A Look Back at the Earliest Days of Photography

While working on a recent customer's order of Civil War-era family documents, photos, and heirlooms, it got me thinking about how far back photography really goes. Most people imagine old family photos starting in the early 1900s, maybe tucked in a shoebox of photos from their grandparents. But the roots of photography reach decades earlier, and the journey from glass plates to today's transfers to digital using scanning services is one filled with invention, patience, and more than a few chemical mishaps.

The Birth of the Photograph

Papa Photograph himself: Louis Daguerre

The first successful photographic process was invented in 1839 by Louis Daguerre. His process, called the daguerreotype, used a polished silver-plated copper sheet that was sensitized with iodine vapor, exposed to light, then developed using mercury fumes. It was as safe as it sounds. But for the first time in history, it let people fix a moment in time onto a physical object.

Daguerreotypes produced stunningly sharp and detailed images, though they were fragile, couldn’t be duplicated, and required the subject to sit still for minutes at a time.

Many of the earliest family portraits we see from the 1840s and 1850s come from this process. If you've ever seen a tiny photo mounted in a velvet-lined brass case, chances are it’s a Daguerreotype.

From Daguerreotypes to Everyday Photography

Photography became more accessible when the Ambrotype and Tintype arrived in the 1850s.

Ambrotypes used glass plates; tintypes used thin sheets of iron. These methods were faster, cheaper, and a little sturdier, making them popular for portrait studios, traveling photographers, and even soldiers during the Civil War who wanted to send images back home. By the 1880s, George Eastman’s Kodak camera changed everything.

Suddenly, families could take their own photos on flexible film rolls without needing to understand the chemistry behind the image. Instead of glass or metal, now we had paper prints and with them, the beginning of the photo shoebox era.

I’ve Got a Camera in My Pocket, and I’m Not Afraid To Use It

Nowadays with cameras on our phones and the ability to view every single photo we’ve ever taken at just the swipe of a screen, many of us have lost the reverence and magic of what a photograph can be. A one-of-a-kind snapshot of a place in time, and something precious to hold and behold.

In my years of experience providing a photo scanning service to thousands upon thousands of customers, I’ve seen so many obviously beautiful images. But there are so many more that, when I think about who the person in the photo might be to someone else; a mother, a father, a child, a grandparent and how that photo might be the only existing memory of that person, it truly gives pause to the power and value of photography.

When my customers show me their photos, I often hear, “This is the only picture I have of <person’s name>”. How incredible that what is basically a piece of paper, holds priceless value to someone. I wonder if we will feel the same about our phone-photo collections in the future!