The Advancement of Photography

People see pictures every day and everywhere. They are in the newspapers, on wall as art, on billboards too. Photographs didn’t exist not long ago but when they were developed they took the world by storm. Nearly 200 years later people have cameras in their phones and can print pictures wirelessly straight from our phones or cameras. The invention of photography was an advancement that not only changed humanities but also changed the world as it evolved.

Photography was developed towards the end of Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the Victorian Era. It’s no surprise that photography was also developed during the industrial revolution seeing that many developments were made during that time period. The 19th Century was also known as the Romantic Era, where people revolted against the political and social regularity’s during the Age of Enlightenment (Rosenblum, 2010).This Era took a steep turn into realism through the art of photography, since it brought a realistic sense of whatever it captured rather than viewing a painting through an artist’s perceptions and interpretations.

Photography was not invented by one person alone but by many. There are several advancements that lead to the first photograph and they started far back in history when the Greek philosophers were still alive (Goldberg, 1991). These philosophers described a theory that showed the principles of the camera. Another discovery made in 1727 by Johann Heinrich Schulze showed that silver nitrate darkened when it’s exposed to light (Rosenblum, 2010). Together these two advancements lead to the first photographic image in 1814 by Joseph Niepce, however the photograph faded in hours and could not be preserved. Twenty three years Louis Daguerre took a photog...

... middle of paper ...

...ore it was brought to the public. Later in 1935 Kodak’s research team invented Kodachrome Film which was the first color film available to the public. Then Kodak came out with Kodacolor negatives-positive film that became the most famous and most popular film used for amateur photography at the time (Photography, 1990).

Now in the 21st century photographs are very easy to obtain since we all have phones with cameras, digital cameras, water proof cameras, webcams, etc. Photography is everywhere from the billboards in Time Square to the picture in homes, photography truly has changed the world (Photography, 2010).

Works Cited

Goldberg, Vicki. (1991). In The Power of Photography: How Photographs Change Our Lives.

Rosenblum, Naomi. (2010). History of Photography.

Photography. (2005). In Chambers Dictionary of World History.

Photography. (2010). In Aesthetics A-Z.