Photography

Humphry Davy publishes the first account of the experiments by Thomas Wedgwood in photography in June 1802 in the Journal of the Royal Institution, in an article titled "An Account of a method of copying Painting upon Glass and making profiles, by the agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver. Invented by T. Wedgwood, Esq. with Observations by H. Davy."

Since a fixative for the image has not yet been developed, the early photographs quickly fade.

Nicéphore Niepce produces a permanent photograph in 1820.

Louis J. M. Daguerre, trained as a painter, has won fame in Paris for his elaborate stage designs, and has created the Diorama, a theater for the display of large panoramic views whose impressive illusions are heightened by dramatic changes in lighting.

born in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Val-d'Oise, France, he was apprenticed in architecture, theater design, and panoramic painting to Pierre Prévost, the first French panorama painter.

Exceedingly adept at his skill of theatrical illusion, he had become a celebrated designer for the theater, and later came to invent the diorama, which opens in Paris in July 1822.

Louis Daguerre begins efforts in 1824 to fix chemically the image of the camera obscura, now widely used as an aide to sketching.

Nicéphore Niépce had begun experimenting to set optical images in 1793, resulting in an impermanent camera image in 1816, marking the birth of photography.

Some of his early experiments had made images, but they faded very fast.

Letters to his sister-in-law around 1816 indicate that he found a way to fix images on paper, but not prevent them from deterioration in light.

In 1818, Niépce had become interested in the ancestor of the bicycle, a Laufmaschine invented by Karl von Drais in 1817.

He had built himself a model and called it the vélocipède (fast foot) and caused quite a sensation on the local country roads.

Niépce improves his machine with an adjustable saddle (it is today exhibited at the Niépce Museum.

In a letter to his brother, Nicéphore contemplates motorizing his machine.

Niépce had taken what is believed to be the world’s first photogravure etching, in 1822, of an engraving of Pope Pius VII, but the original was later destroyed when he attempted to duplicate it.

The earliest surviving photogravure etchings by Niépce are of a 17th century engraving of a man with a horse and of an engraving of a woman with a spinning wheel.

Niépce does not have a steady enough hand to trace the inverted images created by the camera obscura, as is popular in his day, so he has sought a way to capture an image permanently.

He has experimented with lithography, which had led him in his attempt to take a photograph using a camera obscura.

Niépce has also experimented with silver chloride, which darkens when exposed to light, but eventually looked to bitumen, which he uses in his first successful attempt at capturing nature photographically.

He dissolves bitumen in lavender oil, a solvent often used in varnishes, and coats the sheet of pewter with this light-capturing mixture.

He places the sheet inside a camera obscura to capture the picture, and eight hours later removes it and washes it with lavender oil to remove the unexposed bitumen.

Niépce calls his process heliography, which literally means "sun writing".

Nevertheless, semiologist Roland Barthes, in a Spanish edition of his book "La chambre claire", "La cámara lúcida" (Paidós, Barcelona,1989) shows a picture from 1822, "Table ready", a foggy photo of a table set to be used for a meal.

Nicéphore Niépce reveals the existence of his invention, "heliography", where an image can be reproduced on to a pewter plate and then reprinted, in a package sent to Louis Daguerre on June 4, 1827.

In 1829, the two will begin a partnership, and Daguerre will perfect Niépce's photographic process to reproduce images more quickly.

The earliest known surviving example of a successful permanent photograph is created by Nicéphore Niépce in June 1826 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, when he captures the roof and surrounding countryside of his estate, Le Gras, as seen from an upstairs window.

Niépce creates the photo with a camera obscura focused onto a 20 × 25 cm (7.9 × 9.8 in) pewter plate coated with bitumen of Judea, a mixture similar to asphalt.

The bitumen mixture hardens when exposed to the light, while the unexposed portions remains water soluble and can be washed away with a mixture of oil of lavender and white petroleum.

French artist and chemist Louis Daguerre, having experimented on making pictures from 1824, showing dioramas around France, England and Scotland, in 1829 joins French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, said to have first produced long lasting images in 1824, in the quest to perfect the photographic process.

Nicéphore Niépce dies suddenly in 1833.

The main reason for the four-year "partnership,” as far as Louis Daguerre was concerned, had been connected to his already famous dioramas.

Niépce had been a printer and his process had been based on a faster way to produce printing plates.

Daguerre had thought that the process developed by Niépce could help speed up his diorama creation.

He continues their work on photography.

Henry Fox Talbot exposes the world's first known photographic negatives, at Lacock Abbey in England, in August 1835.

Talbot has invented a process for creating reasonably light-fast and permanent photographs that will be the first made available to the public; however, his is neither the first such process invented nor the first one publicly announced