Copyright of all images in this article belongs to The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Students from the Emerson School for Girls
Southworth and Hawes (American, active 1843–1863)
Medium: Daguerreotype
The Photographic Boom
By 1878, glass plate negatives were
being manufactured commercially
and, in 1880, George Eastman opened
what would become the EastmanKodak company. Within ten years he
was producing roll film, and in 1900
released the first personal camera, the
Kodak Brownie. In 1907, the Lumière
Brothers released the first commercial
colour film.
Oscar Barnack, working for Leitz
microscopes, pushed camera invention
forward in 1914 with the first 35mm
camera, which was improved upon
and released in 1924 as the first Leica
camera. 1936 saw the introduction
of the modern SLR (single-lens reflex
camera), as well as the legendary
Kodachrome film which finally made
colour photography popular. Polaroid
would release instant black-and-white
film in 1948, followed by the colour
version in 1963.
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