History of Photography 1839 to 1930s

Examine the origins of photography from camera obscura experiments to daguerreotype and calotype, tracing Niépce, Daguerre, and Talbot and their quest to fix light into lasting images.

Explore the rise of the carte de visite from 1839 to 1900, showing how affordable studio portraits and a multi-exposure format democratized photography and fueled celebrity culture.

Explore the wet collodion process and cyanotype imaging, and examine photography's use in anthropology and colonialism, including physiognomy, ethnography, and slave portraits.

Explore photography's colonial role through missionary images and propaganda, then uncover topographical survey photography that documented landscapes, supported empire aims, and spurred tourism and national parks.

Explore Pictorialism as photography's shift from documentary tool to art form, highlighting painterly techniques, combination printing, photogravure, and artists like Rejlander, Robinson, Emerson, Cameron, and Stieglitz.

Halftone printing, dry plates, and Kodak roll film transformed print media and photography's accessibility. Riis, Hine, Atget, Stieglitz, Strand, and Adams documented urban life and social reform.

Explore how photography captured movement from Muybridge to Marey, via chronophotography and tripwires, and how these techniques shaped cubism and futurism.

Explore the evolution of early war photography from the Crimean War to World War I, revealing technological shifts from wet collodion to handheld cameras, censorship, and official photographers.

Discover how Dada and Soviet constructivists use photography as art and critique, through photo montages, collage, and propaganda. See Rodchenko, Hoch, Hausmann, Klutsis, and the rise of the Leica.