Discoverer of photography. Who Invented Photography? Digital photography - a leap forward in the development of the industry
The desire to capture the moments of life that occur with a person or the world around him has always existed. This is evidenced by both rock paintings and fine arts. Accuracy and detailing, the ability to capture an object from an advantageous perspective, light, convey a color palette, shadows were especially appreciated in the canvases of artists. Such work sometimes took months of work. It was this desire, as well as the desire to reduce time costs, that became the impetus for the creation of such an art form as photography.
The emergence of photography
In the IV century BC, Aristotle, a famous scientist from Ancient Greece, noticed a curious fact: the light that filtered through a small hole in the window shutter repeated the landscape outside the window with shadows on the wall.
Further, in the treatises of scholars from Arab countries, the phrase literally meaning "dark room" begins to be mentioned. It turned out to be a device in the form of a box with a hole in the front, with the help of which it became possible to sketch still lifes and landscapes. Later, the box was improved with moving halves and a lens, which made it possible to focus on the picture.
Thanks to the new features, the pictures have become much brighter, and the device has received the name "light room", that is, camera lucina. Such simple technologies allowed us to find out what Arkhangelsk looked like in the middle of the 17th century. With their help, a precise perspective of the city was captured.
Development stages of photography
In the 19th century, Joseph Niepce invented a method of photography, which he called heliogravure. Shooting by this method took place in bright sun and lasted up to 8 hours. Its essence was as follows:
A metal plate was taken, which was covered with bituminous varnish.
The plate was directly exposed to bright light, which did not dissolve the varnish. But this process was heterogeneous and depended on the intensity of illumination at each of the sites.
Then they poisoned me with acid.
As a result of all the manipulations, a relief, engraved picture appeared on the plate. The next significant stage in the development of photography was the daguerreotype. The method got its name from the name of its inventor, Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, who was able to obtain an image on a silver plate treated with iodine vapor.
The next method was calotype, invented by Henry Talbot. The advantage of the method was the ability to make copies of one image, which, in turn, was reproduced on paper soaked in silver salt.
First acquaintance with the art of photography in Russia
The history of Russian photography has been going on for more than a century and a half. And this story is full of different events and interesting facts. Thanks to the people who discovered the art of photography for our country, we can see Russia through the prism of time as it was many years ago.
The history of photography in Russia begins in 1839. It was then that I. Hamel, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, went to Great Britain, where he got acquainted with the calotypy method, having studied it in detail. Then he sent a detailed description. So the first photographs were obtained, made by the method of calotyping, which are still stored in the Academy of Sciences in an amount of 12 pieces. The photographs bear the signature of the method's inventor, Talbot.
After that, in France, Hamel met Daguerre, under whose leadership he took several pictures with his own hand. In September 1841, the Academy of Sciences received a letter from Hamel, which, according to his words, contained the first photograph taken from life. A photograph taken in Paris shows a female figure.
After that, photography in Russia began to gain momentum, developing rapidly. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, Russian photographers began to take part in international photo exhibitions and salons on a general basis, where they received prestigious awards and prizes, and had membership in the respective communities.
Talbot's way
The history of photography in Russia was developed thanks to people who were keenly interested in the new art form. Such was also Julius Fyodorovich Fritzsche, a famous Russian botanist and chemist. He was the first to master the Talbot method, which consisted of obtaining a negative on light-sensitive paper and then printing it on a sheet treated with silver salts and manifested in sunlight.
Fritzsche took the first photographs of calotypes of plant leaves, after which he entered before the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in May 1839 with a report. In it, he said that he found the calotypy method suitable for capturing flat objects. For example, the method is suitable for taking pictures of original plants with the accuracy required for a botanist.
Contribution of J. Fritzsche
Thanks to Fritzsche, the history of photography in Russia went a little further: he proposed replacing sodium hyposulfate, which Talbot used to develop the picture, with ammonia, which significantly modernized the calotype, improving the image quality. Yuliy Fedorovich was also the first in the country and one of the first in the world to carry out research work on photography and photographic art.
Alexey Grekov and the "art cabin"
The history of photography in Russia continued, and the next contribution to its development was made by Alexey Grekov. A Moscow inventor and engraver, he was the first of the Russian masters of photography to master both calotypes and daguerreotypes. And if you ask the question about what the first cameras were in Russia, then it is Grekov's invention, the “art room”, that can be considered as such.
The first camera, created by him in 1840, made it possible to take high-quality, with good sharpness, portrait photographs, which many photographers who tried to achieve this did not succeed. Grekov invented a chair with special comfortable cushions that supported the subject's head, allowing him not to get tired during a long sitting and to remain motionless. And the person in the chair had to be motionless for a long time: 23 minutes in the bright sun, and on a cloudy day - all 45.
The master of photography Grekov is considered to be the first portrait photographer in Russia. A photographic device invented by him, consisting of a wooden camera, into which light did not penetrate, also helped him to achieve excellent portrait photographs. But at the same time, the boxes could slide out one of the other and return to their place. At the outer box on the front of it, he attached a lens, which was a lens. The inner box contained a light-sensitive plate. By changing the distance between the boxes, that is, moving them one of the other, or vice versa, it was possible to achieve the necessary sharpness of the picture.
Contribution of Sergei Levitsky
The next person, thanks to whom the history of photography in Russia continued to develop rapidly, was Sergei Levitsky. In the history of Russian photography, the daguerroptypes of Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk, made by him in the Caucasus, appeared. And also a gold medal at an art exhibition held in Paris, where he sent pictures to participate in the competition.
Sergei Levitsky was in the forefront of photographers who suggested changing the decorative background for filming. They also decided to retouch portrait photographs and their negatives in order to reduce or completely remove technical flaws, if any.
Levitsky left for Italy in 1845, deciding to raise the level of knowledge and skills in the field of daguerreotype. He takes photographs of Rome, as well as portrait photographs of the Russian artists who lived there. And in 1847 he invents a photographic apparatus with folding fur, using for this fur from an accordion. The innovation allowed the camera to become more mobile, which is largely reflected in the expansion of photography capabilities.
Sergei Levitsky returned to Russia as a professional photographer, having opened his own daguerreotype workshop “Svetopis” in St. Petersburg. With her, he also opens a photo studio with a rich collection of photographic portraits of Russian artists, writers and public figures. He does not give up the study of the art of photography, continuing to experimentally study the use of electric light and its combination with solar and their influence on photographs.
Russian trace in photography
Art workers, masters of photography, inventors and scientists from Russia have made a great contribution to the history and development of photography. So, among the creators of new types of cameras, such Russian surnames are known as Sreznevsky, Ezuchevsky, Karpov, Kurdyumov.
Even Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev took an active part, dealing with theoretical and practical problems of making photographs. And together with Sreznevsky they stood at the origins of the creation of the photographic department in the Russian Technical Society.
The successes of Andrei Denier, a brilliant master of Russian photography, who can be put on a par with Levitsky, are widely known. He was the creator of the first photo album with portraits of famous scientists, doctors, travelers, writers and artists. And the photo artist A. Karelin became known throughout Europe and entered the history of photography as the founder of the genre of everyday photography.
Development of photography in Russia
Interest in photography at the end of the 19th century increased not only among specialists, but also among the common population. And in 1887, the "Photographic Bulletin" was published, a magazine that collected information on recipes, chemical compositions, methods of photo processing, theoretical data.
But before the revolution in Russia, the opportunity to engage in artistic photography was available only to a small number of people, since practically none of the inventors of the camera had the opportunity to produce them on an industrial scale.
In 1919, V. I. Lenin issued a decree on the transfer of the photographic industry under the control of the People's Commissariat for Education, and in 1929 the creation of light-sensitive photographic materials began, which later became available to everyone. And already in 1931 the first domestic camera "Photocor" appeared.
The role of Russian masters, photo artists, inventors in the development of photography is great and occupies a worthy place in the world history of photography.
An exhibition dedicated to the origins of photography has opened at London's Tate Britain. It shows the earliest photographs taken from 1840 to 1860. Look at Fullpicche for the very first photographs in history, which capture the amazing atmosphere and people of those times when the most effective and popular means of transmitting information of our time was born - photography.
22 PHOTOS
1. Carriage. Photo taken in Brittany around 1857. Photographer - Paul Marés. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
2. Fishermen from Newhaven (Alexander Rutherford, William Ramsay and John Liston), circa 1845. Photo taken by Hill & Adamson. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
3. Mom and son. 1855 year. Photographer - Jean-Baptiste Frenet. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
4. The daughter of a photographer, Ela Theresa Talbot, 1843-1844. Photographer: William Fox Talbot. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
5. Horse and groom. 1855 year. Photographer - Jean-Baptiste Frenet. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
6. Madame Frenet with her daughters. Around 1855. Photographer: Jean-Baptiste Frenet. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
7. Pyramids at Giza. 1857 year. Photographers: James Robertson and Felice Beato. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
8. Portrait of a woman, taken around 1854. Photographer - Roger Fenton. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
9. Photographer - John Beasly Greene. El Assasif, pink granite gate, Thebes, 1854. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
10. Construction of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, 1844. Photographer: William Fox Talbot. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
11. Goods from China, 1844. Photographer - William Fox Talbot. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
12. Flood in 1856 in the Brotteaux area of Lyon. Photographer - Edouard Denis Baldus. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
13. Parthenon in the Acropolis, Athens, 1852. Photographer - Eugene Piot. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
14. One of the streets of Paris in 1843. Photographer - William Fox Talbot. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
15. A group of Croatian leaders. 1855 year. Photographer - Roger Fenton. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
16. Captain Mottram Andrews, 28th Infantry (1st Staffordshire), 1855 Photographer - Roger Fenton. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
17. The canteen. [A woman who accompanied the army and sold various goods to the soldiers, as well as provided services, including those of a sexual nature]. 1855 year. Photographer - Roger Fenton. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
18. Five fishwomen from Newhaven, circa 1844. Photographers: David Hill and Robert Adamson. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
19. "Fruit sellers". The picture was most likely taken in September 1845. The author of the photo is most likely Calvert Jones, but it is possible that William Fox Talbot too. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 
20. At the foot of the obelisk (Theodosius obelisk in Constantinople), 1855. Photographer - James Robertson. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography). 22. Daisies (Margaret and Mary Cavendish), circa 1845. The photographers are David Hill and Robert Adamson. (Photo: Wilson Center for Photography).
Let's take a look at the world's very first photographs.
An interesting collection of old, archival photographs.
One of the first recorded wedding photos in the world. 1840, February 10.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
classic view of the Kremlin 1852
the picture is interesting in that it captures the old Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge
built in the 17th century, which will be dismantled in 1857
view inside the Kremlin walls 1852
one of the most interesting pictures is the construction site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in 1852.
Petersburg 1861
St. Petersburg. Isaac's Cathedral, 1852
In St. Petersburg in 1853, the remarkable photographer Ivan Bianki captured the Chain Bridge near the Summer Garden
Kiev. View of St. Andrew's Church from Podil, 1852
Bruges (from which our trousers came from) has not changed much over the past 150 years. 1853 g
For the Roman Pantheon, which stood safely for 2000 years, a century and a half is not a time at all! 1853 g
in the German city of Cologne in 1853, they suddenly gathered to finish building the abandoned in the 15th century after the first 200 years
construction of a giant cathedral - the most important long-term construction in Europe
Photo panorama of St. Petersburg 1861 7
Photo panorama of St. Petersburg 1861 6
Photo panorama of St. Petersburg 1861 5
Photo panorama of St. Petersburg 1861 4
Photo panorama of St. Petersburg 1861 3
Photo panorama of St. Petersburg 1861 2
Photo panorama of St. Petersburg 1861 1
The Plaza de España in Rome since 1855 does not seem to have changed at all.
Gogol loved to walk here
Egypt. 1859
1854-55 can be appreciated from this work of Beato and Robertson, the view of the Ortakoy mosque in Constantinople
Photo of Balaklava, the main base of the British Expeditionary Force in Crimea, taken by Roger Fenton in 1854-55.
Panorama of Moscow made on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856 6
Panorama of Moscow made on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856.5
Panorama of Moscow made on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856 4
Panorama of Moscow made on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856 3
Panorama of Moscow taken on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856 2
Panorama of Moscow taken on the occasion of the coronation of Alexander II in 1856 1
Despite the abundance of photographers, often self-made, few will be able to tell in detail about the history of photographs. This is what we are going to do today. After reading the article, you will learn: what is a camera obscura, what material became the basis for the first photograph, and how instant photography appeared.
How did it all begin?
People have known about the chemical properties of sunlight for a long time. Even in ancient times, any person could say that the sun's rays make the color of the skin darker, they guessed about the effect of light on the taste of beer and the sparkling of precious stones. History has more than a thousand years of observation of the behavior of certain objects under the influence of ultraviolet radiation (this is the type of radiation that is characteristic of the sun).
The first analogue of photography began to be really used as early as the 10th century AD.
This application was in the so-called camera obscura. It is a completely dark room, one of the walls of which had a round hole that lets light through. Thanks to him, a projection of the image appeared on the opposite wall, which the artists of that time "finalized" and received beautiful drawings.
The image on the walls was upside down, but that didn't make it any less beautiful. This phenomenon was discovered by an Arab scientist from Basra named Algazen. For a long time he was engaged in observing light rays, and the phenomenon of the camera obscura was first noticed by him on the darkened white wall of his tent. The scientist used it to observe the darkening of the sun: even then it was understood that looking at the sun directly is very dangerous.
First photo: background and successful attempts.
The main premise can be called the proof by Johann Heinrich Schulz in 1725 that it is light, not heat, that makes silver salt turn dark. He did it by accident: trying to create a luminous substance, he mixed chalk with nitric acid, and with a small amount of dissolved silver. He noticed that under the influence of sunlight, the white solution darkens.
This prompted the scientist to another experiment: he tried to get an image of letters and numbers by cutting them out on paper and applying them to the illuminated side of the vessel. He received the image, but he did not even think about preserving it. Based on the work of Schultz, the scientist Grottus established that the absorption and emission of light occurs under the influence of temperature.
Later, in 1822, the world's first image was obtained, more or less familiar to modern people. Joseph Nysefort Niepce received it, but the frame he received was not preserved properly. Because of this, he continued to work with great diligence and received, in 1826, a full-fledged shot called "View from the Window". It was he who went down in history as the first full-fledged photograph, although it was still far from the quality we were used to.
The use of metals is a significant simplification of the process.
A few years later, in 1839, another Frenchman, Louis-Jacques Daguerre, published a new material for photographing: copper plates coated with silver. After that, the plate was doused with iodine vapor, which created a layer of photosensitive silver iodide. It was he who was the key for future photography.
After processing, the layer was exposed for 30 minutes in a room illuminated by sunlight. Then the plate was taken to a dark room and treated with mercury vapor, and the frame was fixed using table salt. It is Daguerre who is considered to be the creator of the first more or less high-quality photograph. This method, although it was far from "mere mortals", was already much simpler than the first.
Color photography is a breakthrough of its time.
Many people think that color photography only came with the creation of film cameras. This is not at all the case. The year of the creation of the first color photograph is considered to be 1861, it was then that Lames Maxwell received the image, later called the "Tartan Ribbon". For creation, the method of three-color photography or the method of color separation was used, so whoever likes it better.
To obtain this frame, three cameras were used, each of which was equipped with a special filter, constituting the primary colors: red, green and blue. As a result, three images were obtained, which were combined into one, but this process could not be called simple and quick. To simplify it, vigorous research has been carried out on light-sensitive materials.
The first step towards simplification was to identify the sensitizers. They were discovered by Hermann Vogel, a scientist from Germany. After some time, he managed to obtain a layer that is sensitive to the green color spectrum. Later, his student Adolf Mite created sensitizers that are sensitive to three primary colors: red, green and blue. He demonstrated his discovery in 1902 at a Berlin scientific conference together with the first color projector.
One of the first Russian photochemists, Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, a student of Mite, developed a sensitizer that was more sensitive to the red-orange spectrum, which allowed him to surpass his teacher. He also managed to reduce the shutter speed, managed to make the pictures more massive, that is, he created all the possibilities for duplicating photographs. On the basis of the inventions of these scientists, special photographic plates were created, which, despite the shortcomings, were in great demand among ordinary consumers.
Taking snapshots is another step towards speeding up the process.
In general, the year of the appearance of this type of photography is considered to be 1923, when the patent for the creation of a "instant camera" was registered. There was little sense from such a device, the combination of a camera and a darkroom was extremely cumbersome and did not greatly reduce the time it takes to get a frame. The understanding of the problem came a little later. It consisted in the inconvenience of the process of obtaining a ready-made negative.
It was in the 30s that complex photosensitive elements appeared for the first time, which made it possible to obtain a ready-made positive. The Agfa company was engaged in their development in the first couples, and the guys from Polaroid were engaged in them en masse. The first cameras of the company allowed taking instant photos immediately after taking the frame.
A little later, they tried to implement similar ideas in the USSR. Here photo sets "Moment", "Photon" were created, but they did not find popularity. The main reason is the lack of unique light-sensitive films to get positive feedback. It is the principle laid down by these devices that became one of the key and most popular in the late XX - early XXI century, especially in Europe.
Digital photography is a leap forward in the development of the industry.
This kind of photography really emerged quite recently - in 1981. The founders can be safely considered the Japanese: Sony showed the first device in which the matrix replaced the photographic film. Everyone knows how a digital camera differs from a film camera, right? Yes, it could not be called a high-quality digital camera in the modern sense, but the first step was on the face.
In the future, a similar concept was developed by many companies, but the first digital device, as they are used to seeing it, was created by Kodak. The camera began to be mass-produced in 1990, and almost immediately became super popular.
In 1991, Kodak teamed up with Nikon to release the Kodak DSC100 professional digital SLR camera based on the Nikon F3. Such a device weighed 5 kilograms.
It is worth noting that with the advent of digital technologies, the scope of photography has become more extensive.
Modern cameras, as a rule, are divided into several categories: professional, amateur and mobile. In general, they differ from each other only in the size of the matrix, optics and processing algorithms. Due to the small number of differences, the line between amateur and mobile cameras is gradually blurring.
Application photography
Back in the middle of the last century, it was difficult to imagine that clear images in newspapers and magazines would become a must. The boom in photography was especially evident with the advent of digital cameras. Yes, many would say that film cameras were better and more popular, but it was digital technology that helped save the photography industry from problems such as running out of film or overlapping frames.
Moreover, modern photography is undergoing extremely interesting changes. If earlier, for example, to get a photo in a passport, you had to stand in a long queue, take a picture and wait a few more days before printing it, now it is enough to simply take a photo of yourself on a white background with certain requirements on your phone and print the pictures on special paper.
Art photography has also made great strides forward. Previously, it was difficult to get a highly detailed shot of a mountain landscape, it was difficult to crop out unnecessary elements or make high-quality processing of a photo. Now even mobile photographers who are ready to compete with pocket digital cameras without any problems get great shots. Of course, smartphones cannot compete with full-fledged cameras, such as Canon 5D, but this is a topic for a separate conversation.
DSLR for Beginner 2.0- for connoisseurs of NIKON.
My first MIRROR- for connoisseurs of CANON.
So, dear reader, you now know a little more about the history of photography. I hope you find this material helpful. If so, why not subscribe to the blog update and tell your friends about it? Moreover, a lot of interesting materials are waiting for you, which will allow you to become more competent in matters of photography. Good luck and thank you for your attention.
Sincerely yours, Timur Mustaev.
The photo(photo - light, graph - draw, write - Greek) - drawing with light, light painting - was not immediately discovered and not by one person. The work of scientists of many generations from different countries of the world is invested in this invention. People have long sought to find a way to obtain images that would not require a long and tedious work of the artist. Some prerequisites for this existed already in distant times. 1978 marked the 160th anniversary of Joseph Nicephore Niepce's heliographic photograph "View from the workshop window, 1826". In the homeland of the inventor, in the French town of Varenna, celebrations were held in his honor, lectures on the history of photography were given, and retrospective photo exhibitions were organized.
Niepce was the first in the world to fix the "sun pattern". He focused on using the properties of asphalt, a thin layer of which hardens in illuminated places. In unsecured and unlit areas, the asphalt was washed out with lavender oil and kerosene. In 1826. Niepce, with the help of a camera obscura, obtained a view from the window of his workshop on a metal plate covered with a thin layer of asphalt. He called the picture - heliography (solar drawing). The exposition lasted eight hours. The image was of very poor quality and the terrain was barely visible. But with this shot, photography began. However, Niepce, Daguerre and Talbot are considered the inventors of photography. But which of them, when, on what day did it dawn on one of the wonders of the century? Why is this story so confusing? Let's figure it out. In the "Book of Technical and Industrial Production", published in St. Petersburg in 1860, about the photography that burst into life, it was written: “If a few decades ago the so-called“ educated ”person were told that they would soon find a means to arrange a mirror in such a way that the image once reflected by him would forever remain on it, he would take these words for extravagance ...” Yes, photography has rapidly and firmly entered the consciousness of a person, into his activities and everyday life, in terms of meaning this discovery is usually compared with the discovery of book printing, it is called "second sight", "living memory of history." However, we must disappoint our readers: photography, like some other great inventions of the 19th century, was not immediately discovered and by more than one person. The work of scientists of many generations from various countries has been invested in its creation. For a long time, people have known the property of a dark room (or camera obscura) to reproduce light patterns of the outside world.
Aristotle wrote about this. The time has come when these drawings began to be outlined with a pencil. With the help of camera obscura in Russia, for example, in the 18th century, views of St. Petersburg, Peterhof, Kronstadt were documented. That was “photography before photography”: the work of the draftsman was extremely simplified. But daring people tirelessly thought about how to completely mechanize the drawing process, learn not only to focus an optical drawing on a plane in order to draw "by hand", but also to securely fix it in a chemical way. Science provided such an opportunity in the first third of the last century. In 1818, the Russian scientist H. Grothus pointed out the connection between photochemical transformation in substances and the absorption of light. Soon the same feature was established by the English scientist D. Herschel and the American chemist D. Draper. This is how the basic law of photochemistry was discovered. This gave impetus to targeted searches for fixing the light image. In many countries, versions were born about their inventors of photography. It is no coincidence that the French optician Charles Chevalier, who manufactured and sold pinhole cameras, said that even before N. Niepce, a poorly dressed foreigner was looking at his products, claiming that he knew a way to fix an optical drawing, but did not have the means to buy a camera. To prove his words, he allegedly showed C. Chevalier images on paper, created with the help of light, and left a bottle of brown light-sensitive liquid. The Chevalier regretted that, through frivolity, he had not written down the stranger's name and address. Experiments with liquid did not give him positive results. And the stranger never showed up at his counter again. Today this story sounds like a beautiful legend. The same legend is heard about N. Niepce himself, who allegedly received fixed light drawings in 1824 and even in 1822, since there is no material evidence of this either.
And yet it was N. Niepce who received the first photograph in the world. A technically imperfect view of the rooftops of a neighboring house, imprinted on an asphalt plate, is in front of you. He is a document confirming that the possibility of "mechanical drawing" with the help of the sun was proved in 1826. They will object to us: but why then the date of birth of light painting is considered to be 1839? And why is it that historians recognize not only N. Niepce as the author of the invention, but also L. Daguerre and F. Talbot, whose first photographs appeared much later? Of course, the year of the invention of light painting was chosen conditionally, but there are reasons for this. First, N. Niepce's heliographic method was imperfect and unsuitable for practical photography due to the exposure time of 8 hours. Secondly, N. Niepce did not publish his method during his lifetime, and he died in 1833. Only L. Daguerre knew about N. Niepce's method, with whom he entered into a contractual relationship to improve the photo process and gave an obligation to keep the results of the experiments in secret. Before the publication of the principles of daguerreotype (1839), compatriots did not have the slightest idea of the photographic activity of N. Niepce. And after that the name of N. Niepce was for a long time in the shadow of L. Daguerre's fame. The solemn consolidation of the discovery of heliography for N. Niepce was made only ... in 1933, when the 100th anniversary of the death of the inventor was celebrated. This is now confirmed by the inscription on the monument that was installed on the grave of N. Niepce in Varenna. As you can see 1839 year it was no coincidence that it became the official date for the opening of photography. This year the following events took place: in France on January 7, Secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences Dominique-François Arago reported to the scientific meeting information about "the perfect method of fixing a light image in a camera obscura, invented by the artist L. Daguerre"; On August 14, L. Daguerre received a patent for his invention; On August 20, he published a detailed practical guide to the use of daguerreotype; in England on January 25, 1839, at the Royal Institution in London, at the suggestion of physicist M. Faraday, the first paper photograph of F. Talbot, obtained from a paper negative, was demonstrated; On January 31st, the talbotyping method was announced. Guidelines for daguerreotype and talbotypy quickly spread in Europe and the United States. The year 1839 immediately made photography an international asset. That is why you can read in all encyclopedic dictionaries: the year of the invention of photography - 1839, the inventors: the French N. Niepce, L. Daguerre and the Englishman F. Talbot. We have already shown you the photograph of Niepce, it remains to show you the first photographs of Talbot and Daguerre.
Snapshot of Talbot
In 1835. Talbot also detected a sunbeam. It was a snapshot of the lattice window of his house. Talbot used paper impregnated with silver chloride. The exposure lasted for an hour. Talbot received the world's first negative. By attaching to it light-sensitive paper prepared in the same way, he made a positive print for the first time. The inventor called his method of shooting calotypy, which meant “beauty”. So he showed the possibility of duplicating images and connected the future of photography with the world of beauty.
Snapshot of Daguerre
Simultaneously with Niepce, the famous French artist Daguerre, the author of the famous Parisian diorama, worked on the method of fixing the image in the camera obscura. Working on light paintings gave him the idea to fix the image. From the optician Charles Chevalier, who later created the lens for the daguerreotype camera, he learned that Niepce had received the first encouraging results. Daguerre entered into an agreement with Niepce to jointly collaborate on the invention. However, in 1833. Niepce died. Daguerre persistently continued the work he had begun in 1837. discovered a reliable way of developing and fixing a latent image on a silver plate sensed to light. For the first time in the world, Daguerre received a photograph with a relatively high image quality. He shot a rather complex still life, composed of paintings and sculptures. This photograph Daguerre later passed on to de Caye, curator of the museum in the Louvre. The author exposed the silver plate in a camera obscura for thirty minutes, and then transferred it to a dark room and held it over the vapors of heated mercury. I fixed the image with a solution of sodium chloride. In the picture, the details of the drawing are well worked out both in the highlights and in the shadows. The inventor called his method of obtaining a photographic image by his own name - daguerreotype - and passed on its description to the secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences, Dominique-François Arago. At a meeting of the Academy on January 7, 1839, Arago solemnly reported to the scientific meeting about the amazing invention of Daguerre, stating that "from now on, the ray of the sun has become an obedient draftsman of everything around." Scientists accepted the news with approval, and this day will forever go down in history as the birthday of photography.
