Origins of Photography

The first ever photograph was taken by a French inventor named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1827. Before this, paintings and drawings were the only way to capture memories or moment of time. It took over ten years for photography to be improved upon enough so that it could replace drawing as an art form. In 1839 Louis Daguerre invented a printing process for photos which is now known as a “daguerreotype” and made photographs more popular than they had been before. The proliferation of film photography happened in 1888 when George Eastman created the Kodak #1 camera that was affordable for people who wanted to document life but couldn’t afford expensive cameras with glass plates like those used earlier on in history.

Photographic Film

Until the early 2000's, film photography was the main technique of taking photographs. Film cameras are very different from digital cameras in how they work to capture still photographs. Film cameras use film, which contains light-sensitive chemicals called "photographic emulsions." The surface of the film can be exposed and then processed to create a negative image on it. This negative image can be photographed onto another piece of film or paper to create a positive image, which is what we see as an actual photograph. Film photography was popular until around 2006 when digital cameras became more widely available and affordable for the general public. Today's antique camera enthusiasts have an interest in preserving these beautiful old pieces of history before they become lost forever!

This blog series will cover different film cameras - one camera for each letter of the alphabet - over the course of the next 26 weeks. Some will be cameras you've heard of (like the Kodak Brownie) and others will be cameras you've never seen before!

Antique Film Cameras from A to Z: