In 1839 a professor at New York University, Dr. William Draper, went up to the roof of the University and photographed his sister-in-law, making the first known photograph of a human face. His sister-in-law probably had to sit quite still for a number of minutes because of the long exposure time necessary. Nevertheless, man was now able to record a person's face by using light alone to paint the image. Photography had really arrived! People were now able to capture images of their loved ones, their properties, their cities, bowls of fruit and any other object of interest to them.

Continuous experimentation and development made way for shorter exposures, though the need of a neck brace to steady the head during the exposure still existed because exposures still ran into minutes. The daguerreotype was the standard for the newly created Professional Photographer.

The professional photographers came into being and opened photographic studios all over the United States. A 25cent daguerreotype portrait was probably costly at that time but it allowed recording for posterity people who would never be immortalized by an artist with a paintbrush and canvas because of the expense. It allowed people to send images of themselves to other people as a form of introduction and I wonder how many European and East Coast mail-order brides captured their frontiersman future husband's heart by sending a photograph. With the creation of this new industry the entrepreneurs jumped in with both feet. Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse code and the telegraph, was a portrait photographer. Two gentlemen by the names of Anthony and Scoville thought that people would have a need for photographic supplies and equipment, so they created the company called Ansco in New York City. There were many more of these photographer/entrepreneurs, some whose names are remembered and some who have disappeared in the dustbin of history, but all of whom have been part of the development of photography as we know it today.

One extremely successful photographer, the darling of the society set, noted for his portraiture, Matthew Brady emerged during the Civil War as one of the earliest combat photographers in history. Of course, the Brady's photography was still limited to long exposures. By this time, he was using photographic emulsions coated on a glass plate. The sensitivity of the material was greater when wet. To perform his wet plate photography, Brady would drive his horse drawn darkroom wagon to the battlefield, set up his tripod and camera, frame and focus the scene and then prepare his photographic material in his darkroom wagon. It has been discovered recently that Brady sometimes moved bodies around to make a more poignant or compositionally better photograph. After making his exposure, he then went back into his wagon, where he developed and fixed the image. Brady had other photographers working for him under his name. One of the most notable of Brady's photographers was a man named Timothy Sullivan who later went on to document what was then the Wild West. Sullivan's photographs when seen back east stirred people's imaginations and helped open up the West to adventurous, prospectors and homesteader's.

As with all technology, photography and the methods for accomplishing it improved as people experimented with different techniques. There were a number of different methods of photography that people experimented with, some of them very successful and some quite bad. But the sensitive emulsion coated glass plate became somewhat of a standard.

In the late 1800s, George Eastman had the brilliant idea of coating celluloid with a photographic emulsion, which allowed him to make a flexible based film that could be rolled up in the camera in varying lengths. This allowed the photographer the freedom of loading multiple exposure rolls of film in his camera and not having to worry about glass plates and individual plate holders. Mr. Eastman thought long and hard and made up a name for his company, Kodak. The Kodak Co. made film, cameras and the associated equipment that was needed for engaging in the process of photography. Everybody I am sure knows of Kodak's preloaded film cameras that were sent back to the Kodak Co., where the film was processed and the pictures as well as the reloaded camera were returned to the customer. I believe the slogan used was, "you press the button, we'll do the rest". It was at that time in photography that film became king!

The reign of king film was long and important, allowing humans to write with light, recording and fixing images of ordinary life, important events, happiness and sadness, achievements and disasters as well as the faces of the average man. We can look at the faces of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. In fleeting moments captured we can see the evil in the eye's of Nazi propaganda minister Gobbels and the unyielding defiance in the face of Britain's Winston Churchill. An American flag being raised in victory by United States Marines on a remote mountaintop in the Pacific stirred our patriotism. We can rejoice with the sailor and nurse amorously celebrating the end of the Second World War in Times Square. Photography became a selling tool, advertising photography showed us not only the steak but the sizzle as well. A close view of a swirl of toothpaste on a toothbrush, created by a photographic artist becomes a work of art. The camera and the photographic process let us travel the world visually and examine through the eyes of journalistic photographers other cultures, allowing us to understand more about our world and our fellowman. Film has allowed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of us to record the histories and mysteries of this world and become photographers.

Look for Part III coming.

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