[Illustration: ARTOTYPE COPY OF THE EARLIEST SUNLIGHT PICTURE OF A HUMAN FACE
Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper, taken by her brother, Prof. John W. Draper, M.D., LL.D., in 1840.]
It was impossible, of course, to find many sitters as patient as Miss Draper--try keeping perfectly quiet for even a minute if you would know why Miss Draper should be ranked as a photographic martyr--and many experiments were made in an attempt to materially shorten the time of exposure. The only real solution, of course, was to find some method where the light had to do only a little of the work, leaving the production of the image itself to chemical action.
[Illustration: OLD-FASHIONED PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT]
The first great step in this direction was taken by Fox Talbot in 1841. He found, that if he prepared a sheet of paper with silver iodide and exposed it in the camera, he got only a very faint image, but if, after exposure, he washed over the paper with a solution of silver nitrate and gallic acid, the faint image was built up into a strong picture. And not only was Fox Talbot the first to develop a faint or invisible image; he was also the first to make a negative and use it for printing.
[Illustration: THE FIRST KODAK (1888), SHOWING ROLL HOLDER AND ROLL FILM FOR 100 EXPOSURES]
[Illustration: THE FIRST DAYLIGHT LOADING METHOD]
[Illustration: THE FIRST “FOLDING KODAK” FITTED FOR PLATES OR ROLL FILM]
In spite of all these advances, photography was almost exclusively a studio proposition, when, in 1880, experiments were begun which were to result in photography that could be universally enjoyed--photography as we know it today. Of course there were amateurs even in those early photographic days, but they were few and far between. There was something about the bulk and weight of the old-time photographic outfit that failed to beget general enthusiasm.
[Illustration: RAW STOCK ROLLS, KODAK PARK]
[Illustration: ASSEMBLING ROOM, CAMERA WORKS]
To lighten the camera burden, and to simplify the various photographic processes, were the problems that confronted the American inventor. The first step toward film photography--and it was film photography that relegated camera bulk to the scrap heap--was a roll film made of coated paper to which a sensitive emulsion was applied, but the real goal was reached when cellulose was substituted as a film base. This made practicable the present flexible, transparent film with its attendant convenience and dependability.