ABSTRACT
In the early 19th century many individuals were experimenting with sensitized materials that would darken when exposed to light to produce fleeting images, so proper credit for the invention of photography is diffuse and controversial. There are two sides to photography. First, photography is the capture and display of images by means of film or an electronic sensor; and, second, photography is the art of taking and presenting photographs. Photography, as we know it, dates from 1839, when two men independently reported processes for capturing images in the camera obscura. Their disclosures initiated explosive developments in image making around the world. In a Frenchman, Louis Mandé Daguerre's images, the areas exposed to light and properly processed were highly reflecting; and, therefore, there was a natural appearance, though, of course, without color. The new field of computational photography is influencing the images produced by our cameras and the special effects we see in movies.
