LITTLE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

LITTLE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The fog that surrounds the beginnings of photography is not quite as thick

as that which shrouds the early days of printing; more obviously than in

the case of the printing press, perhaps, the time was ripe for the invention,

Translated by Rodney Livingstone and

Others

Edited by Michael W. Jennings,

Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith

THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England

1999

and was sensed by more than one—by men who strove independently for

the same objective: to capture the images in the camera obscura, which had

been known at least since Leonardo's time. When, after about five years of

effort, both Niepce and Daguerre simultaneously succeeded in doing this,

the state, aided by the patenting difficulties encountered by the inventors,

assumed control of the enterprise and made it public, with compensation to

the pioneers.