Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Alternative Process Photography: Beyond Digital And Film, Laura Michaud

Senior Honors Projects

The first permanent photograph was created in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. To do this, he coated light sensitive chemicals on a metal plate and exposed it in a camera obscura (a box with a small hole; a “pinhole camera”). Once the plate was properly exposed to light, he used more chemicals to stop the plate from being light sensitive and make the image permanent on the plate. Throughout the years, many photographers and chemists used many different chemicals, materials, and procedures to create permanent and beautiful images (i.e. Daguerreotypes, Calotypes, Heliographs, etc). With each new process, the previous processes …