The Development of Photography - Part 1



Now that we got all that boring stuff out of the way, let’s talk photography and how it got started. This was a pivotal invention in the history of graphic design, because before photography the processes of making images and preparing the printing plates for reproduction was time consuming handwork.

The first concept behind capturing images via a photochemical process was already known in the 4th century B.C. and was called the Camera Obscura (Latin for “Dark Room). This was a dark room or box with a small opening lens on the side. Light rays passing through this aperture are projected onto the opposite wall to produce and upside down image of what is happening outside. Artists used this discovery as an aid to drawing for centuries. Small, portable camera obscuras were developed and available by 1665.
Not matter how miniscule this discovery was in comparison to the inventors and inventions that followed, it developed an infinite link between photography and graphic communication.

Speaking of, let’s get into the main inventors of this timeless medium. On top of the list stands Joseph Niepce with great dignity as he produced the first photographic image.  His research was initiated with the urge to find an automatic way of transferring drawings onto printing plates. As a lithographic printer he also searched for an alternative method for making plates other than drawing. In 1822 he developed the following method:

  • He coated a pewter sheet with light-sensitive asphalt, called butimen of Judea. This substance hardens when exposed to light. 
  • The drawing was oiled to make it transparent
  • He contact-printed it to the pewter with sunlight. 
  • The unexposed parts of the plate was then washed off of the pewter plate with lavender oil
  • The image was then etched with acid to make an incised copy of the original. 
This last step is similar to a step taken in lithography to prepare the stone. Thus, it’s evident that inventors learnt form each other. Niepce called his invention Heliogravure (sun engraving.)


Joseph Niepce's photo-etching of an engraving
of Cardinal Georges D'Amboise,  c. 1827.
This is the first image printed from a plate
that was created by a photochemical
action of light rather than by human hand.
The left being the original drawing and the
right being the heliogravure.

In 1826 Niepce furthered his invention and placed a prepared pewter plate into the back of his camera, pointed it out of his window and exposed the plate that way all day. This was the first picture form nature and also the first extant photograph. Niepce continued his research with light-sensitive substances, including silver-coated copper.


Niepce's first photograph from nature, 1826. It looks
out over the rear courtyard of Niepce's home.

The next big name in the history of the development of photography is Louis Jacques Daguerre. He was conducting similar research to that of Niepce and, thus, contacted him. They warmed to each other and shared research until Niepce passed away in 1833. 
Jacques continued his research and presented his perfected process to the French Academy of Science in 1839. The academy was astounded by the clarity and tremendous accuracy of Jacques’s daguerreotype prints.  The method behind his perfected process was as follow:

  • A copper plates was highly polished with silver
  • This plate was placed, silver side down, over a container of iodine crystals to sensitize it. This caused iodine vapor to combine with the silver to produce a light-sensitive iodide.
  • The plate was then placed in the camera and exposed to light passing through the lens.  This produced a latent image.
  • The exposed plate was placed over a dish of heated mercury. To make the image visible, the mercury vapors formed an alloy with the exposed silver areas.
  • The unexposed silver iodide was removed
  • Bath salt was then used to fix the image.
The bare metal appeared black where it was not exposed. These luminous and vibrant images were a base relief of mercury and silver compounds. The more these compounds were exposed to light, the more intense they appeared.  This invention brought society to realize that the path to creating pictures with machines have started and in one year alone, 500 000 daguerreotypes were made in Paris.


Louis Jacques Daguerre, Paris Boulevard, 1839. 

In the early stages of this medium all moving objects 
were not recorded because of the slow exposure that
could only record stationary objects. The man on the lower left 
street corner who stopped to have his shoes polished
along with the polisher were the first two people 
to ever be photographed.

But this process wasn’t limitless. Each plate presented a one-of-a-kind image on an unchangeable predetermined size. Reproduction was impossible. Meticulous polishing of the plate was necessary to the success of the process. But this exact polishing had the tendency to cause a glare unless the image was viewed at just the right angle. The image also had the curios habit of reversing itself or appearing as a negative.


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