Photography started off around 200 years ago; around 1021 the camera obscura was invented. The camera obscura is a device that projects images to another surface. It was a tent with a tiny hole that when light shunned, it would display a tiny, upside down image to the far wall of the inside of the box. Since at this type you could not make the image a permanent image, you could trace around it to create accurate drawings of landscapes, buildings, portraits, vehicles and more. 

It was not until the 17th century that the camera obscura became a small portable device with lenses to focus the light inside the small box. 

However, it is argued that the first photograph was made by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1830. He did this by exposing a pewter plate coated with bitumen to light, and this created the first recorded image that did not fade quickly. Contrastingly, in my opinion, the Shroud of Turin is the first recorded image. This is because the shroud is a long linen cloth containing a negative image of a man believed by the Catholic Church to be Jesus Christ, and in my opinion is one of the first images that did not fade quickly. How it was produced however is a mystery. Some believe the Shroud is a perfect example of Camera Obscura since some theorise that in the 13th Century men would pose in the camera obscura, have linen cloth at the back of the wall and if you waited long enough, sun rays would burn the image into the linen, i.e. The wave of the hypothetical UV radiation would have been of varying phase at the surface of the skin, yet the negative image demands the image is a minimum at the skin surface.

On the other hand, it is indisputable that Joseph’s success to create a lasting image on a pewter plate did lead to experiments being done which led to the creation of Daguerreotypes, emulsion plates and wet plates in the mid – to late – 1800s. 

The most popular first photographic film however was the daguerreotype. It was basically a copper plate coated with silver and exposed to iodine vapor before it was exposed to any light. In order to create an image, you had to expose the plate to light for up to 15 minutes. One drawback for daguerreotypes was the fact they were way too expensive for people of the working class to even think of buying it. Hence the creation of emulsion plates.

Emulsion plates, way cheaper than daguerreotypes and more efficient. These wet plates used a process called COllodion process. However, it meant photographers had to carry chemicals and dark rooms in order to develop these images. 

Afterwards, by 1880, George Eastman started a company called Kodak. Eastman created a roll of film that did not require constantly changing the solid plates, such as, the dry plates (dry gelatine plates that were equal to wet plates, had a decrease in exposure times and meant the plates could be stored rather than made). Eastman therefore created a self-contained box camera that held 100 film exposures, the camera had a small single lens with no focusing adjustment. 

With Kodak, the consumer would take pictures and send the camera back to the factory where the film would be developed, printed and have a new roll of film fitted. All this while being affordable by average people costing around $1 per camera. 

Then we had the Polaroid that used a secret chemical process to develop film inside the camera in less than a minute. 

Finally, In the 1950s, Asahi (which later became Pentax) introduced the Asahiflex and Nikon introduced its Nikon F camera. These were both SLR-type cameras and the Nikon F allowed for interchangeable lenses and other accessories.

For the next 30 years, SLR-style cameras remained the camera of choice. Many improvements were introduced to both the cameras and the film itself.

Therefore, we can successfully see how photography has changed through time, from daguerreotypes to SLR cameras that we see nowadays.