History of photography questions

Because of very long exposure times (up to several hours), first photographers pointed their cameras at static objects. The first photo of a person was made by accident by Louis Daguerre in 1838. He depicted a pedestrian who stopped for a shoe shine, taking a photo of Paris streets.

Photography used 31% of the silver consumed in 1998. By 2010, it dropped to 7%.

Although Nicéphore Niépce took the first fixed, permanent photograph in 1822, it was later destroyed. The earliest surviving photograph by him is dated c. 1826 and is called 'View from the Window at Le Gras' (La cour du domaine du Gras). The image was created at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes and it captures the roof and surrounding countryside of the estate - Le Gras.

Sepia toning enhances archival qualities of the photos. Chemicals are used to convert the metallic silver in the print to a sulfide compound, which is at least 50% more stable than silver.

The first permanent color photographs were taken using the three-color-separation principle first published by physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1855. Maxwell's idea was to take three separate black-and-white photographs through red, green and blue filters. This technique was used by Prokudin-Gorskii in this photo of Austro-Hungarian POWs.

The heavy specialized tables known as "Broody stands" were factory-made to keep models steady during the long exposure times. The table typically had a weighty cast iron base for stability, plus an adjustable-height pipe leg to use as either a model's armrest or neck rest.