Illustration of the camera obscura principle from James Ayscough's A short account of the eye and nature of vision (1755 fourth edition)
Ancient Roots & Early Experiments (4th century BCE – 1830s)
4th–5th century BCE: Chinese and Greek philosophers (Mozi, Aristotle) describe the camera obscura — a dark room with a pinhole that projects an inverted image.
1727: Johann Heinrich Schulze discovers that silver salts darken when exposed to light — the chemical foundation of photography.
1826–1827: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce creates the first permanent photograph, “View from the Window at Le Gras,” on a pewter plate coated with bitumen. Exposure time: 8 hours.
Birth of Practical Photography (1839–1880s)
Daguerreotype portrait of a daguerreotypist displaying daguerreotypes and cases pictured in an airtight frame, 1845
1839: Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre announces the daguerreotype in Paris. Sharp, unique images on silver-plated copper. Exposure drops to minutes. Becomes a global sensation.
1839 (same year): William Henry Fox Talbot in England invents the calotype — paper negatives that allow multiple prints. The ancestor of modern film negatives.
1851: Frederick Scott Archer introduces the wet collodion process — sharper than calotypes, cheaper than daguerreotypes, but plates had to be exposed and developed while still wet.
1871: Richard Leach Maddox develops the dry gelatine plate — photographers can finally prepare plates in advance and develop them later.
"The illiterate of the future... will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph," said Walter Benjamin.
Photography for the Masses (1888–2000)
1888: George Eastman launches the Kodak camera with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.” Roll film and mail-in processing democratize photography.
1900: The Brownie camera costs $1 — children and families start taking snapshots.
1935–1936: Kodak introduces Kodachrome, the first successful color slide film.
1948: Edwin Land demonstrates the Polaroid instant camera — pictures develop in 60 seconds.
1975: Steve Sasson at Kodak invents the first digital camera (0.01 megapixels, recorded to cassette tape). Kodak executives largely ignore its potential.
1990: Adobe Photoshop 1.0 is released — the digital darkroom arrives.Archive Alley Opens “Tape-to-Stream” Lab for Creators
A salted paper print taken by Roger Fenton of his assistant and photographic wagon, 1855
The Digital & Mobile Revolution (2000–today)
2000: Sharp J-SH04, the first camera phone (0.11 MP), launched in Japan.
2007: The iPhone (2 MP camera) mainstreams mobile photography worldwide.
2010s: Mirrorless cameras overtake DSLRs; computational photography (HDR, Night Mode, Portrait Mode) transforms smartphone images.
2020s: AI-driven tools (content-aware fill, generative fill, sky replacement) blur the line between photography and digital art. Billions of photos are now taken every day — more in two hours than in the entire 19th century.
Fun Milestone Numbers
1839: A few dozen photographs existed on Earth.
2025: Over 2 trillion photos will be taken this year alone — 95% on smartphones.
Photography went from an 8-hour scientific curiosity to an instantaneous global language in less than 200 years. Next time you snap a selfie, you’re standing on the shoulders of Niépce, Daguerre, Talbot, Eastman… and a few billion fellow shutterbugs.
Note: Cover photo prompt: A studio-lit product photograph of a long horizontal display table arranged like a museum exhibit, showcasing the evolution of cameras through time. Starting from left to right: a wooden Camera Obscura (1021), a small portable wooden camera (1685), the first photograph plate (1826), Kodak’s early box camera (1888), WWII-era field photography sketch (1939), a vintage Polaroid instant camera (1948), a 1991 professional digital DSLR, and a 2000s-era flip-phone camera. Each item is placed with equal spacing, labeled with small metallic nameplates. Soft white overhead lighting casts subtle shadows. Background is seamless matte beige. Shot using full-frame DSLR, 50mm prime lens, f/2.8, ISO 200, shutter 1/160. Editorial-style product photography, crisp focus, soft diffusion.