World Photography Day

August 19 is observed as World Photography Day,  which aims to inspire photographers across the planet to share a single photo with a simple purpose: to share their world with the world. Here is a look at photography over the years. World Photo Day originates from the invention of the Daguerreotype, a photographic process developed by Frenchmen Louis Daguerre and Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1837.

On January 9, 1839, the French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype process. On August 19, the French government  purchased the patent and announced the invention as a gift “free to the world”.  The Daguerreotype wasn’t the first permanent photographic image. In 1826, Niepce captured the earliest known permanent photograph known as “View from the Window at Le Gras” using a process called heliography.

The first durable colour photograph was taken by Thomas Sutton in 1861. It was a set of three black-and-white photographs taken through red, green and blue filters. However, the photographic emulsions then in use were insensitive to the spectrum, so the result was very imperfect and the demonstration was soon forgotten.