Short history of photography

Photography (greek "photos" - light; "graphein" - to draw") or the principle to obtain photos, is known since Antiquity. Our ancestors knew very well that long exposure to sunlight darken skin and lighten colors on textiles.

This is in fact the principle that stand at the basis of photography.

Since acient times people observed that, when sunlight enters through a small hole in a dark room, it leaves on the flat surface a draw of the objects outside.

Aristotel is the firs to mention the properties of the dark room 400 years BC.

The first Photography

As usualy happends, photography too apeared accidentaly.

In 1725, Johan Heinrich Schulze, trying to prepare a fosforescent chemical, accidentaly mixed chalk with nitric acid that contained dissolved silver and observed the next phenomenon:

- when the sunlight fall on the light mix, it became darker, and if protected by sunlight it mentained it's color.

Despite this discovery, another 100 years have passed until a steady photography was obtained.

The first photography in history is called "View from window" and was obtained in 1826 by Joseph Nicephore Niepce. The photography needed 8 hours of exposure. It was made on a tin plate covered with a thin layer of asphalt.

After Niepce, in 1839 the french Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre introduced the term "daguerreotip", spreading how to obtain photos on a copper plate covered with silver.

At the same time, Fox Talbot worked on a method to obtain photos on a paper treated with chemicals.

Both Daguerre and Talbot used imperfect photographic materials, and because of this the exposure took between 30-60 minutes, making portrets impossible.

While materials used today are very different from those used back then (the asphalt used by Niepce is replaced today by digital sensors), the principle used is the same observed by Aristotel 2000 years ago.