History of photography

Introduction & Top Questions
General considerations
Inventing the medium
- Antecedents
- Early experiments
  - Heliography
  - Daguerreotype
  - Photogenic drawing
- Early views of the medium’s potential
Photography’s early evolution, c. 1840–c. 1900
- The revolution of technique
  - Development of the daguerreotype
  - Development of the calotype
  - Development of stereoscopic photography
  - Development of the wet collodion process
  - Development of the dry plate
  - Photography of movement
  - Early attempts at color
- Establishing genres
  - Portraiture
  - Photojournalism
  - Documentary photography
    - Landscape and architectural documentation
    - Social documentation
- Photography as art
  - Early developments
  - Naturalistic photography
  - Pictorialism and the Linked Ring
Perfecting the medium, c. 1900–c. 1945
- The Photo-Secession
- The New Objectivity
- Experimental approaches
- Documentary photography
- Photojournalism
- Color photography
Photography c. 1945 to the 21st century
- Postwar developments
- Developments from the 1970s to the 1990s
- Into the 21st century: The digital age

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images & Videos

Alfred Stieglitz: Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child)

A person in glasses examines a strip of film in a darkroom. Overlaid text reads "What's the point of film photography?" with "film photography?" highlighted in blue.

Frank Sadorus: Photographing Life on the Illinois Plains

Principle of the camera obscura

How Were Photos Made in the Early Days of Photography?

Nicéphore Niépce: View from the Window at Le Gras

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre: View of the Boulevard du Temple, Paris

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre: Still Life

Facsimiles of photogenic drawings

Southworth & Hawes: Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw

Related Questions

Alfred Stieglitz: Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child) — Alfred Stieglitz: Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child) Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child), autochrome photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, 1907; in the Art Institute of Chicago.

History of photography

Written by

Helmut Erich Robert GernsheimAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 9, 2026 •History

History of photography, a survey of the historical and aesthetic aspects of still photography, the method of recording the image of an object through the action of light, or related radiation, on a light-sensitive material. The word photography, derived from the Greek photos (“light”) and graphein (“to draw”), was first used in the 1830s. For a discussion of the technical aspects of the medium, see technology of photography. For a treatment of motion-picture photography, or...

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