Early Photographic Processes

Pre-History

up to 1839

300 BC

Aristotle discovered the principle of the camera obscura as early as 300 BC.

15th century

The earliest recorded use of a camera obscura is from the writings of Leonardo da Vince. 

A camera obscura (Latin: dark room) was a room with all light blocked out except fro that passing into the room from a small hole on one wall.  This light projected an upside-down image on the opposite wall of the room.  The image was used   by artists.

1790s
and
1800s

The creation of an image by:

- camera obscura (as used later in cameras) and
- camera lucida (as used by artists)

was familiar; but it was the permanent fixing of this image that became the challenge to photographers

From the 1790s onwards, experiments were carried out by:

- Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805) in England

- Sir Humphry Davy in England.

In 1802, Wedgwood, an amateur scientist, presented a Paper on his experiments in photography to the Royal Institution.

Thomas Wedgewood was the youngest son of the potter Josiah Wedgewood.  He hoped to be able to mass-produce photographic images on porcelain for his business. 

He sponged nitrate of silver onto paper, wood and leather, which he exposed to light through an image of a painting on glass. 

He was able to produce an images, with particular success on leather, though he did not know why the leather worked so well.  In fact it was because the leather contained tannic acid, which had properties similar to gallic acid, used in later years in photography.

However  Wedgewood was unable to fix his images to make them permanent.

He concluded that  there was no future in photography.

Davy experimented with images formed by a solar microscope but, like Wedgewood, found no way to retain the image when it continued to be exposed to light, so he also concluded that there was no future in photography.

Davy wrote an account of experiments (by both himself and Davy) in Philosophical Transactions in 1802.

As far as I know, none of these early workers had any direct links with Edinburgh.

1814-1826

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce experimented with  photography, producing images on polished metal plates.  He named it heliography (sundrawing).    He had difficulty fixing his image.

In 1819, Sir John Herschel discovered a means of fixing photographs, using hyposulfite of soda.

As far as I know, none of these early workers had any direct links with Edinburgh, so I'll not give details of their work on this web site.

1829-1838

From 1829, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, working in partnership with  Niépce, experimented with photography.

From 1833 onwards, William Henry Fox Talbot began his experiments with photography, prompted by his frustration when attempting to draw the scenes he saw before him, using the camera lucida.

1839

1839 has become widely accepted as the beginning of photography as we know it.  This was the year that:

-  Talbot  announced his Photogenic  Drawing and

-  Daguerre announced Daguerreotype process.

For further reading on the  early experiments by these workers I recommend the book:  The Origins of Photography by Helmut Gernsheim.

Some of the details above have ben taken from the 8th edition of the book: Photogenic Manipulation by RJ Bingham, published in 1852.