Timeline Description: The photograph has been a thing of great value since its invention almost two hundred years ago. Today, photos are snapped with cameras, phones, and tablets; they are printed, posted, and saved with care.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1826 | The first permanent photo The idea of photography had been brewing for a few years, and a Frenchman named Nicephore Niepce used the photosensitivity of bitumen to produce the first permanent photo. He photographed a view of nature. |
| 1829 | A partnership Niepce joined forces with a man named Jacques Louis Mande Dauguerre. Together, they had a single goal—perfecting the photograph. |
| 1839 | The first practical process After ten years, Dauguerre produced the first practical photographic process. It was named the daguerreotype, and it used mirror-like images on a copper plate, and it was developed with mercury. |
| 1841 | A paper process An Englishman named William Talbot, who had been working on photography for a few years, developed a new process using paper instead of copper plates. He developed the images using gallic acid. |
| 1850 | New developments Others wanted to develop even better, perhaps faster, ways of using photography. Frederick Archer tried using sticky, salty glass; Louis-Dsire Blanquart-Evrard tried using egg whites. |
| 1851 | The process evolves Because many were trying to improve the process, the process continued to change. The ambrotype was introduced and used for the next several years; it eventually used a wet collodion negative and a paper positive. |
| 1860 | Photographing the president An American photographer named Matthew Brady was the first to photograph an American president. He took a picture of Abraham Lincoln visiting New York. |
| 1873 | Celluloid film John Wesley Hyatt had been working on a new invention for several years. He finally patented it in 1873, and it was the celluloid film. |
| 1877 | Pictures in motion Eadweard Muybridge developed a shutter for his camera. This allowed him to photograph images in motion; up to that point the subject of a picture had to be still for long periods of time. |
| 1887 | Kodak is trademarked George Eastman had been in the camera business for several years before he developed Kodak. He trademarked the brand, and it quickly caught on. |
| 1895 | The X-ray A German named Wilhelm Roentgen invented a type of photograph that would revolutionize the medical world. He named it the x-ray. |
| 1907 | The first color camera Up until this point, photographs were in black and white. Auguste and Louis Lumiere introduced the Autochrome, the first color camera available to the public. |
| 1924 | Photograph through wires Using wires, AT&T sent a photograph across a distance. This opened the doors for the picture transmission of television. |
| 1925 | New developments(1925-1963) Over the next forty years the camera evolved at a fast pace. Photocopying became possible, the zoom lens was developed, the Polaroid was released, and the point-and-shoot camera was put out by Kodak. |
| 1992 | Digital film(1992 and beyond) In 1992 Kodak introduced a revolutionary development that would change the face of photography again. Storing pictures on a CD led to digital film including digital cameras, digital picture frames, and cameras on phones and tablets. |