History of Photography

• How has photography evolved over the last few hundred years to the present?

• In what ways does photography help you understand the lives of people of different times, places, and cultures?

• How does analyzing and understanding the history of photography, along with well-known photographers over time influence the way in which you create your own photographs?

Essential Questions:

• How has photography evolved over the last few hundred years to the present?

• In what ways does photography help you understand the lives of people of different times, places, and cultures?

• How does analyzing and understanding the history of photography, along with well-known photographers over time influence the way in which you create your own photographs?

Photography started out with grainy photos taking hours and hours of time to create in the late 1820s. Photographer Joseph Niepce created the first real camera. From there it progressed pretty slowly until the first colored photograph was produced more than 30 years later, in the 1860s by a photo subjecting a ribbon by Maxwell. Again, it progressed decently slowly until the invention of the digital camera in 1975. Everything sped up rapidly from here, and now we have huge cameras with crazy good graphics. We also have phones that can fit in our pockets that can take incredible photos with just a click. In addition to this, we have computer programs that give us Photoshop, which allows us to improve photos drastically.

• In what ways does photography help you understand the lives of people of different times, places, and cultures?

In some cases, people use photography to show their culture, lifestyle, and much more. Sometimes a photograph can explain something in the news, or an important moment in history. Photography can also show how things evolve over time. For example, I saw a picture of a ski resort in California showing what it looked like before and after the snow had melted. This really showed me how much snow their actually was and instead of just hearing about it I had actually seen it.  

• How does analyzing and understanding the history of photography, along with well-known photographers over time influence the way in which you create your own photographs? 

Understanding the history of photography and photographers influences me to try their different styles of photography. Every single photographer has some sort of unique photography making their work special. For example, Ami Vitale takes photos of harsh realities around the world making her work very unique. After learning about the history of photography, it has deepened my understanding of photography and now when I go out and photograph things myself my photos are sometimes influenced by the photographers I have learned about.