Timeline
| 1835 | Talbot invents photogenic drawings, a process for producing contact prints on paper |
| 1839 | Invention of Daguerreotype in France
Samuel F. B. Morse brings Daguerreotype process to the United States |
| 1841 | Talbot patents his Talbotype (or “calotype”) process, the first negative–positive process in photography |
| 1844 | Mathew Brady opens the Daguerreian Miniature Gallery, the first of many galleries in New York and other major cities |
| 1850 | Brady publishes a collection of engravings based on photographs, A Gallery of Illustrious Americans |
| 1851 | Wet collodion process, which will replace Daguerreotype, announced by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer |
| 1857 | Oscar Rejlander creates multiphoto compositions, based on allegorical themes, in England |
| 1860 | Brady creates flattering photograph of Abraham Lincoln, who is running for president—the first campaign photograph |
| 1861 | Oliver Wendell Holmes, physician and amateur photographer, creates a popular stereoscope viewer |
| 1861–65 | Brady and Alexander Gardner, along with many others, document the Civil War, sending cameramen to battle scenes |
| 1866 | Carleton Watkins creates photographs of Yosemite Valley for sale to tourists |
| 1870s | Timothy O’Sullivan, William Henry Jackson, and others photograph the Western American landscape for the first time |
| 1873 | First photograph is printed using the half-tone method, the foundation for later printed photographs |
| 1877 | Eadweard Muybridge experiments with high-speed photo apparatus, working in Palo Alto, California, to capture frozen images of moving horses; experiments continue at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1880s |
| 1879 | George Eastman invents a machine for coating photographic dry plates with emulsion, thus enabling mass production; plates are commercially produced the following year |
| 1880 | Muybridge demonstrates zoopraxiscope in San Francisco, projecting photographic images in motion |
| 1881 | New York Daily Graphic prints first half-tone print, a scene of Shantytown by Stephen Horgan |
| 1882 | George Eastman devises a flexible gelatin film to support the emulsion on a paper backing, and a roll film holder; a machine is invented to produce the film |
| 1882 | Étienne-Jules Marey invents a camera-rifle capable of recording twelve successive photographs per second, the chronophotographic gun |
| 1885 | First transparent film negative invented, Eastman American Film |
| 1887 | Thomas Alva Edison and W. K. L. Dickson work on inventing a motion picture camera |
| 1888 | The Kodak camera is put on the market, loaded with 100 exposures on a film roll at a price of $25; advertised with slogan, “You press the button and we do the rest”—exposed film and camera must be sent back to Eastman company in Rochester, NY |
| 1889 | Eastman company puts first commercial transparent roll film on market, making possible development of motion picture camera by Edison in 1891 |
| 1890 | Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives published, with half-tone illustrations and drawings, contributing to the revision of tenement house laws |
| 1892 | The Linked Ring, a confederation of art
photographers in England, is founded; Alfred Stieglitz elected a member in 1894
Frederick Ives, a pioneer in half-tone printing processes, develops the first three-color camera, the photochromoscope |
| 1894 | Edison’s motion pictures studio in New Jersey
produces the Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, January 7, 1894
Lumière brothers invent the cinématographe in France, projecting moving images on to a screen; the Edison vitascope brings projection to the United States a year later, in New York City |
| 1895 | Public cinema programs begin, showing in
Germany and France
The Pocket Kodak camera introduced The Brownie, the first mass-market camera, is sold for $1 F. Holland Day organizes The New School of American Photography exhibition for the Royal Photographic Society in London, featuring Gertrude Käsebier, Clarence White, Edward Steichen, and Alvin Langdon Coburn |
| 1902 | Alfred Stieglitz founds the Photo-Secession group in New York, an association of art photographers. He also begins editing and publishing Camera Work, a periodical devoted to photography and the arts |
| 1903 | American Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train
Robbery, one of the first realistic film narratives, is shown
Single lens reflex camera introduced by American Graflex |
| 1904 | Stieglitz curates the Photo-Secessionists exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC |
| 1905 | Stieglitz and Edward Steichen open, at 291
Fifth Avenue in New York City, the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession
(called ‘291’), which becomes a center in the United States for art photography
and modern European art
Lewis Hine photographs immigrants in his Ellis Island series |
| 1906–08 | First commercially successful photographic color process, Kinemacolor, invented by George Albert Smith and Charles Urban; Englishman Clare L. Finlay invents the successful additive color process |
| 1907 | First color autochromes, by Steichen, Stieglitz, and Frank Eugene, exhibited in the United States at the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession |
| 1908–14 | D. W. Griffith develops the foundations of motion picture technique, inventing the fade-out, close-up, soft focus, cross-cutting, iris dissolve |
| 1910 | Lewis Hine, working for the National Child
Labor Committee, begins his Child Labor series
Seminal show, The International Exhibition of Photography, organized by Stieglitz and held at the Albright Gallery in Buffalo, New York |
| 1912 | Vest Pocket Camera introduced, also First Model Speed Graphic |
| 1913 | Alvin Langdon Coburn’s abstract vortographs exhibited in London |
| 1914 | Prototype Leica, 35-mm still camera, developed
Clarence H. White School of Photography in New York City is founded—runs until 1942 First movie palace, the Strand (holding 3,300) opens in New York City; nickelodeons start to become obsolete |
| 1916 | Stieglitz features work of the young Paul Strand in the last two issues of Camera Work |
| 1917 | End of the Photo-Secession group, Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery, and Camera Work |
| 1918 | Christian Schad, in Switzerland, produces photo abstractions made without film, anticipating Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy |
| 1919 | Bauhaus founded in Weimar, Germany; photography
is central to curriculum
First tabloid and picture newspaper, the New York Daily News, begins publication; tabloid newspapers, with photographs crowding small pages, emerge during 1920s as a major journalistic form |
| 1920 | Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov founds cinéma-verité technique with his documentary newsreels; Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera produced |
| 1920 | Edward Steichen moves from art photography to
fashion, becoming chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair
Man Ray creates the rayogram, exposing objects placed on photographic paper to light Photomontage works exhibited at first Berlin Dada exhibition |
| 1922 | Robert Flaherty’s early documentary film, Nanook of the North, produced |
| 1923 | 16-mm movie film for amateur use introduced by
Kodak Time magazine begins publication |
| 1924 | The 35-mm Leica camera (designed by German Ernst Leitz), small and easily handled, opens up news coverage and street photography |
| 1925 | RCA patents RCA Photophone, a sound-on-film process; the success of The Jazz Singer in 1927 would shift movie production from silent to sound |
| 1927 | Modern flashbulb, ignited by weak electric current, marketed by General Electric |
| 1928 | Erich Salomon photographs famous people in Berlin for illustrated press, attracting attention as the first “candid photographs” |
| 1929 | Film and Foto exhibition in Stuttgart,
Germany, features European and American modernists
Rolleiflex, 2ΒΌ" twin-lens reflex camera, introduced in Germany, becomes very popular in the United States Berenice Abbott begins photographing New York City, emulating Atget; her Changing New York project is supported by Works Progress Administration Arts Project in 1935 Stock market crashes, precipitating the Great Depression of the 1930s |
| 1930 | Fortune magazine begins publication
Workers’ Film and Photo League, producing propaganda for Workers’ International Relief, started in New York—this becomes (in the 1930s) New York Film and Photo League, dedicated to showing the daily struggle of workers in still and moving images |
| 1931 | Harold Edgerton invents electronic flash to capture motion at high speeds |
| 1932 | Group f.64 founded by Ansel Adams, Imogen
Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston, and others; dedicated to sharp
focus, straight photography; their first exhibition is held in San Francisco’s
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
Lewis Hine publishes Men at Work |
| 1933 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiates New Deal
programs to deal with the Depression; Federal Arts projects founded in 1935
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s first 35-mm exhibition in New York |
| 1935 | March of Time newsreel series, produced by Time
magazine, commences in movie theatres, changing monthly
Roy Stryker brought to Washington by Rexford Tugwell to become chief of the Historical Section, the photography unit within the Resettlement Administration (later known as the Farm Security Administration); Stryker’s first hires are Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, and Dorothea Lange; Stryker remains at the FSA until 1943 |
| 1936 | Robert Capa photographs the Spanish Civil War,
including Death of a Loyalist Soldier
Life magazine begins, with the first cover photo by Margaret Bourke-White Walker Evans, borrowed from the Farm Security Administration project, spends the summer in Alabama with James Agee, photographing tenant farmers; the results are published in 1941 as the photo-documentary book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men A segment of the New York Film and Photo League that had called itself Nykino in 1934, leaves to form Frontier Films |
| 1937 | Margaret Bourke-White and Erskine Caldwell
publish the photo-documentary book, You Have Seen Their Faces, a study
of Southern poverty
The Photo League, a socially committed New York photographic society, is formed out of the old New York Film and Photo League; it includes Aaron Siskind, Max Yavno, Walter A. Rosenblum, and others Look magazine is founded by Gardner Cowles Edward Weston is the first photographer to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship Beaumont Newhall organizes the first exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art. The catalogue, published as Photography, 1839–1937, becomes a major text, revised in later years as The History of Photography |
| 1938 | Walker Evans’s first show at the Museum of
Modern Art is the basis for his book, American Photographs
Archibald MacLeish uses Farm Security Administration photos to illustrate Land of the Free |
| 1939 | Dorothea Lange and Paul S. Taylor publish
their photo-documentary study of the Dust Bowl migration, American Exodus
Berenice Abbott publishes Changing New York |
| 1940 | Film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath
by John Ford, dealing with the Great Depression and the migration of Okies to
California
Lewis Hine retrospective organized by Elizabeth McCausland at the Riverside Museum in New York |
| 1941 | Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane produced,
with innovative sound and flashback techniques
Eastman Kodak introduces Kodacolor negative film James Agee and Walker Evans publish Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the greatest photo-documentary of the period |
| 1942 | Office of War Information established, replacing the Farm Security Administration, to coordinate wartime propaganda |
| 1943 | Roy Stryker, having left the Farm Security Administration (FSA)/Office of War Information, becomes head of the Standard Oil Project, which continues in the FSA tradition of aiming to document American life; several FSA photographers hired by Stryker |
| 1946 | Aaron Siskind photographs exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art |
| 1947 | House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
holds hearings of leftists in cultural spheres, branding them communists
Magnum Photos, a journalistic photo cooperative, is founded in New York by Robert Capa, “Chim” (David Seymour), Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and others Polaroid-Land camera invented by Edwin H. Land; produces a finished print in minutes |
| 1948 | 35-mm Nikon camera introduced |
| 1950 | Nancy Newhall and Paul Strand collaborate on a photo book, Time in New England |
| 1951 | W. Eugene Smith’s feature photo essay in Life,
Spanish Village
Film and Photo League disbands after being listed as a “subversive” organization by McCarthy |
| 1952 | Cartier-Bresson’s book and exhibition (at the
Louvre), The Decisive Moment
Minor White establishes the quarterly Aperture, dedicated to fine art photography |
| 1953 | Life magazine starts using color |
| 1955 | Edward Steichen organizes The Family of Man
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
Art in America publishes its first article on photography, by Beaumont Newhall Roy DeCarava opens A Photographer’s Gallery |
| 1956 | William Klein publishes his work in France, Life Is Good and Good for You in New York: William Klein Trance Witness Revels |
| 1958 | Lightweight 16-mm movie cameras and portable tape recorders introduced, leading to cinéma-verité in France and elsewhere |
| 1959 | Robert Frank’s The Americans published
in the United States with preface by Jack Kerouac
Image Gallery in New York becomes first gallery devoted to photography |
| 1962 | Society for Photographic Education founded by
Nathan Lyons
John Szarkowski appointed curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art |
| 1963 | Beaumont Newhall goes to the University of New
Mexico to head the photography program
Kodak’s Instamatic camera is marketed |
| 1964 | Szarkowski curates The Photographer’s Eye at the Museum of Modern Art, educating the public on how to look at photos |
| 1966 | Towards a New Social Landscape (exhibition
and book) is published by Nathan Lyons, including Bruce Davidson, Lee
Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Danny Lyon, and Duane Michals
Cornell Capa forms the International Fund for Concerned Photography, which later becomes the International Center of Photography |
| 1967 | Cornell Capa organizes the exhibition, The
Concerned Photographer, featuring Dan Weiner, Werner Bischof, André Kertesz,
Bruce Davidson, Larry Clark, Mary Ellen Mark, and others
New Documents exhibition is curated by Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art, featuring Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand Persistence of Vision exhibition, dealing with manipulated images, curated by Nathan Lyons at George Eastman House, shows work by Robert Heinecken, Ray Metzker, Jerry Uelsmann, and others |
| 1968 | Earth is photographed from the moon
Exposure, newsletter of the Society of Photographic Education, becomes a journal of photography Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations published in English, containing the classic 1936 essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” |
| 1969 | Richard Rudisill is appointed first
photographic historian to teach at the University of New Mexico
Nathan Lyons leaves Eastman House to found the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York |
| 1970 | IMAX process introduced in Japan
Eliot Porter publishes Appalachian Wilderness A.D. Coleman begins writing photography criticism for The New York Times Jerry Uelsmann exhibition at Philadelphia Museum of Art |
| 1971 | Tulsa, a chronicle of drug culture in Oklahoma, is published by Larry Clark |
| 1972 | Huge crowds go to see the Diane Arbus
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art; the accompanying book becomes a
bestseller
Princeton endows the first chair for the history of photography in its art history department; Peter C. Bunnell is appointed Life magazine ceases publication Afterimage, a periodical devoted to photography, film, and video, is founded by Nathan Lyons at the Visual Studies Workshop |
| 1974 | Estelle Jussim publishes Visual Communication and the Graphic Arts |
| 1975 | New Topographics exhibition, featuring
photographs of man-altered landscapes, organized by William Jenkins at George
Eastman House
Era of Exploration: The Rise of Landscape Photography in the American West (exhibition and book) is curated by Weston Naef and James Wood at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Women of Photography: An Historical Survey, exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Art |
| 1976 | Steadicam, which stabilizes portable cameras, first used in filming Rocky |
| 1977 | History of Photography (quarterly
journal) begins publication
Susan Sontag’s On Photography examines the social and cultural context of photography Pictures, curated by Douglas Crimp at New York Artists Space, introduces postmodern photography, in the work of Sherri Levine, Robert Longo, and others Philadelphia Photo Review, later changed to The Photo Review, founded by Stephen Perloff; features historical articles, reviews, and current notices on photography |
| 1978 | Duane Michals publishes Homage to Cavafy,
one of the first openly gay books by a photographer
The Council of Latino Photographers/USA founded in Los Angeles to promote Latino photographers |
| 1979 | Fabricated to be Photographed, featuring photographs of constructions, curated by Van Deren Coke, at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; includes Les Krims, John Pfahl, Robert Cumming, and others |
| 1980 | Roland Barthes’s influential Camera Lucida
is published
Szarkowski’s Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art |
| 1981 | IBM introduces the personal computer |
| 1982 | Cindy Sherman’s photos are included in an exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Recent Color |
| 1983 | Jean Baudrillard’s influential postmodern
text, Simulations (with an essay on “Hyperreality”) is published
Image Scavengers exhibition, focusing on appropriated imagery, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Philadelphia A Century of Black Photographers: 1840–1960, an exhibition, originates at Rhode Island School of Design |
| 1984 | J. Paul Getty Museum, with Weston J. Naef as
curator, purchases several major photography collections
Second View: The Rephotographic Survey Project (Rick Dingus, Mark Klett, JoAnn Vergurg, and others) rephotographs well-known sites and images taken by Western landscape photographers |
| 1985 | Richard Avedon’s Great American West |
| 1986 | Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency
is published
Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Black Book is published |
| 1987 | Cindy Sherman, exhibition with essays by Peter Schjeldahl and Lisa Philips, at the Whitney Museum of American Art |
| 1988 | Arnold Newman retrospective at New York
Historical Society
Garry Winogrand retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art Digital Photography: Captured Images, Volatile Memory, New Montage, one of first exhibitions on digital photography, at San Francisco Cameraworks Stuart Ewen’s The All Consuming Image, on photography and consumerism, published |
| 1989 | Friends of Photography in Carmel, California,
re-established in San Francisco as Center for Friends of Photography
Alan Trachtenberg’s Reading American Photographs exemplifies historical approach to photography |
| 1990 | Kodak announces Photo CD system
Harlem Photographs, 1932–1940/ Aaron Siskind is shown at the National Museum of American Art Language of the Lens: Contemporary Native American Photographs, features ten Native American photographers, first of Native American exhibitions |
| 1991 | First consumer digital cameras introduced
Electronic imaging used in coverage of the Gulf War |
| 1992 | Digital Photography, by Mikkel Aaland
and Rudolph Burger, on technical aspects, published
Sally Mann’s Immediate Family is published Viewfinder: Black Women Photographers, written by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe |
| 1993 | Adobe Photoshop available for MS–DOS/Windows |
| 1994 | AP/Kodak NC2000 digital camera announced for
photojournalists
Naomi Rosenblum, author of A World History of Photography, writes A History of Women Photographers Digital Imaging Technology for Preservation is published, addressing preservation and access of digital images |
| 1995 | Doubletake magazine is founded at Duke Center for Documentary Studies, featuring photography and literature |
| 1996 | Advanced Photo System (APS) is introduced, using 24-mm format |
| 1998 | Women’s Camera Work: Self/Body/Other in American Visual Culture, by Judith Fryer Davidov, affirms a counter-tradition to the traditional male narrative |
| 2000 | Deborah Willis publishes Reflections in
Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present, surveying a
tradition whose significance is being rediscovered
Camera phone introduced in Japan by Sharp/J-Phone |
| 2001 | David Hockney’s Secret Knowledge:
Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, argues that painters
have used optical instruments to achieve realistic illusions, even before
photography was invented
Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs collects photographs from any contributors, relating to the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center disaster; pictures are exhibited without distinction to professional or amateur status, and are offered for sale in storefront locations and on the Internet (proceeds to charity) Polaroid goes bankrupt |
| 2003 | Four-thirds standard for compact digital single
lens reflex introduced with the Olympus E-1; Canon Digital Rebel
introduced for less than $1000
The Photography of Charles Sheeler at Metropolitan Museum of Art; first major exhibition of his photographs |
| 2004 | Kodak ceases production of film cameras
Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prison Photographs from Abu Ghraib, International Center of Photography; shocking and controversial images made by U.S. troops who were prison guards in Iraqi prison, showing extreme abuse of detainees War in Iraq: The Coordinates of Conflict, Photographs by VII, International Center of Photography; the photo agency VII is featured here Spirit into Matter: The Photographs of Edmund Teske, Getty Center, Los Angeles artist, active in 1960s, Teske worked in tradition of creative photography, making dream-like images through composite techniques |
| 2005 | Canon EOS 5D, first
consumer-priced full-frame digital single lens reflex, with a 24 × 36-mm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor sensor for $3000; German
film manufacturer, AGFA, goes out of business
Julius Shulman, Modernity and the Metropolis, Getty Center, Shulman photographed the California Dream in the mid-twentieth century, in black-and white-studies of modern architecture and Los Angeles streetscapes Forget me Not: Photography and Remembrance, International Center of Photography, explores the decorative embellishment of photographic prints, personalizing them as part of memory |
| 2006 | On Photography: A Tribute to Susan Sontag, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
| 2007 | The Goat’s Dance: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide, Getty Center, Iturbide’s poetic documentary approach reveals the nuances of La frontera, the border area between Mexico and the United States |
| 2008 | Polaroid discontinues
instant film because of increasing popularity of digital cameras
Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art, International Center of Photography, explores the fascination of artists and photographers with the collection or archive as a conceptual and aesthetic organization of visual information |
| 2009 | Kodak Kodachrome film
discontinued
Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography, Metropolitan Museum of Art Paul Outerbridge: Command Performance, Getty Center, Outerbridge’s mastery of abstract black-and-white imagery and his early experiments (1930s) with color photography given visibility in this exhibition |
| 2010 | Real 3D W3, a camera
by Fujifilm, is first 3D consumer camera
Urban Panoramas: Opie, Liao, Kim, Getty Center, Los Angeles, New York, and Reykjavik are the subjects of these three photographers working in the panorama format Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties, Getty Center, features classic work by Griffiths, Freed, Smith, Meiselas, Salgado, Nachtwey, demonstrating relevance and continuity of documentary For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights, International Center of Photography, Explores role of photography in shaping fight for racial justice—from 1940s to 1970s |
| 2011 | Night Vision: Photography
After Dark,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Narrative Interventions in Photography, Getty Center; Work by Weems, Eileen Cowin, Simryn Gill, images driven by conceptual and abstract motives, reflecting social critique, the examination of passion, and the analysis of systems |
| 2012 | Faking It: Manipulated
Photography Before Photoshop & After Photoshop: Manipulated
Photography in the Digital Age, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Portraits of Renown: Photography and the Cult of Celebrity, Getty Center, the camera’s role in creating and recording celebrity is featured in examples form the nineteenth century to the twentieth century France and the United States |
| 2013 | In Focus: Ed Ruscha, Getty Center, the
influential Los Angeles postmodernist artist/photographer featured in his
classic urban topographies from the 1960s
Picture Windows: Hank Willis Thomas in collaboration with Sanford Biggers, International Center of Photography, explores issues of identity and stereotypes through photographs based on performances of types—vaudeville, dancers, Kabuki theater, and so forth |
| 2014 | Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography, Philadelphia Museum of Art, s retrospective
of Strand, from beginning to end, demonstrating his enormous range and
versatility
Sebastião Salgado: Genesis, International Center of Photography, a summation of Salgado’s global vision of unspoiled landscapes and peoples, using extravagant black-and-white photography Garry Winogrand (2013–14) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery, major retrospective of one of the greatest street photographers |
