Essay on How The Invention of the Photo Changed the World

Conversely, photography has promoted tremendous advances in technology and has benefited from many aspects of history. It helped evolve motion pictures, many major parts of art, and entertainment. Motion pictures later evolved into many famous films we have today. Despite the belief of photography not being important in history’s evolution to technology, photography was useful in many cases during the 1800s. This can be shown by the article and timeline of numerous events through the evolution of photography in the article “ A brief history of photography” below. This is indicated through its beneficial contribution to cultural spread, its improvement in economic awareness for trade, and it left a profound impact on history. 

The first photographic camera was for commercial manufacture, called the “daguerreotype camera.” The daguerreotype was built by Alphonse Giroux in 1839, creating a new world of possibilities. As the daguerreotype spread throughout the world, it quickly grasped the attention of different countries and empires. For example, England and France are two countries that held an interest in the invention. When the daguerreotype gained popularity, the westerners used the camera to gather information as they traveled to the Middle East and Asia. They used the camera to capture the foreign landscape, architecture, and monuments that were exotic to the westerners. Which later reached the westerner’s attention and interests. By the 1860s the westerners had begun to open studios and commercial establishments. Marc Ferrez and Kassian Cephas were amongst the many people that supplied portraits during this period. 

Subsequently, in 1851 the wet collodion process was a new technique that performed much faster than the previous processes of photography. The Article, “Wet- collodion process” is given below. It states that “The process involved adding a soluble iodide to a solution of collodion (cellulose nitrate) and coating a glass plate with the mixture”. This technique was invented by an English man named Frederick Scott Archer who revolutionized the idea of photography. His contribution to photography made the process of shooting photos easier and quicker to use. 

Provided in the article, “ History of Photography - Development of the daguerreotype” a picture is provided showcasing a photograph of a samurai in armor presented through a print by Kusakabe Kimbei in the 1870s - 90s. The photographs of these samurai provide a way of cultural spread, more specifically, the Japanese culture, to create a more approachable idea of Japan for westerners who are looking for trade or business. Silk, supplies, tea, textiles, and other products are examples of items that would be traded with foreigners. In the end, the culture spread through the use of cameras contributed to trade with foreign countries. 

Aforementioned, this evolution of photography has truly helped us in tremendous ways! Many may say that the evolution of photography wasn’t important, nor did it evolve our surroundings or modern devices today. However, this is false. Why was this false? What are examples of these evolutions? For example, before our handheld devices, we had to use large cameras that would take a larger amount of time to develop. As said in “ The Terrible History of Photographs as told by puppets” the Polaroid was previously the latest way of taking photographs. We had to wait around 10 minutes for the photo to fully develop. This also had a specific way of assuring the image would come out correctly. Another time-consuming camera was the negative camera. In which you would have to take the photograph, take it to a shop, and wait for the worker to develop the photo. “This would take around 24 hours to develop” stated in “ The Terrible History of photographs” at the time 1:12. In comparison to the older models of photography, for modern technology,  you can easily take a photo within seconds.

Ultimately, as you can see, the birth of photography created an opening for motion pictures. When it was invented by Eadweard Muybridge, it was published in the scientific press. The demonstration presented to them was a series of pictures that showcased the galloping of a horse. Many points were acknowledged such as the difference between hand-drawn pictures to that of the animated picture. However, the part that showcased the use of motion pictures was the accuracy of the movement. The article “ History of photography - Photography of movement”, states “Muybridge projected them upon a screen one after the other with a lantern-slide projector he had built for the purpose; the result was the world’s first motion-picture presentation.” The birth of motion photography opened up a new world for animated pictures, showcasing accuracy, demonstrations, and other points of interest. 

To summarize, photography and the invention of the camera impacted the different aspects of European history. For example, cultural prints were left in different areas of the world, allowing for cultural awareness. Economic awareness and trade followed this pattern and allowed different areas of trade to open up. Lastly, cameras allowed for the birth of motion pictures to be created, allowing for full videos and movies to be innovated later in the future.