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<html> <head> <meta name="Description" content="A capsule history of photography, from the camera obscura to the digital SLR"> <LINK REL=STYLESHEET HREF="/margins-and-ads.css" TYPE="text/css"> <title> History of Photography Timeline </title> </head> <body bgcolor=white text=black> <div id="intro"> <a href="/images/pcd0800/vatican-museum-staircase-4"><img src="/images/pcd0800/vatican-museum-staircase-4.1.jpg" width="196" height="134"></a> <h1> History of Photography Timeline </h1> by <a href="http://philip.greenspun.com">Philip Greenspun</a>; revised August 2018 <div id="crumbs"><a href="/">Site Home</a> : <a href="/photography/">Photography</a> : Timeline</div> </div> <hr> <ul> <li>ancient times: Camera obscuras used to form images on walls in darkened rooms; image formation via a pinhole</li> <li>16th century: Brightness and clarity of camera obscuras improved by enlarging the hole inserting a telescope lens</li> <li>17th century: Camera obscuras in frequent use by artists and made portable in the form of sedan chairs</li> <li>1727: Professor J. Schulze mixes chalk, nitric acid, and silver in a flask; notices darkening on side of flask exposed to sunlight. Accidental creation of the first photo-sensitive compound.</li> <li>1800: Thomas Wedgwood makes "sun pictures" by placing opaque objects on leather treated with silver nitrate; resulting images deteriorated rapidly, however, if displayed under light stronger than from candles.</li> <li>1816: Nicéphore Niépce combines the camera obscura with photosensitive paper</li> <li>1826: Niépce creates a permanent image</li> <li>1834: Henry Fox Talbot creates permanent (negative) images using paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt solution. Talbot created positive images by contact printing onto another sheet of paper.</li> <li>1837: Louis Daguerre creates images on silver-plated copper, coated with silver iodide and "developed" with warmed mercury; Daguerre is awarded a state pension by the French government in exchange for publication of methods and the rights by other French citizens to use the Daguerreotype process.</li> <li>1841: Talbot patents his process under the name "calotype".</li> <li>1851: Frederick Scott Archer, a sculptor in London, improves photographic resolution by spreading a mixture of collodion (nitrated cotton dissolved in ether and alcoohol) and chemicals on sheets of glass. Wet plate collodion photography was much cheaper than daguerreotypes, the negative/positive process permitted unlimited reproductions, and the process was published but not patented.</li> <li>1853: Nadar (Felix Toumachon) opens his portrait studio in Paris</li> <li>1854: Adolphe Disderi develops carte-de-visite photography in Paris, leading to worldwide boom in portrait studios for the next decade</li> <a href="/images/pcd0787/san-galgano-19.4.jpg"><img hspace=5 vspace=5 align=right WIDTH=269 HEIGHT=268 src="/images/pcd0787/san-galgano-19.2.jpg" ALT="The ruined abbey of San Galgano, between Rome and Florence"></a> <li>1855: Beginning of stereoscopic era</li> <li>1855-57: Direct positive images on glass (ambrotypes) and metal (tintypes or ferrotypes) popular in the US.</li> <li>1861: Scottish physicist James Clerk-Maxwell demonstrates a color photography system involving three black and white photographs, each taken through a red, green, or blue filter. The photos were turned into lantern slides and projected in registration with the same color filters. This is the "color separation" method.</li> <li>1861-65: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Mathew Brady&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Mathew Brady</a> and staff (mostly staff) covers the American Civil War, exposing 7000 negatives</li> <li>1868: Ducas de Hauron publishes a book proposing a variety of methods for color photography.</li> <li>1870: Center of period in which the US Congress sent photographers out to the West. The most famous images were taken by William Jackson and Tim O'Sullivan.</li> <li>1871: Richard Leach Maddox, an English doctor, proposes the use of an emulsion of gelatin and silver bromide on a glass plate, the "dry plate" process.</li> <li>1877: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Eadweard Muybridge&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Eadweard Muybridge</a>, born in England as Edward Muggridge, settles "do a horse's four hooves ever leave the ground at once" bet among rich San Franciscans by time-sequenced photography of Leland Stanford's horse.</li> <li>1878: Dry plates being manufactured commercially.</li> <li>1880: George Eastman, age 24, sets up Eastman Dry Plate Company in Rochester, New York. First half-tone photograph appears in a daily newspaper, the <cite>New York Graphic</cite>.</li> <li>1888: First Kodak camera, containing a 20-foot roll of paper, enough for 100 2.5-inch diameter circular pictures.</li> <li>1889: Improved Kodak camera with roll of film instead of paper</li> <li>1890: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Jacob Riis&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Jacob Riis</a> publishes <cite>How the Other Half Lives</cite>, images of tenament life in New york City</li> <li>1900: Kodak Brownie box roll-film camera introduced.</li> <li>1902: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Alfred Stieglitz&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Alfred Stieglitz</a> organizes "Photo Secessionist" show in New York City</li> <li>1906: Availability of panchromatic black and white film and therefore high quality color separation color photography. J.P. Morgan finances Edward Curtis to document the traditional culture of the North American Indian.</li> <li>1907: First commercial color film, the Autochrome plates, manufactured by Lumiere brothers in France</li> <li>1909: Lewis Hine hired by US National Child Labor Committee to photograph children working mills.</li> <li>1914: Oscar Barnack, employed by German microscope manufacturer Leitz, develops camera using the modern 24x36mm frame and sprocketed 35mm movie film.</li> <li>1917: Nippon Kogaku K.K., which will eventually become Nikon, established in Tokyo.</li> <li>1921: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Man Ray&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Man Ray</a> begins making photograms ("rayographs") by placing objects on photographic paper and exposing the shadow cast by a distant light bulb; Eugegrave;ne Atget, aged 64, assigned to photograph the brothels of Paris</li> <li>1924: Leitz markets a derivative of Barnack's camera commercially as the "Leica", the first high quality 35mm camera.</li> <li>1925: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=andre kertesz&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">André Kertész</a> moves from his native Hungary to Paris, where he begins an 11-year project photographing street life</li> <li>1928: Albert Renger-Patzsch publishes <cite>The World is Beautiful</cite>, close-ups emphasizing the form of natural and man-made objects; Rollei introduces the Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex producing a 6x6 cm image on rollfilm.; Karl Blossfeldt publishes <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3888146275/pgreenspun-20"><cite>Art Forms in Nature</cite></a></li> <li>1931: Development of strobe photography by Harold ("Doc") Edgerton at MIT</li> <li>1932: Inception of Technicolor for movies, where three black and white negatives were made in the same camera under different filters; Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston, et al, form Group f/64 dedicated to "straight photographic thought and production".; Henri Cartier-Bresson buys a Leica and begins a 60-year career photographing people; On March 14, George Eastman, aged 77, writes suicide note--"My work is done. Why wait?"--and shoots himself.</li> <li>1933: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=brassai&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Brassaï</a> publishes <cite>Paris de nuit</cite></li> <li>1934: Fuji Photo Film founded. By 1938, Fuji is making cameras and lenses in addition to film.</li> <li>1935: Farm Security Administration hires Roy Stryker to run a historical section. Stryker would hire Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, et al. to photograph rural hardships over the next six years. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Roman Vishniac&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Roman Vishniac</a> begins his project of the soon-to-be-killed-by-their-neighbors Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.</li> <li>1936: Development of Kodachrome, the first color multi-layered color film; development of Exakta, pioneering 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera </li> <li>World War II:</li> <ul> <li>Development of multi-layer color negative films</li> <li>Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Carl Mydans, and W. Eugene Smith cover the war for LIFE magazine </li> </ul> <li>1947: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Henri Cartier-Bresson&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Henri Cartier-Bresson</a>, Robert Capa, and David Seymour start the photographer-owned Magnum picture agency</li> <li>1948: Hasselblad in Sweden offers its first medium-format SLR for commercial sale; Pentax in Japan introduces the automatic diaphragm; Polaroid sells instant black and white film</li> <li>1949: East German Zeiss develops the Contax S, first SLR with an unreversed image in a pentaprism viewfinder</li> <li>1955: Edward Steichen curates Family of Man exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art</li> <li>1959: Nikon F introduced.</li> <li>1960: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Garry Winogrand&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Garry Winogrand</a> begins photographing women on the streets of New York City.</li> <li>1963: First color instant film developed by Polaroid; Instamatic released by Kodak; first purpose-built underwater introduced, the Nikonos</li> <li>1970: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=William Wegman&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">William Wegman</a> begins photographing his Weimaraner, Man Ray.</li> <li>1972: 110-format cameras introduced by Kodak with a 13x17mm frame</li> <li>1973: C-41 color negative process introduced, replacing C-22</li> <li>1975: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Nicholas Nixon&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Nicholas Nixon</a> takes his first annual photograph of his wife and her sisters: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0810962004/pgreenspun-20/">"The Brown Sisters"</a>; Steve Sasson at Kodak builds the first working CCD-based digital still camera</li> <li>1976: First solo show of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0870703781/pgreenspun-20">William Eggleston's Guide</a> <li>1977: Cindy Sherman begins work on <cite>Untitled Film Stills</cite>, completed in 1980; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Jan Groover&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Jan Groover</a> begins exploring kitchen utensils</li> <li>1978: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Hiroshi Sugimoto&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Hiroshi Sugimoto</a> begins work on seascapes. <li>1980: Elsa Dorfman begins making portraits with the 20x24" Polaroid.</li> <li>1982: Sony demonstrates Mavica "still video" camera</li> <li>1983: Kodak introduces disk camera, using an 8x11mm frame (the same as in the Minox spy camera)</li> <li>1985: Minolta markets the world's first autofocus SLR system (called "Maxxum" in the US); <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0810911051/pgreenspun-20"><cite>In the American West</cite></a> by Richard Avedon</li> </li> <li>1988: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Sally Mann&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Sally Mann</a> begins publishing nude photos of her children</li> <li>1987: The popular Canon EOS system introduced, with new all-electronic lens mount</li> <li>1990: Adobe Photoshop released.</li> <li>1991: Kodak DCS-100, first digital SLR, a modified Nikon F3</li> <li>1992: Kodak introduces PhotoCD</li> <li>1993: Founding of photo.net (by me!), an early Internet online community; Sebastiao Salgado publishes <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089381525X/pgreenspun-20"><cite>Workers</cite></a>; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=Mary Ellen Mark&tag=pgreenspun-20&index=books&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">Mary Ellen Mark</a> publishes book documenting life in an Indian circus.</li> <li>1995: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871564300/pgreenspun-20"><cite>Material World</cite></a>, by Peter Menzel published.</li> <li>1997: Rob Silvers publishes <cite>Photomosaics</cite></li> <li>1999: Nikon D1 SLR, 2.74 megapixel for $6000, first ground-up DSLR design by a leading manufacturer. photo.net adds a database-backed photo-sharing library for users.</li> <li>2000: Camera phone introduced in Japan by Sharp/J-Phone</li> <li>2001: Polaroid goes bankrupt</li> <li>2002: T-Mobile Sidekick (Danger Hiptop), the first "app phone", introduced <li>2003: Four-Thirds standard for compact digital SLRs introduced with the Olympus E-1; Canon Digital Rebel introduced for less than $1000</li> <li>2004: Kodak ceases production of film cameras; Flickr photo-sharing service launches.</li> <li>2005: Canon EOS 5D, first consumer-priced full-frame digital SLR, with a 24x36mm CMOS sensor for $3000; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1933045183/pgreenspun-20"><cite>Portraits</cite></a> by Rineke Dijkstra</li> <li>2006: Konica/Minolta exists camera and film business, selling some assets to Sony. DJI founded. <li>2007: iPhone introduced; photo.net acquired by NameMedia</li> <li>2010: Sony E-mount mirrorless system introduced (NEX-5) <li>2012: Kodak goes bankrupt </li> <li>2013: Sony A7 full-frame mirrorless camera announced.</li> <li>2017: Hasselblad acquired by DJI.</li> <li>2018: Canon discontinues the EOS-1V, its final film camera. Boston Institute of Contemporary Art closes Nicholas Nixon show early due to #MeToo allegations. Photographers accused of sexual harassment or misconduct in New York Times and Boston Globe include Bruce Weber, Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier, etc.</li> </ul> <div id="endmatter"> <hr> Text and images <a href="http://philip.greenspun.com/copyright/">copyright Philip Greenspun</a>. </div> <hr> <a href="mailto:philg@mit.edu"><address>philg@mit.edu</address></a> </body> </html>