The Boom of Photography ~

Humans are visual beings. We like pictures to help illustrate what we are reading or listening to. When photography was born, it is no wonder humans bought into the new invention. The first photographs our ancestors saw amazed them, and they marveled at the detail of the pictures captured. 

The word photography means “light” and “to write.” The earliest cameras were actually boxes that used light to project images through a small hole onto surfaces. Rather than recording an image, they were projectors of light. 

A French inventor, Niepce, made the first permanent photograph in 1825, and Louis Daguerre collaborated with him to refine the process. When Niepce died, Daguerre continued to experiment. In 1839, he developed photographic plates and discovered that an image could be made permanent by immersing it in salt. You may recognize the name Daguerre for his invention, which produced the type of photograph known as the Daguerreotype.

Society first viewed the new photographic process as threatening painting and drawing, but the interest outweighed the negativity. When our ancestors embraced photography, they liked its qualities. The demand for the new images spurred inventors to develop new and better ways to produce photographs. 

An interesting fact I found is that in the 1850 US Federal Census, 938 males over the age of fifteen were listed with a daguerreotypist occupation. 

By 1840, William Henry Fox Talbert made the first paper print, called either a talbotype or a calotype. Those prints were produced from a waxed paper negative. The images lacked sharpness and clarity, but they were the beginning of a wonderful way to capture people, places, events, and things on paper for posterity.

Ambrotypes appeared in the mid-1850s, but by 1860, the tintype method was the most popular method for owning images. Tintypes were more durable and could be carried in a pocket or mailed to loved ones.

I own three tintypes in my photograph collection. One is a small wallet-size tintype of my great-great-grandfather, Thomas Nathaniel Johnson, who lived in Kings Valley, McDonald County. Another is a large 8x10, and the last is a 3 x 4 case image of a mother and daughter. 

After paper prints were invented, card photographs became popular. The paper print was mounted onto cardboard stock. Carte de visite, cabinet cards, and stereographs are the three types of card photographs. I also have many of these in my collection. 

Early photographers' goal was to simplify the photography process. Using large cameras and heavy equipment was cumbersome. 

George Eastman considered the father of photography, ushered in the age of candid photography with the slogan, “You push the button, we do the rest.” Eastman developed the roll film camera that anybody could operate and called it the Kodak camera. 

The Kodak Company is instrumental in the age of photography. They marketed their cameras to women, and I’m glad they did. My great-grandmother owned a camera at a very young age, and snapping photos of her friends and of her life events became one of her passions. Through that passion, I have a wonderful photograph collection today.

Cameras, film, and photography have evolved into the digital wonders we enjoy today. But make no mistake; photography truly is an art form. I admire award-winning photographers, for there is nothing more breathtaking than seeing a person, animal, place, or event captured and saved to a paper print.  

In the coming posts, I will describe each type of photograph listed. Understanding the pictures you may own is necessary to identify and study them. 

I hope you enjoy collecting old photographs as much as I do, and better yet, I hope you use your camera to snap those pictures that tell your family story.