From the Sissman Chronicles
A Brief History of Photography
Following the wide variety of interesting and excellent photographs taken by Kendal residents in each issue of this website has stimulated me to review briefly (and selectively) the history of still photography.
The inventor of photography, in 1839, was a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre; for many years thereafter photographs were called daguerreotypes.
Louis Daguerre
He coated glass plates with silver oxide which turned gray to black when exposed to light; where these “negatives” were “printed” the dark areas were light and thus the print resembled reality.
The first cameras were very large (using film plates the size of letter paper) and needed to be mounted on sturdy wooden tripods. The ensuing decades led to steady progress in making larger more accurate lenses and faster shutter speeds that finally could open and for as short a period of time as 1/1000th of a second.
Many refinements followed, most significantly when an American, George Eastman, added the chemical to a celluloid roll. By designing a camera in which the roll could be advanced after each shot, photographers could take as many as 24 exposures without reloading.
After Eastman incorporated this technique into a light easy-to-use camera called a Kodak Brownie, photography was available to the general public.
In 1935, Kodachrome was developed, the birth of color photography. Around 1957, digital technics were introduced, resulting in photographs that did not require negatives or printing. The refinements that followed led to our current universal IPhone cameras.
Norman Sissman