Photography Timeline

AS and A Level Art & Design

Photography Timeline

(Including some important historical events)

We owe the name ‘Photography’ to Sir John

Hershel, who first used the term in 1839, the

year the photographic process became public.

The word is derived from the Greek words for

light and writing.

Early

Days

It may seem strange but cameras existed long

before photography. As far back as the 5th

Century BC, an image of the outside scene was

formed by sunlight through a small hole into a

darkened room. This is known as a Camera

Obscura which means ‘Darkened Room’.

1500-

1800

The Camera Obscura was improved by utilising

a simple lens at one end and a ground-glass

screen at the other, upon which an image is

projected. This is used as an aid to drawing and

painting by artists including Vermeer,

Caravaggio and Canaletto.

1666

Isaac Newton demonstrated that light is the

source of colour. He used a prism to split

sunlight into its constituent colours and another

to recombine them to make white light.

1725

The German physicist Johann Heinrich Schulze

discovers the basic principle of photography by

noting that silver salts darken when exposed to

light.

1807-

1808

Beethoven composes

his Fifth Symphony.

1802

Humphrey Davy reports to colleagues at a

scientific society on the results of Thomas

Wedgewood’s experiments with silhouettes of

leaves and other objects placed on paper

sensitized with silver nitrate. Unfortunately,

neither Wedgewood nor Davy is able to ‘fix’ the

results permanently.

1812

Napoleon invades

Russia in June. His

armies enter Moscow

but are forced to

retreat in November

as winter sets in.

1831-

1832

Michael Faraday

conducts a series of

experiments which

demonstrate the

principle of

electromagnetic

induction.

1826

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce creates a permanent

image using a camera obscura and white

bitumen, it took 8 hours to expose.

1839

Lois Daguerre’s invention, which was bought by

the French government, produced a one-of-a-

kind picture on metal, the DAGUERREOTYPE.

1839

The term Photography is patented.

1833

The American Anti-

Slavery Society is

founded in Boston

dedicated to abolition

throughout the United

States. The Slavery

Abolition Act is

passed in Britain,

outlawing slavery

throughout the British

Colonies.

1841

The name calotype came from the Greek ‘kalos’,

meaning beautiful. Henry Fox Talbot creates

permanent (negative) images using paper

soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt

solution, the CALOTYPE. He then creates

positive images by contact printing onto another

sheet of paper. The process introduced two

important advances – the use of the developer

and the exploitation of the latent image.

1848

The revolution of

February 1848

deposes King Louis-

Philippe and

establishes the

second French

Republic, with Louis-

Napoleon Bonaparte

elected as president.

Karl Marx and

Frederich Engels

publish the

communist manifesto,

a critique of the

capitalist system.

1843-

1848

The painter David Octavius Hill forms a

partnership with the photographer Robert

Adamson to produce calotype portraits of

Edinburgh notables. From their studio they

make many of the finest portraits of the 1840s.

1844-

1846

The Pencil of Nature, the first commercially

produced, photographically illustrated book, is

published in six parts over two years. Consisting

of twenty-four calotypes by Henry Fox Talbot.

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