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Why did Johann Heinrich Schulze’s experiments with silver salts matter for photography?
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History of photography
Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child), autochrome photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, 1907; in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Johann Heinrich Schulze’s 1727 experiments were pivotal to the history of photography because he scientifically proved that the darkening of silver salts is caused by exposure to light rather than heat.1
While the sensitivity of silver salts to light had been observed since the 16th century, Schulze’s demonstration—using sunlight to record words on the salts—provided the essential chemical foundation for the medium. Although he did not attempt to make these images permanent, his discovery, when combined with the existing camera obscura, established the fundamental technology required for the eventual invention of photography in the 19th century.1