Photography
Photography also aided communication; many American, British,
and French scientists contributed to its development, and no one person can be
called the inventor of photography. In 1826, a French physicist named Joseph
Niepce made the first permanent photograph. Niepce's technique, which he called
heliography, involved exposing a metal plate to light for about eight hours. A
result, he could only photograph such immovable objects as houses because moving
object would form no image.
The French painter Louis J.M Daguerre worked as Niepce's
partner for several years. In the 1830's, Daguerre developed an improved type of
photograph called a daguerreotype. A daguerreotype took only a few minutes to be
exposed. About the same time, the British inventor William Henry Fox Talbot
invented a method of photography that used a paper negative instead of a metal
plate. Fox Talbot's invention, which he called a talbotype or calotype, was not
widely used because it produced less clear pictures than a daguerreotype.
But the idea of using flexible negative became the key to
modern photography. With other methods, the photographer used glass or metal
plates that had to be changed after each exposure. With Fox Talbot's method, the
film could be moved through the camera and used to take a series of pictures.
(For more information see also Holography)
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