known sunlight for a very long time. Even in ancient times, any person could say that the sun's rays make skin color darker, guessed about the effect of light on the taste of beer and the sparkling of precious stones. History has more than a thousand years of observations of the behavior of certain objects under the influence of ultraviolet radiation (this is the type of radiation characteristic of the sun).

The first analogue of photography began to be truly used as early as the 10th century AD.

This application consisted in the so-called camera obscura. It represents a completely dark room, one of the walls of which had a round hole that transmits light. Thanks to him, a projection of the image appeared on the opposite wall, which the artists of that time “finalized” and received beautiful drawings.

The image on the walls was upside down, but that didn't make it any less beautiful. This phenomenon was discovered by an Arab scientist from Basra named Alhazen. For a long time he was engaged in observing light rays, and the phenomenon of the camera obscura was first noticed by him on the darkened white wall of his tent. The scientist used it to observe the dimming of the sun: even then they understood that it was very dangerous to look at the sun directly.

First photo: background and successful attempts.

The main premise is the proof by Johann Heinrich Schulz in 1725 that it is light, and not heat, that causes silver salt to turn dark. He did it by accident: trying to create a luminous substance, he mixed chalk with nitric acid, and with a small fraction of dissolved silver. He noticed that under the influence of sunlight the white solution darkens.

This prompted the scientist to another experiment: he tried to get an image of letters and numbers by cutting them out on paper and applying them to the illuminated side of the vessel. He received the image, but he did not even have thoughts about saving it. Based on the work of Schultz, the scientist Grotgus found that the absorption and emission of light occurs under the influence of temperature.

Later, in 1822, the world's first image was obtained, more or less familiar to modern man. It was received by Joseph Nsefort Niépce, but the frame he received was not preserved properly. Because of this, he continued to work with great zeal and received in 1826, a full-fledged frame, called "View from the Window". It was he who went down in history as the first full-fledged photograph, although it was still far from the quality we were used to.

The use of metals is a significant simplification of the process.

A few years later, in 1839, another Frenchman, Louis-Jacques Daguerre, published new material for taking photographs: copper plates coated with silver. After that, the plate was doused with iodine vapor, which created a layer of light-sensitive silver iodide. It was he who was the key to future photography.

After processing, the layer was subjected to a 30-minute exposure in a room illuminated by sunlight. Then the plate was taken to a dark room and treated with mercury vapor, and the frame was fixed with table salt. It is Daguerre who is considered to be the creator of the first more or less high-quality photograph. This method, although it was far from "mere mortals", was already much simpler than the first.

Color photography is a breakthrough of its time.

Many people think that color photography appeared only with the creation of film cameras. This is not true at all. The year of creation of the first color photograph is considered to be 1861, it was then that James Maxwell received the image, later called the “Tartan Ribbon”. For creation, the method of three-color photography or the color separation method was used, whichever one likes more.

To obtain this frame, three cameras were used, each of which was equipped with a special filter that makes up the primary colors: red, green and blue. As a result, three images were obtained, which were combined into one, but such a process could not be called simple and fast. To simplify it, intensive research was carried out on photosensitive materials.

The first step towards simplification was the identification of sensitizers. They were discovered by Hermann Vogel, a scientist from Germany. After some time, he managed to get a layer sensitive to the green color spectrum. Later, his student Adolf Miethe created sensitizers sensitive to the three primary colors: red, green and blue. He demonstrated his discovery in 1902 at the Berlin scientific conference along with the first color projector.

One of the first photochemists in Russia, Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, a student of Mitya, developed a sensitizer more sensitive to the red-orange spectrum, which allowed him to surpass his teacher. He also managed to reduce the shutter speed, managed to make the pictures more massive, that is, he created all the possibilities for replicating photographs. Based on the inventions of these scientists, special photographic plates were created, which, despite their shortcomings, were in high demand among ordinary consumers.

Snapshot is another step towards speeding up the process.

In general, the year of the appearance of this type of photography is considered to be 1923, when a patent was registered for the creation of an “instant camera”. There was little use for such a device, the combination of a camera and a photo lab was extremely cumbersome and did not greatly reduce the time it takes to get a frame. Understanding the problem came a little later. It consisted in the inconvenience of the process of obtaining the finished negative.

It was in the 1930s that complex light-sensitive elements first appeared, which made it possible to obtain a ready-made positive. Agfa was involved in their development in the first couple, and the guys from Polaroid were engaged in them en masse. The first cameras of the company made it possible to take instant photographs immediately after taking a picture.

A little later, similar ideas were tried to be implemented in the USSR. Photo sets "Moment", "Photon" were created here, but they did not find popularity. The main reason is the lack of unique light-sensitive films to obtain a positive. It was the principle laid down by these devices that became one of the key and most popular at the end of the 20th century - early XXI century, especially in Europe.

Digital photography is a leap forward in the development of the industry.

This type of photography really originated quite recently - in 1981. The founders can be safely considered the Japanese: Sony showed the first device in which the matrix replaced the film. Everyone knows how a digital camera differs from a film camera, right? Yes, it could not be called a high-quality digital camera in the modern sense, but the first step was obvious.

In the future, a similar concept was developed by many companies, but the first digital device, as we are used to seeing it, was created by Kodak. The serial production of the camera began in 1990, and it almost immediately became super popular.

In 1991, Kodak, together with Nikon, released the Kodak DSC100 professional digital SLR camera based on the Nikon F3 camera. This device weighed 5 kilograms.

It is worth noting that with the advent of digital technologies, the scope of photography has become more extensive.
Modern cameras, as a rule, are divided into several categories: professional, amateur and mobile. In general, they differ from each other only in the size of the matrix, optics and processing algorithms. Due to the small number of differences, the line between amateur and mobile cameras is gradually blurring.

Application of photography

Back in the middle of the last century, it was hard to imagine that clear images in newspapers and magazines would become a mandatory attribute. The boom in photography was especially pronounced with the advent of digital cameras. Yes, many will say that film cameras were better and more popular, but it was digital technology that made it possible to save the photographic industry from such problems as running out of film or overlaying frames on top of each other.

Moreover, modern photography is undergoing extremely interesting changes. If earlier, for example, to get a photo in your passport, you had to stand in a long queue, take a picture and wait a few more days before it was printed, now it’s enough just to take a picture of yourself on a white background with certain requirements on your phone and print the pictures on special paper.

Artistic photography has also come a long way. Previously, it was difficult to get a highly detailed frame of a mountain landscape, it was difficult to crop unnecessary elements or make high-quality photo processing. Now even mobile photographers who are ready without special problems compete with pocket digital cameras. Of course, smartphones cannot compete with full-fledged cameras, such as Canon 5D, but this is a topic for a separate discussion.

Digital SLR for beginners 2.0- for connoisseurs of Nikon.

My first MIRROR— for connoisseurs of CANON.

So, dear reader, now you know a little more about the history of photography. I hope this material will be useful to you. If so, why not subscribe to the blog update and tell your friends about it? Moreover, you will find a lot of interesting materials that will allow you to become more literate in matters of photography. Good luck and thank you for your attention.

Sincerely yours, Timur Mustaev.

Visual arts were very popular in the Middle Ages. Rich people in those days wanted to capture themselves on canvas so that descendants would know about them.

For this, artists were hired who painted with oils or watercolors. The result can hardly be called realistic, unless the artist was the greatest master of this business. His Leonardo da Vinci did not live in every city and not even in every country. Much more often, artists were of average talent, they had to look for other ways to get realistic images.

Someone once came up with the idea of ​​using a camera obscura to draw.. This device has been known for a long time. Such a box had a small hole at one end through which light was projected to the other end.

Artists have slightly improved the camera obscura. They placed a mirror, after which the image began to fall on a translucent sheet of paper placed on top. All that was left was to draw the picture exactly. And this is already a little easier than drawing from nature.

minus this method is the long duration of the drawing. There were also questions about the realism of the image, because the artist worked with the same paints, the palette of which is not infinite and depended on the skills of the master. Not surprisingly, the camera obscura has been further improved in the future.

Date of invention of photography: year and century

The development of chemistry allowed scientists to invent a special layer of asphalt varnish that reacts to light. In the 1820s, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce came up with the idea of ​​applying this layer to glass, which was then placed on a camera obscura instead of a sheet of paper.

A more precise date for the invention of photography is unknown. He himself (if he could be called that) called his device a heliograph. Now there was no need to draw a picture, it took shape on its own.

From visual arts photography at that time differed only for the worse. It still took a long time to get the image. The picture was black and white.

And its quality is just right to call terrible. The invention of photography is now attributed to 1826. This is the date of the earliest surviving photograph.

It's called "Window View". The Frenchman Niépce captured in this photograph the landscape that opens from the window of his dwelling. With difficulty and a certain amount of fantasy in the frame, you can see the turret and several houses.

What year was the invention of photography developed?

Since that time, the development of photography has gone at a serious pace. Already in 1827, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, together with Jacques Mande Daguerre, decided to use silver plates instead of glass (the base was made of copper). With the help of them, the exposure process was reduced to thirty minutes. This invention also had one drawback. To obtain the final photograph, it was necessary to hold the plate in a dark room over heated mercury vapor. And that's not the safest thing to do.

The pictures are getting better and better. But thirty minutes of exposure is still a lot. Not every family is ready to stand still in front of the camera lens for such an amount of time.
An English inventor around the same years came up with the idea of ​​saving an image on paper with a layer of silver chloride.

The picture in this case was saved as a negative. Then such pictures were easily copied. But the exposure in the case of such paper increased to an hour.
In 1839 the term "Photography" was born. It was first used by astronomers Johann von Medler (Germany) and John Herschel (Great Britain).

The invention of color photography

If the date of the invention of photography is determined by the 19th century, then color photographs appeared much later. Take a look at the photos in your family album. Most of these are black and white shots. Color photography was invented in 1861.

James Maxwell used color separation to produce the world's first color photograph. The trouble with this method is that to create a photo, you had to use three cameras at once, on which different color filters were installed. Therefore, the practice of color photography was not widespread for a long time.

Since 1907, photographic plates from the Lumiere Brothers began to be produced and sold. With their help, quite good color pictures were already obtained. Take a look at the self-portrait of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky. It was made in 1912. The quality is already quite good.

Since the 1930s, alternatives to this technology have been produced. The well-known companies Polaroid, Kodak and Agfa have started their production.

digital photo

But in what year did the invention of photography actually happen again? Now we can say that it happened in 1981. Computers developed, gradually they learned to display not only text, but also a picture. Including photographs. At first, they could only be obtained by scanning.

Everything began to change with the introduction of the Sony Mavica camera. The image in it was recorded using a CCD matrix. The result was saved to a diskette.

Gradually, other major manufacturers began to bring digital cameras to the market. But that's a completely different story. The history of the invention of photography is almost over.

Most photographers now use digital cameras.. Changes are made only in the format of images and in their resolution. 360-degree panoramas and stereo shots appeared. In the future, we should expect the emergence of new types of photographs.