A Photography History Timeline (ART 264)

Thomas Jefferson won the election of 1800.

Wedgwood and Davy publish their experiments in the "Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain" in 1802. Both of the men were science enthusiasts and sought to experiment with light-sensitive materials to create the fixed image of an object's shadow. Even though they were able to create images on glass, they were not able to create a lasting and permanent image, but their research became a foundation for later successful attempts to create a permanent image.

In 1826, Frenchman Joseph Nicephore Niepce created what is considered to be the world's first permanent photograph which was entitled "View From the Window at Gras". Niepce achieved this by utilizing a process involving an engraving saturated with oil being placed on a pewter plate coated with bitumen of Judea and exposing it to light. After exposure, areas under the dark lines on the engraving remained soft and could be washed away with lavender oil. This prepared plate had been placed in a camera obsucra and after eight hours produced a negative which was exposed to iodine fumes to create a direct positive.

John D. Rockefeller was born.

Henry Fox Talbot created his first known photographic image entitled the "Latticed Window" in 1835. The photograph was created using Talbot's photographic method called a Calotype. Talbot would have been the first know person to announce that they had successfully produced a permanent photograph, however, he did not announce his achievement until after he heard of Daguerre's in 1839.

Daguerre has his Daguerreotype process patented in the summer of 1839 and Henry Fox Talbot has his Calotype process parented in 1841. Daguerre had his patent restrict the production of Daguerreotypes in Britain, only allowing those who had purchased the rights to do so. Talbot only asked for commercial photographers to pay a license fee to use his process and those who practiced photography as a hobby could produce their pictures without charge.

Photography is first presented to the world on August 19, 1839. The reveal took place at a joint meeting of the Academy of Science and the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. Daguerre, whos photographic process called the Daguerreotype was being revealed after his discoveries of latent images in 1835 and a solution to stop the photographic materials from reacting with light in 1837, was unable to present his discoveries himself and had Francois Arago present for him instead.

In March 1841, Richard Beard opened a daguerreotype studio in London. This studio was the first licensed public source for daguerreotypes in Britain. French entrepreneur Jean Francois-Antoine Claudet opened another licensed studio in London shortly after this which he called the "Temple of Photography". Claudet aimed to categorize photography with both science and art which would become a repeating theme throughout the nineteenth century.

Henry Fox Talbot produces his book "The Pencil of Nature" over the course of six sections between the years of 1844 and 1846. His photograph "The Open Door" was included as plate five in the book. The book was one of the first books illustrated with actual photographs instead of engraved versions. The book contained twenty four calotype images and provided explanatory text for each image.

The collodion process, or wet-plate process, is published by Frederick Scott Archer in 1857. Archer used glass instead of paper for the base of his light-sensitive materials. This new process allowed for greater light sensitivity and shorter exposure times. This process produced glass negatives which meant that multiple images could be created form them without the texture rendering imprints that came with paper negatives.