The History of Photography

As early as the 1600’s, Robert Boyle had noted that when silver chloride was under exposure, its color became darker. However, he thought that the reason for this was the air, and not the light.

Johann Heinrick Schulze, in 1727, came to the conclusion that specific liquids experienced color change under exposure to light.

The year 1827 was extremely significant to the history of photography—this was when the first picture was taken with a favorable outcome. This photo was taken by Niépce, who used a material that solidified in the presence of light. However, the photo had to be exposed for a total of eight hours.

Photography was invented in the 1830’s. However, the two main scientific processes that are pertinent to photography itself had been discovered long before that. Therefore, it is curious that photography had not been discovered earlier.

Even more revolutionary were the results of a nineteenth century experiment performed by Thomas Wedgwood. He had been able to capture images, although the image did not remain, but disappeared.