History of photography

Since its inception, photography has been used to capture moments in time all around the world. This wonderful technology has existed since ancient times, and has only improved in recent history, changing society in the process.

While we think of photography as a fairly modern invention, that is simply not true. In fact, there are documents on the underlying principle behind photography dating back to as early as the Fifth Century, B.C. The first recorded instance of a photographic image was found in 5th Century China. During that time, Chinese philosopher and scholar Mo-Ti described how light passing through a pinhole into a dark room created an inverted, full color image on the opposite wall. Mo-Ti the room he used to produce this phenomenon his “Collecting Place,” or “Locked Treasure Room,” referencing the fact that it collects an image, and must sealed off from light in order to function. This device will later come to be known as the “camera obscura” (latin for “dark room” due to In Greece in the 4th Century B.C., Aristotle used the same principle to view a partial solar eclipse projected onto the ground using a sieve. Later in the 10th Century, Scholar Abu Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haitham (referred to as Alhazen for brevity’s sake) fully described the underlying principles, including multiple experiments involving five lanterns outside a darkened, pinholed room. The technology used further improved in the 16th century, when a convex lens was added to improve image quality, and a mirror was used to reflect the image onto a viewing surface, reorienting it to match reality. All of these innovations were created before the United States were founded.

The camera obscura proved to be an incredible useful device, artists used the ...

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... wealthy enough to hire a professional photographer could record the many precious moments in their life. People would take pictures of events and places that they've been to, as well as portraits of their friends, family and loved ones. This lead to families of all stripes keeping photo albums in their homes to flip through and reminisce. Even before portable cameras came into vogue, photography changed the way people interact with each other. Young suitors would often attach photo portraits of themselves to their love letters, and soldiers going to war would often bring photos of their sweethearts back home. Not only that, but things such as photographs of famous celebrities became prized collectibles, with photo cards of famous people being traded around in a way not unlike the baseball cards of the 20th century. The next major innovation is digital photography.