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12 Key dates in the history of photography
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A young girl in a cardigan and dress looks down while holding a Kodak Brownie camera, circa 1935, in both hands against a plain background. How a key principle of photography works Nicéphore Niépce: View from the Window at Le Gras Daguerreotype of two women William Henry Fox Talbot: View of the Boulevards of Paris The original Eastman Kodak box camera from 1888, with a black rectangular body, leather handle on top, and open film compartment, displayed on a flat surface. Photograph of Olga Victorovna Dmitrieff Photograph made with Kodachrome film The Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210
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A young girl in a cardigan and dress looks down while holding a Kodak Brownie camera, circa 1935, in both hands against a plain background.
Kodak Brownie camera A girl taking a photograph with a Kodak Brownie camera, c. 1935.

12 Key dates in the history of photography

Written by
Alicja Zelazko
Alicja Zelazko is Associate Editor, Arts and Humanities, covering topics in the visual arts, architecture, music, and performance. Before joining Encyclopædia Britannica in 2017, she worked at the Art...
Alicja Zelazko
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
Last updated
•History

Photography in the 21st century is as effortless as pointing a phone and tapping. A person can take a seemingly infinite number of shots of cats scrunched in boxes, dinners at new restaurants, or views out airplane windows and then immediately share them on social media, flooding the feeds of followers. But at its beginning—before selfies, Instagram filters, and viral memes—photography was much slower and sometimes cumbersome. Here are 12 key dates that got us...

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