Basic Photographic Materials and Processes, 3rd Edition

Foreword

 

A Brief History of Photography

It might be said that photography, as a new way of making images, had its beginnings as early as 1816 when Joseph Nicéphore Niepce succeeded in producing a camera image on light-sensitive silver-chloride paper. Unfortunately, he was not able to fix the image, so there is no pictorial record of his accomplishment. The oldest preserved photographic image, made by Niepce in 1827, is housed at the University of Texas in Austin in the Gernsheim Collection.

In 1833 a Brazilian, Hercules Florence, produced images on paper sensitized with silver salts and coined the word photography. It wasn’t until 1973, however, that his achievements were recognized.

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, who began a partnership with ...