Early Photography

Before 1839

Until recently (early 2000s) 1839 has generally been regarded as the year that photography, as we know it, commenced.

However, there had been earlier experiments by earlier pioneers, two of whom I mention below.

1.

Thomas Wedgewood

Background

Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805) from Staffordshire, England, was born into a line of pottery manufacturers.  He was son of the potter, Joseph Wedgwood.

He had an interest in education, and attempted to create permanent pictures by the use of light, as he thought these could become a useful educational tool.

Photographic Experiments

In the early-1790s, Thomas Wedgwood experimented with silver nitrate in his attempts to create permanent pictures on various materials, including ceramic, glass, paper and white leather.

He had some success, particularly on the white leather, but to preserve the image, it had to be kept in a dark room, as on exposure to light, the image would soon disappear.

Publication

Chemist, Humphry Davy (1778-1829) wrote up Wedgewood's experiments in a paper published by the Royal Institution in London in 1802, titled:

"An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of Making Profiles, by the Agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver.

Invented by T Wedgwood, Esq."

David Brewster (who went on to become the President of the Photographic Society of Scotland, based in Edinburgh in 1856) published  an account of this paper in the Edinburgh Magazine in December 1802.

Permanent Images?

In his paper, commenting on Wedgewood process, Humphry Davy wrote:

"Immediately after being taken, [the picture] must be kept in some obscure place. It may indeed be examined in the shade, but in this case the exposure should be only for a few minutes; by the light of candles and lamps, as commonly employed, it is not sensibly affected."

However, some historians, including Dr Larry J Schaaf, have suggested that Wedgwood may in fact have been successful in 'fixing' some of his images so that they would not fade.  If so, this would give him a far more prominent status in the history of photography.

Most of the details above have been taken from the Wikipedia page for Thomas Wedgwood

2.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

Background

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) was son of a wealthy lawyer.  He served in the French army under Napoleon, then became the Administrator of the district of Nice.  In 1795, he resigned this post in order to pursue scientific research with his brother Claude.

The brothers invented, built and developed what was probably the world's first internal combustion engine.  This was installed on a boat that ran on the river Saône.  They patented the engine in 1807.

In 1818, Niépce also took an interest in the bicycle.  He built himself a model and called it the vélocipède (fast foot).

Incidentally, one of the lectures given to Edinburgh Photographic Society about fifty years later was titled:

"The Velocipede as an Adjunct to Landscape Photography".

Early Photographic Experiments

Niépce experimented with 'heliographic engraving' (photographic etching) making his first print in1822.  The earliest of his prints to survive  dates from 1825.  It is a copy of a C17 Flemish engraving.  The image is ink on paper, made from a metal plate on which the image was created by sunlight.

The earliest surviving photograph of a scene from nature is his

"View from  the window at Le Gras",

an 8-hour exposure in a camera obscura, dating from 1826.

After experimenting with silver chloride, Niépce decided to use pewter coated with bitumen disolved in lavender oil for this exposure.  Following the exposure, the remaining unexposed bitumen was washed off with lavender oil.

Further Experiments

Niépce continued experimenting to improve his process, corroborating with Daguerre  from 1829.  Following Niépce's death in 1833, Daguerre went on to discover a quite different process, using a copper sheet coated with silver then silver halide and sensitised with iodine, exposed then developed in mercury vapour.  

He named it the Daguerreotype and sold it to the French Government in 1839.  The French Government paid Daguerre a pension of 6,000 Franks pa, and also paid 4,000 Franks pa to the estate of Niépce in recognition of his work.

The details above have been taken from the Wikipedia page for Thomas Wedgwood

1839

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