Introduction
Human beings naturally have a strong visual sense of the surrounding world despite the differences in individual tendencies towards visual beauty and creativity. Within a significant number of human inventions, photography plays a particular role in developing art and its use for personal purposes. However, the advent of such a medium is a complex historical process, which is considered a joint work and result of the initial ideas, first failed attempts, and first successful preliminary inventions. As a valuable method of visual communication and expression, photography has a broad spectrum of aesthetic capabilities. After elevating to an art form, such a revolutionary technological invention became a fundamental asset in current society. Therefore, it is crucial to examine the history of photography’s invention to understand the significant contribution to developing one of the essential creations that record the visual world and extends human knowledge.
Inventing Photography
The Camera Obscura
The camera obscura is referred to as the early ancestor of the photographic camera dated back to the ancient Greeks and Chinese. The primary principle of the camera obscura was developed in the eleventh century. It was based on a natural optical phenomenon, including an image on one side of a wall or a screen projected through a hole of a dark chamber or a room onto a surface opposite the opening (Silverman, 2015). The result of such an optical principle was the upside-down projection. The term for camera obscura originated in the sixteenth century and signified a box, tent, or room set up for such projections. This invention was later modified by the Italian scientist Giambattista della Porta who analyzed and explained the use of camera obscura with a lens (Silverman, 2015). For this reason, the camera obscura is commonly viewed as the antecedent of early attempts at photography technology since its different variations were used to make images the artists could trace. However, this method was still insufficient to produce the images in a completely mechanical way.
The Daguerreotype
The historical context of photography’s invention and its further development into the form of art addressed some critical controversies regarding its founder. Hence, it is important to examine the first attempts to understand who is the first inventor that achieved fixing of the photographic image. As a historical invention, photography faced a number of arguments through a combination of biography and photography techniques. According to Wells (2015), Fox Talbot and Daguerre are two prominent figures in the photography invention. More specifically, they were the first to announce they are crucial findings to the public with the help of scientific journals at that time in 1839. However, they were not the sole inventors involved in the process of photography development.
In the early 18120s, Nicéphore Niépce is accountable for the fundamental discoveries that led to the daguerreotype. As defined by Wells (2015), daguerreotype represents the process created in 1839 by Daguerre, which results in the photographic image. It is a positive image on a metal plate with a reflective silver surface defined by outstanding detail. Such technological invention became the predominant portrait mode during the first decades of photography art, specifically in the United States. Although the photographic camera’s basic principle was based on the camera obscura invention, it was a challenge to fix the image after it was obtained, which became the primary concern in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Daniel (n. d.) states that, from the very advent, photography was characterized by a twofold nature, meaning that it can be both perceived as a “medium of artistic expression and as a powerful scientific tool” (para. 5). Daguerre, in particular, managed to promote his photographic invention on both fronts.
The Calotype in the Invention of Photography
The calotype is defined as the photographic print made by the process designed by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1840. The process implies the “exposure of sensitized paper in the camera,” which produces positive paper prints after processing (Wells, 2015, p. 143). Talbot patented his invention and turned it into a financial advantage. Moreover, the invention of the calotype process in the early 19th century promoted the negative-positive process of photography and made a valuable contribution to producing multiple copies of images. The calotype invention was a turning point in photography development since access to such innovative technology was placed in the “public domain” (Stewart, 2018, para. 8). Furthermore, this landmark invention solved the central issue of image reproducibility and facilitated the mass production of photographs.
Conclusion
The inventing of photography is indeed a complex process that made it difficult to determine a single founder of such a phenomenal technological solution. Based on the detailed research of the existing data about the historical context of photography development, the credit for discovering photographic physical and chemical processes lies with no single person or particular nation. The technological complexity of photography took decades for its final development and, therefore, it is a coherent result of the extensive work conducted by scientists and artists since the eleventh century. Every little invention starting from the camera obscura was the consequent step for the current version of the photographic camera and its diverse application in modern society.
References
Daniel, M. (n. d.). “Daguerre (1787–1851) and the invention of photography.” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. Web.
Silverman, K. (2015). The miracle of analogy: or the history of photography, part 1. Stanford University Press.
Stewart, J. (2018). How the development of the camera changed our world. My Modern Met, Web.
Wells, L. (2015). Photography: A critical introduction. Routledge.