Photography is the science, art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.
Around the year 1800, British inventor Thomas Wedgwood made the first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means of a light-sensitive substance. He used paper or white leather treated with silver nitrate. Wedgwood succeeded in capturing the shadows of objects placed on the surface in direct sunlight however, his images would eventually darken all over.
The first permanent photoetching was an image produced in 1822 by the French inventor Nicephore Niepce, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make a print of it. Niepce was successful again in 1825. Niepce’s camera required at least eight hours of exposure. He then partnered with Louis Daguerre, working on something more practical.
The daguerreotype process required a silver-plated surface sensitized by iodine vapor, developed by mercury vapor, and ‘fixed’ with hot saturated water. This process required mere minutes of exposure. Daguerre took the earliest known photograph of a person in 1838.
In 1876, Hurter and Driffield began working on the light sensitivity of photographic emulsions. The first transparent plastic roll of film was invented in 1889, nitrate film.
All these methods of photography, while incredibly important in preserving our history, left something to be desired…the color of the world. Today we have the capabilities of capturing these colors.
We can also recreate these photographs creating color where, before, there was only black and white.
The nuclear devastation of Hiroshima. RedditSomme, In late July 1916. The 23rd RI fighters in a trench. RedditTwo-color guards and color bearers of the Japanese-American 100th Battalion, 442d Combat Team, stand at attention, while their citations are read. They are standing on the ground in the Bruyères area, France, where many of their comrades fell. November 12, 1944. RedditLyndon B. Johnson meeting with civil rights leaders Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, and James Farmer in the Oval Office in 1964. RedditPrincess Elizabeth II, aged 18, 1944. RedditLieutenant Walter L. Chewning, Jr. climbs aboard a crashed Hellcat to save the pilot, Ensign Byron M. Johnson. USS Enterprise, November 10th, 1943. RedditD-Day in Times Square. RedditThe Eiffel Tower, July 1888. RedditMugshot and fingerprints of a young Marxist named ‘Benedetto’ Mussolini. Bern, Switzerland, 1903. RedditFrench soldiers during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870. RedditBlackfoot Piegan Native Americans in Northern Montana, ca. 1908. RedditPresident Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir on Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, 1906. RedditPrincess Elizabeth celebrates her 13th birthday on 21 April 1939. RedditAmerican troops prepare nazi Major General Anton Dostler for execution for killing 15 OSS men, Italy, 1945. RedditParatroopers of Easy Company (Band of Brothers), at Berghof (Adolf Hitler’s home in the Bavarian Alps), 1945. RedditCharles Darwin. TumblrLittleton, New Hampshire, 1908. TumblrLewis Powell in handcuffs arrested for his involvement in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. TumblrNewspaper Boys taking a smoke break in 1910. TumblrUnion Artillery Division during the Civil War. TumblrFeared bootlegger, Al Capone. TumblrGeneral Ulysses S. Grant in a Civil War advisory meeting. PinterestA young boy in the slums of Baltimore, 1938. TumblrCheery British soldiers in 1939. TumblrOklahoma farming family heading west to California escaping the Dust Bowl. TumblrOld Gold Country Store, 1939. RedditClaud Monet in his studio, 1923. History in ColorPresident Ulysses S. Grant with his family in 1870. TumblrA young Charlie Chaplin, 1916. TumblrInventor Nikola Tesla, 1893. TumblrHungarian-born American magician, escape artist, and psychic debunker Harry Houdini shows his handcuffs as he stands in a wooden box on a boat and prepares to be submerged, a predicament from which he will escape to the amazement of a large crowd. East River, New York, July 7, 1912. Imgur
