a brief history of photography

urban events in red

 

• 1826:  Nicephore Niepce from France creates the first photograph.  He took it of nature (Brown)

 

• 1839:  Janurary 7, in a speech given by Francios Arago the invention of photography was announced—Janurary 31, the first paper image was printed in to the Royal Society. (Batchen)

 

• 1839:  The first portrait photograph was taken by Robert Cornelius in Philadelphia.( History of Photography)

 

• 1840’s:  John Thomson, from Scotland, could be considered the first urban/street photographer.  He made the transition of portrait photography to capturing photos of everyday life. (Westerbeck)

 

• 1861:  The first color image was developed in London by James Clerk Maxwell.  The three colors were: red, blue and green (Stern)

 

• 1872-1877:  The first fast shutter camera was invented by Eadweard Muybridge to be the first to take a picture of objects while in motion.  The object was racehorses as Leland Stanford was trying to prove that all four hooves of the horse leave the ground when racing. (Horses in Motion)

 

• 1877:  The picture book of urban/street photography was published, entitled “Street life in London” by John Thomson. (Kim)

 

• 1891:  The company Kodak invented the first camera that did not need to be reloaded in a dark room but could be done in the light which earned it the name “daylight-loading camera”. (Milestones)

 

• 1930:  The breakthrough of flash photography was discovered and developed. (Press)

 

• 1950’s:  Photographer Robert Frank breaks the mainstream photography in New York seen in Life and Time magazine.  Instead he focused on capturing “the moment” of life in NYC. (O’Hagan)

 

• 1963: Photography reached a new level of simplicity with the invention of the Instamatic camera by Kodak—the first point-and-shoot camera. (Family Photography)

 

• 1986:  The first ever disposable camera was invented by Fuiji. (Linder)

 

• 2004: Nikon developed the first digital camera. (Linder)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Batchen, G. (2000). Each wild idea writing, photography, history. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

 

Brown, B. (2013, March 3). The First Photograph. Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://cool.conservation-us.org/byorg/abbey/an/an26/an26-3/an26-307.html

 

Family Photography. (2006). In Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography, 3-Volume (Vol. 1, p. 474). New York: Routledge.

 

History of Photography. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eastman/timeline/index_3.html

 

Horses in Motion. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/windows/southeast/eadweard_muybridge.html

 

Kim, E. (2013, March 4). The History of Street Photography: Timeless Insights You Can Learn. Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://erickimphotography.com/

 

Linder, M. (n.d.). History of Photography Timeline. Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://www.marcine.com/photohistorytimeline.html

 

Milestones. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://www.kodak.com

 

O'Hagan, Sean (7 November 2014). "Robert Frank at 90: the photographer who revealed America won't look back". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 December 2014.

 

Press, W. (n.d.). History of Photography. Retrieved November 11, 2015, from http://oldphotosinfo.com/

 

Stern, K. (2004). Apendix. In Photo 1. Delmar Cengage.

 

Westerbeck, Colin. Bystander: A History of Street Photography. 1st ed. Little, Brown and Company, 1994.