The Inventors Behind the Photographic Process

In the 5^th Century B.C. the Chinese discovered the basic idea behind the camera obscura, describing how an inverted image was formed on a wall when projected through a ‘pinhole’ - for further information on the camera obscura, please refer to the embedded PDF. From that time onwards, photography has been refined and developed, becoming a quick, easy, cheap and convenient way of capturing images.

Many different scientists, inventors and thinkers have been instrumental to the development of photography, including Sir Isaac Newton, thanks to his discoveries concerning white light and the colour spectrum. Johann Heinrich Schulze was also instrumental in the history of photography, having discovered that silver nitrate darkened when it was exposed to light. However, it is Joseph Nicephore Niepce that is credited with inventing photography in the mid-1820s.

Nicephore Niepce’s images were formed in a small camera. However, the images were negatives, which meant that areas of light were dark on the image, and areas of darkness were seen as light. Nicephore Niepce’s first images were not permanent or durable, as the image would darken all over with continued exposure to light, and so the Frenchman stopped working with silver salts altogether, turning instead to light-sensitive organic substances.

Using bitumen, painted onto glass or metal, Nicephore Niepce invented the Heliograph, which was the first permanent photographic image. The bitumen would harden when exposed to light, and after a long exposure the plate was washed with oil of lavender to reveal the image.

Over a decade later, Nicephore Niepce collaborated with Louis Daguerre, inventing the first practical photographic technique in 1837. This technique remained in popular use until the mid-1850s. The process requires a polished sheet of silver-plated copper, which is treated with fumes to make its surface sensitive to light; the surface is then exposed within the camera, and is fumed for a second time with mercury vapour. After a chemical treatment removes the surface’s sensitivity to light, the delicate image is sealed behind glass in order to protect it against damage.

In 1861, James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish physicist, created the first ever colour photograph by taking three exposures under different coloured filters, and combining the separate images into one colour composition. 1871 was the year that Dr Richard Maddox made the discovery that gelatin could be used instead of glass for the photographic plate, which eventually led to the invention of dry plate photography, which did away with the darkroom tent and was a much less cumbersome process.

George Eastman created the first box camera in the 1880s, which he called the ‘Kodak’. It was light and easy to use.

In 1975, an engineer at Eastman Kodak named Steven Sasson invented the first digital camera, which recorded 0.01 megapixel black and white photographs onto a cassette tape. The cassette could then be played back to display the photograph on a television monitor.

Digital cameras have become more and more sophisticated, as have the technologies behind them. In 1988 static RAM memory was developed which was followed quickly by the invention of solid-state flash memory, which was created in 1993 – and is still used in the majority of digital cameras to this day.

Thanks to continually developing technology, amateur photographers and photography enthusiasts such as Othman Louanjli are now able to capture and document the world around them with ease.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAMERA OBSCURA