Photography Timeline
Early Days 1500-1800 1666 1725 1802 1826 1839 1839 1841 1843-1848 1844-1846 1849 1851 1855 1857 1858 1860s/70s 1861 1861-1862 1877 1880 1888 1890s 1893 1895 1902 1907 1920s 1921 1924 1925 1932 1936 1937 1947 1949 1952 1960s 1962 1966 1970s 1976 1977 1980s 1984 1988 1990s 1998 2000s 2002 2003 |
We owe the name ‘Photography’ to Sir John Hershel, who first used the term in 1839, the year the photographic process became public. The word is derived from the Greek words for light and writing.
It may seem strange but cameras existed long before photography. As far back as the 5th Century BC, an image of the outside scene was formed by sunlight through a small hole into a darkened room. This is known as a Camera Obscura which means ‘Darkened Room’. The Camera Obscura was improved by utilising a simple lens at one end and a ground-glass screen at the other, upon which an image is projected. This is used as an aid to drawing and painting by artists including Vermeer, Caravaggio and Canaletto. Isaac Newton demonstrated that light is the source of colour. He used a prism to split sunlight into its constituent colours and another to recombine them to make white light. The German physicist Johann Heinrich Schulze discovers the basic principle of photography by noting that silver salts darken when exposed to light. Humphrey Davy reports to colleagues at a scientific society on the results of Thomas Wedgewood’s experiments with silhouettes of leaves and other objects placed on paper sensitized with silver nitrate. Unfortunately, neither Wedgewood nor Davy is able to ‘fix’ the results permanently. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce creates a permanent image using a camera obscura and white bitumen, it took 8 hours to expose. Lois Daguerre’s invention, which was bought by the French government, produced a one-of-a-kind picture on metal, the DAGUERREOTYPE. The term Photography is patented. The name calotype came from the Greek ‘kalos’, meaning beautiful. Henry Fox Talbot creates permanent (negative) images using paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt solution, the CALOTYPE. He then creates positive images by contact printing onto another sheet of paper. The process introduced two important advances – the use of the developer and the exploitation of the latent image. The painter David Octavius Hill forms a partnership with the photographer Robert Adamson to produce calotype portraits of Edinburgh notables. From their studio they make many of the finest portraits of the 1840s. The Pencil of Nature, the first commercially produced, photographically illustrated book, is published in six parts over two years. Consisting of twenty-four calotypes by Henry Fox Talbot. Sir David Brewster perfects a stereoscopic viewer. When a matching pair of photographs is placed in the viewer, a three-dimensional effect is produced. What is, in effect, the world’s first open photographic exhibition is mounted at the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park. The wet-plate system is introduced by Frederick Scott Archer. Using glass as a support medium for photographic chemicals means that the negative to positive process can yield details as fine as those of the Daguerreotype. Roger Fenton, James Robertson and Jean Charles Langlois independently photographed the Crimean War, the first systematic coverage of a conflict, although technical limitations and political considerations militate against direst scenes of violence. Oscar Rejlander, a Swede living in England, successfully exhibits his image The Two Ways of Life, an allegorical composite photograph contrasting virtue and dissolution, made from thirty-two negatives. Henry Peach Robinson follows Rejlander with his Fading Away, a composite genre picture made from five negatives. He becomes a prominent advocate for a rule-based photographic ‘art’ aesthetic. The French commercial portrait photographer Nadar makes the first successful aerial photograph, from a balloon. The ‘golden age’ of 19th-century travel photography, as photographers record the world on behalf of the colonial powers. Ethnographic and topographical photographs are published as documents in scientific volumes, and sold as ‘views’ to tourists for incorporation into albums. James Clerk-Maxwell demonstrates a projected colour photographic image, using three different colour filters. This is the ‘colour separation’ method. Nadar uses artificial light ‘flash’ to photograph the Paris catacombs and sewers. American Eadweard Muybridge develops a fast shutter that aids him in making photographs of objects in motion. He publishes Animal Locomotion in 1887. On 4 March, the first newspaper photograph is reproduced in the New York Daily Graphic. The introduction of the photographic halftone plate has made photographic reproduction in books and newspapers both easier and cheaper. George Eastman brought out the first box camera ‘Kodak No.1’. Containing the new recently invented film-roll. His famous slogan is ‘You press the button, we do the rest.’ ‘Snapshot’ photography, as it is called, makes photography on of the fastest-growing pastimes for amateurs and hobbyists. The decade sees the first photographically illustrated magazines and the birth of ‘photojournalism’ – the result of smaller faster cameras and halftone printing. Thomas Edison invents 35mm film. Wilhelm Roentgen invents the x-ray photograph. Alfred Steiglitz, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Edward Steichen founded the ‘Photo Seccession’ and the influential journal ‘Camera Work’. Determined to promote the aesthetic, artistic ability of Photography. First commercial colour film, the Autochrome plates, manufactured by the Lumiere brothers in France. The Decade of modernism. Man Ray begins making photograms (‘rayographs’) by placing objects on photographic paper and exposing the shadow cast by a distant light bulb. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is given a group of photographs by Alfred Steiglitz, the first photographs to enter an American museum collection as works of art. The Leica camera is introduced. Using 35mm film, it enables photographers to work fast and in available light, transforming both photojournalism and social-documentary photography Inception of Technicolour for movies, where three black and white negatives were made in the same camera under different filters. Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston, et al, form Group f/64 dedicated to “straight photographic thought and production”. Development of Kodachrome, the first colour multi-layered colour film. Development of Exaktra, pioneering 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. Chester Carlson invents ‘electron photography’, which later comes to be known as xerography, or simply photocopying. Beaumont Newhall curates a centenary overview exhibition of photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Photography 1839-1937. The exhibition’s catalogue becomes a standard history of photography. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and David Seymour start the photographer owned Magnum picture agency. Dr. Edwin Land invented an ‘instant’ picture process, first called Polaroid Land. Later known simply as Polaroid. The International Museum of Photography is established at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Minor White, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Beaumont Newhall found the photographic journal Aperture. Edited by White it becomes one of the most influential magazines of the 1960’s and 70’s. Increasing attention is paid to photography in American colleges and museums. Advanced photographic courses are offered, and the medium is more widely recognized as an artform. The extensive photographic coverage of the Vietnam war is a powerful factor in turning the American public against the conflict. John Szarkowski succeeds Edward Steichen as Director of the Department of Photography at MoMa. He will become one of the most influential curators and writers on photography of the late 20th century. John Szarkowski’s exhibition and book The Photographer’s Eye sets the tone for his directorship at MoMA and a photographic aesthetic that encompasses art, commercial work and the snapshot. Photography becomes firmly established in the art museum and academy, and many critics begin to question its ‘aestheticization’. Despite this, galleries open to sell photographs as works of art. Encouraged by photography’s new-found respectability, more and more photographers are making photographs for themselves and the gallery wall rather than commercial clients. William Eggleston has a controversial one-man exhibition at MoMA, effectively sanctioning colour photography as a ‘serious’ medium for art photographers. Susan Sontag publishes her book On Photography, a collection of essays that challenges the modernist view which reduces the medium to an artform, rather than the broad and tricky cultural phenomenon it is. The precepts of modernism are criticized by artists in the postmodernist movement. Many artists are making photographic works, although there is a considered distinction between photographers-who make photographs- and artists-who make ‘pieces’. Canon demonstrated the first digital still camera. The introduction of digital photography; the first electronic scanners and digital cameras are launched. The computer begins to take over photography, especially at the printing stage. Many artists and photographers still use traditional cameras and film but scan the negatives into a computer and produce inkjet prints rather than traditional chemical based prints. The first consumer mega pixel digital cameras were introduced. Digital photography reaches critical mass in the market place. Many companies announce the cessation or scaling down of film and film-camera production. The first consumer camera phones were introduced. Cruel and Tender, is the first major photographic exhibition to be held at Tate Modern in London. |
1807-1808 1812 1831-1832 1833 1848 1851 1853-1856 1857-1858 1861-1865 1870-1871 1886 1887-1889 1899-1901 1903 1907 1914-1918 1922 1929 1936-1939 1939-1945 1947 1948 1956 1961 1963 1969 1980 1989 1990-1991 2001 2005 2008 |
Beethoven composes his Fifth Symphony. Napoleon invades Russia in June. His armies enter Moscow but are forced to retreat in November as winter sets in. Michael Faraday conducts a series of experiments which demonstrate the principle of electromagnetic induction. The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded in Boston dedicated to abolition throughout the United States. The Slavery Abolition Act is passed in Britain, outlawing slavery throughout the British Colonies. The revolution of February 1848 deposes King Louis-Philippe and establishes the second French Republic, with Louis- Napoleon Bonaparte elected as president. Karl Marx and Frederich Engels publish the communist manifesto, a critique of the capitalist system. Suggested by Prince Albert and inspired by the French Industrial Exposition of 1844, the Great Exhibition is a celebration of the British Empire and industry held in the 65 030m Crystal Palace. The Crimean War: fought between the allied forces of Britain and France against Imperial Russia. Casualties: 400,000 killed, wounded or died of disease. British India is shaken by the Indian mutiny, which escalates from a protest by Indian soldiers about their new cartridges to a putative war of independence. The revolt is put down savagely, but marks the end of the British East India Company’s influence in the territory and the start of direct rule by the Crown. The American Civil War: the southern states of the American Union secede to form the Confederate States of America, precipitating war with the rest of the Union. The cost: 970,000 casualties, including 620,000 military deaths. The Franco-Prussian war: after a four-month siege, Prussian forces enter Paris in early 1871. Napoleon III is deposed and retreats into exile at Chichester. Gottlieb Daimler builds and tests the first four-wheeled vehicle powered by a gas-cylinder engine. The 300m high Eiffel Tower is constructed to form the entrance arch of the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris. The Boxer Rebellion: troops from eight nations under British command crush fierce Chinese protests at European encroachment after the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95. On 17th Dec, in Kitty Hawk, the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first powered flight in a heavier-than-air machine. Pablo Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the painting heralds the ‘birth’ of modern art. The Fist World War, kills 15 million people Two of the most important literary works of the 20th century are published: James Joyce’s Ulysses and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. On 29 October, the New York Stock Exchange crashes, beginning a worldwide economic downturn- the great depression- that lasts for most of the 1930s. The Spanish Civil War, won by the right-wing nationalists of General Franco, is seen as the first battle between democracy and fascism. The Second World War: the 20th century’s deadliest and most widespread conflict. 62 million people were killed On 15th August, India becomes independent, but is split into two nations, Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. Riots cause many deaths. On 14th May, the state of Israel is declared. Elvis Presley, the ‘king of rock ‘n’ roll’, releases his first number one single Heartbreak Hotel. East German forces build a wall between East and West Berlin In May, John F. Kennedy sends 400 troops to advise South Vietnam in its civil war with communist North Vietnam. Effectively this is the start of the Vietnam war, which did not end until 1975. On 22nd November, Kennedy is assassinated while riding with his wife in a presidential motorcade in Dallas. On 20th July, Neil Armstrong, the commander of the US Apollo 11 moonflight, steps from the craft on to the surface of the moon. Woodstock music festival-‘three days of peace and love’-is held. Former Beatle John Lennon is shot dead. On 9th November, the border between East and West Berlin is opened. The Berlin wall is dismantled soon after, and in 1990 Germany is reunited after 45years. The Gulf War: Iraq invades Kuwait. A coalition force led by the US defeats Iraqi forces in Operation Desert Storm. On 11th September, terrorists under the direction of al-Qaeda make a co-ordinated attack on the United States. The Bush administration declares a ‘war on terror’. On the 7th July in London there were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks which targeted civilians using the public transport system during the morning rush hour. In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President. He was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. |