Photography's 175th Birthday

[Mike Buckley]

I just now realized that this year (2014) is the 175th anniversary of the generally recognized birth of photography.

Daguerre had invented the Daguerreotype at least as early as 1837, unsuccessfully tried to privately sell or license the process a year later, and officially announced it in a newspaper in January 1839. The French government paid him a life-time stipend so they could make the process available for free to almost everyone. (It is not clearly known why British citizens had to pay Daguerre's agent for use of the process.) The process and its free availability were announced on August 19, 1839 at a joint meeting of the Academies of Science and Fine Arts held at the Palace of the Institute in Paris.

Upon learning of Daguerre's public announcement, Talbot immediately proclaimed that he had invented a camera in 1835 though he stopped working on it in 1837. He made presentations in January and February 1839 to the Royal Society, the Royal Institution (both British) and the Academy of Science in France mentioned above.

Considering the public announcements of such important photographic processes in 1839, that year is generally considered the birth of photography. However, not only did both Daguerre and Talbot make photographs a few years earlier, the earliest known photographic print (at least that I have heard of) was made by Niepce in 1825. Some people consider Talbot's famous "photogenic drawings" of leaf specimens made in 1833 a form of photography. Some people even consider the camera obscura, initially a piece of glass placed in a hole in the wall of a room and later in a portable device, to be another form of photography. It was initially developed in the early 16th century and used prevalently by 18th-century artists. However, that's a bit of a stretch for me considering that there was no way to fix the image other than by manually tracing over it on whatever substance the image was projected onto.

Regardless of when you think the birth of photography happened, it has been quite a ride since then!

[Digital]

Happy Birthday photography, Happy Birthday to you.

Bruce

[Shadowman]

A toast is in order.

[rpcrowe]

Wow! I have been a professional and retired professional photographer for over 30% of the existence of photography! Let's have a snort of hypo to celebrate!