History of Photography
By Jessie Hall
10 April 2008
"Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw") the word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. It is a method of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a sensitive material.
Fast forward a couple of centuries.
Anyone familiar with photography knows, 35mm film has been the standard for many, many years. But there several drawbacks to using 35mm film. First of all, the cost of a good 35mm SLR film camera in the early days was quite expensive up until the time when "point and shoot" style film cameras came around. Now with the point and shoot camera bodies now being affordable the next costly element of film photography was realized, the cost of film.
If you notice, nearly all of the old photos that are in your family album are black and white. The reason for this is the simple fact that years ago, color film was very expensive and the chemicals used to develop the film were even more expensive. So expensive in fact that even a professional photographer had a difficult time justifying the cost of color film.
In the 40's, the buzz word for consumer photographers was Polaroid. In 1948 Edwin Land, founder of the Polaroid Company, sold his first "instant" camera. Land used the principle of diffusion transfer to reproduce the image recorded by the camera's lens directly onto a photosensitive surface---which now functioned as both film and photo.
If you dig through all of those old family photo albums and boxes of old photographs you have tucked away in you closet, I am sure you will find at least one image that was taken with one of these first instant cameras.
The coming of the digital age.
It may surprise you to know that the history of digital photography dates back the 50's. Yes, it's the time of the baby boomers, the cold war and the space race, events that do actually have significance in the history of digital photography.
In 1952 the first video tape recorders were used to record TV programs. Before this, most television was either live, or was a broadcast movie.
With video tape an image was recorded, not as an image in itself, but as a coded signal on tape. Later the coded tape was run through a decoding machine (i.e. a video tape player) and the machine converted the coded signal back into pictures.
This is an important step in the history of digital photography. Video differed from the films that had gone before because film records an actual image, frame by frame.
In 1957 the Russians launched Sputnik. You may be thinking; what in the world does the Sputnik have to do with photography? Read on.
Well, very early on politicians on both sides of the cold war realized that if a satellite could be launched into space it could carry a camera. With a camera on board it could spy on the enemy.
The problem of course was this – there are no film developers in space! Taking pictures on film meant you had to bring the film back to Earth somehow. And if it didn't make it back to Earth – there would be no pictures at all!
Digital cameras were the answer. They could record photographs and 'beam' the digital signal back to Earth. The signal was then decoded and the image could be viewed. This defining moment in the space race was also a major development in the history of digital photography.
In 1973, an engineer, Steven Sasson, working for Kodak used a CCD to produce a digital image. The camera that was used weighed in at a hefty 8 pounds, and it only had 0.1 megapixels. This first digital camera was a major step in the direction of consumer grade digital cameras.
Present day.
Digital cameras have come a long way since those early days. The current cameras still use the basic technology as their predecessors, just a little more refined. In fact, Nikon as well as many others still use CCD image sensors in their digital camera bodies.
Digital cameras are everywhere. At any one given time throughout the day you unknowingly are within just feet of a digital camera. Present day cameras come in all shapes and sizes, from the SLR professional grade camera bodies that we can easily recognize to that cell phone you most likely have attached to your hip at this very moment.
The world is obsessed with the printed image. Whether it is paparazzi blinding celebrities exiting a popular night spot or just snap shots of the kids, we thrive on imagery. Just think how boring the daily newspaper or a magazine would be with out photos to accompany the articles and stories printed on their pages.
There is an old proverb that is used frequently that sums up photography as a whole, digital or film.
A picture is worth a thousand words!
