Evolution Of Photography Research Paper

As told by the dictionary, photography would be defined as a process of art of producing images by the chemical action of light or of other forms of radiant energy. The art of photography lets one take a photo of anything imaginable. From the very beginning when the camera was first invented to present day, the art has advanced in every way possible. Over the course of several decades, the camera has not only advanced in technology and innovation but also changes the way people view the world. The definition of a camera is “...a light proof object with a lens that captures incoming light and directs the light and resulting image towards a film (optical camera) or the imaging device (digital camera)” (thoughtco). The first types of cameras

In 1826, a French scientists names Joseph Nicephore Niepce captured the world’s first photograph. He titles his photograph View from the Window at Le Gras, which he took at his family’s country home. His photo was a view of a courtyard and outbuildings seen from an upstairs window - by exposing a bitumen-coated plate in a camera obscura for several hours on a windowsill. (NatGeo). A little over a century later in 1948, an American inventor and physicist named Edwin Herbert Land invented instant photography. He unveiled his first instant-film camera which named the Land Camera 95. Land’s Polaroid Corporation would refine black-and-white film and cameras that were fast, cheap, and remarkably sophisticated over the next several decades. Colored film was introduced in 1963 and created the iconic SX-70 folding camera in 1972. Other film manufacturers such as Kodak and Fuji introduced their own versions of instant film in the 1970’s and ‘80’s. Polaroid was still the dominant brand but with digital photography on the rise in the 1990’s, it began to decline. Polaroid filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and in 2008 stopped making instant film. Then in 2017, the company rebranded itself as Polaroid Originals after the Impossible Project began manufacturing film using Polaroids instant-film formats. (thoughtco). George Eastman is the man known to have

Leica invented the first still camera to use a 35mm film in 1925 while another German company introduced the first single-lens reflex camera in 1949. Nikon and Canon would come to make the interchangeable lens popular and the built-in light meter commonplace. The heart of digital devices as well as the roots of digital photography came to be at Bell Labs in 1969 when the development of the first charged-couple device (CCD) came about. The CCD is the piece that converts light to an electronic signal. By the time the mid-1980’s came around, several companies were working on digital cameras. Canon was the first to show a viable prototype which demonstrated a digital camera in 1984, even though it was never manufactured and sold. The first digital camera to be sold in the U.S., the Dycam Model 1, appeared in 1990 and sold for $600. A little over a decade later in 2004, digital cameras were outselling film cameras and digital is now dominant. (thoughtco). Only having shined a little light upon photography, the timeline of the camera has progressed nicely and will continue to do so into the