When people in the know think about the history of photography, the person who usually comes to mind is Louis Daguerre who exhibited his first pictures in early 1839.
But!
The actual creator of photography is a chap named William Talbot of Dorset, who had already been taking pictures for 5 years when Daguerre put his snaps on display. When William heard of his rivals’ exhibition, he quickly put his own on show at the Royal Institution (of Photography I presume) on this very day (in 1839, in case you weren’t paying attention)
And there was even a difference in processing, as Deguerre used copper sheets, whereas Talbot used negative/positive paper. The method was called the Calotype process and was an original idea of Talbot.
MrTheKidd
Related articles
- This date in science: Daguerreotype photography made public (earthsky.org)
- The Architects of Photography (davidoliveras.com)
Where would we be without these pioneers. Imagine – no pictures on the internet