Film Develops

The first photographThe first photograph was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1824 and by 1829 he along with Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre had created a commercial process. From there things moved rapidly:

1851 Frederick Scott Archer invents wet plate photography

1871 Richard Leach Maddox creates a dry plate photography

1880 George Eastman founds a company to produce and market dry plates.

You can see the actual first photograph taken by Niépce. It's on permanent display at the Harry Ransom Center at UT, 300 W 21st St. in Austin.

Next: Eastman

BTW, I've stumbled over the pronunciation of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce many times. If you want to sound at least vaguely right, pronounce it "show-seff - nee-se-for -n-yep-s" Place the accent on seff, se, and yep.