Explore

Two Centuries of Photography

Navigate by time, explore connections across themes, or trace the technical evolution of the medium.

THEMATIC INFLUENCE

TECHNICAL GENEALOGY

CHRONOLOGICAL

200 Years of First Photographs

Navigate photography's verified firsts by era. From Niépce's 1827 permanent photograph to the present day.

2000 - TODAY

Cocking & Day 2023: glowing motion trails suspended in space – real-time movement rendered as light through spatial computing

2023
Chelsi Alise Cocking and Jimmy Day
Illuminate

Webb 2022: Infrared view of Carina Nebula's Cosmic Cliffs – star-forming gas and dust towers spanning 16 light-years

2022
James Webb Space Telescope
Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula

Valkenborgh 2020: Eight-year pinhole exposure showing 2,953 solar arcs across sky – longest exposure photograph ever made

2020
Regina Valkenborgh
Perpetuity Longest Exposure

Event Horizon Telescope 2019: glowing orange ring of gas surrounding a dark shadow – first direct image of a black hole

2019
Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)
First Image of a Black Hole

Parker Solar Probe 2018: orange-red coronal streamer with Mercury visible as bright spot – first image from inside Sun's corona

2018
NASA's Parker Solar Probe
First Photo Inside Sun Corona

Carbone 2015: electron microscope image of light on nanowire showing wave interference and particle quantization – EPFL

2015
Fabrizio Carbone - EPFL
Light as Wave and Particle

Pcharito 2014: ALICE detector visualisation of lead-ion collision at CERN's LHC – particle physics data rendered as image

2014
CERN - Pcharito
Alicelead3

Raskar 2012: Femto-photography sequence visualising light in motion at one trillion frames per second – MIT Media Lab

2012
Ramesh Raskar - MIT
Trillion Frames per Second

Sugimoto 2009: branching electrical filaments on photographic film – 400,000-volt discharge without camera

2009
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Lightning Fields 225

1900 - 1999

Williams 1995: 3,000+ galaxies in a tiny sky patch – 342 exposures stacked over 10 days via Hubble WF/PC2

1995
Robert Williams
Hubble Deep Field

Voyager 1, 1990: Earth as a pale blue speck in deep space – first photograph of Earth from 6 billion km

1990
Voyager 1, NASA
Pale Blue Dot

CERN PhotoLab 1981: Particle collision trails in streamer chamber – first proton-antiproton interaction, UA5 experiment

1981
CERN PhotoLab
CERN Streamer Chamber

Sugimoto 1977: glowing white cinema screen surrounded by dark theatre interior – full-length film exposure captured as a single image

1977
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Trylon, New York

CERN 1973: Subatomic particle tracks in liquid hydrogen bubble chamber – kaon decay and omega production visible as curved bubble trails

1973
CERN PhotoLab
Bubble Chamber: Omega Production and Decay

Anders 1968: Earth rising over lunar horizon, blue marble against black space – Apollo 8, first crewed lunar orbit

1968
William A. Anders - NASA
Earthrise

Edgerton 1964: bullet piercing apple mid-flight, frozen at 1/1,000,000 sec – high-speed stroboscopic photography, MIT

1964
Harold Eugene Edgerton
Bullet through Apple

Man Ray 1935: light-painted self-portrait with luminous trajectory – pioneering light painting in gelatin silver print

1935
Man Ray
Space Writing (Self-Portrait)

Anderson 1932: curved particle track in cloud chamber vapor – first photographic proof of the positron

1932
Carl D. Anderson
Cloud Chamber First Positron

Neubronner 1908: Bird's-eye aerial photograph captured by a pigeon-mounted camera – Kronberg, Germany

1908
Julius Neubronner
Aerial Photograph from a Homing Pigeon

Marey 1900: smoke trails reveal air flow patterns around objects of different shapes – chronophotography

1900
Étienne-Jules Marey – Air movement in a collision with objects of different shapes

Worthington 1900: High-speed spark photo of liquid splash from stone sphere – early fluid dynamics study

1900
A.M. Worthington
Splash

1880 - 1899

Boutan 1898: diver in helmet suit suspended underwater with tether lines – first photograph with submerged camera and photographer

1898
Louis Boutan
Underwater Photography

Becquerel 1896: ghostly blackened photographic plate from uranium salts – first photographic evidence of natural radioactivity

1896
Henri Becquerel
Discovery of Radiation

Röntgen 1895: X-ray of a human hand revealing bones and wedding ring – first medical radiograph

1895
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
First X-ray of his wife’s hand

Bentley 1890: Six-pointed stellar snowflake crystal showing intricate symmetrical branches – first successful snowflake photograph

1890
Wilson A. Bentley
Photomicrograph of Stellar Snowflake No. 10

Marey & Demeny 1889: chronophotograph of pathological human gait captured via incandescent bulbs – motion study from the front

1889
Étienne-Jules Marey and Georges Demenÿ
Pathological Walk from the Front

Roberts 1888: Long-exposure plate revealing faint nebulosity around Pleiades cluster – first photographic evidence of a reflection nebula

1888
Isaac Roberts
Nebula in the Pleiades

Ernst Mach 1887: shadowgraph of supersonic brass bullet revealing shock waves – first high-speed scientific photography

1887
Ernst Mach
Brass Bullet

Muybridge 1887: 12-frame sequence of gull in flight – motion study proving wing mechanics through multiple cameras

1887
Eadweard Muybridge
Animal Locomotion. Plate 762

Marey 1886: chronophotograph showing sinuous wave trail of oscillating flexible rod – first visualisation of wave motion

1886
Étienne-Jules Marey
Shaking a Flexible Rod

William Jennings 1882: branching lightning bolt over Philadelphia – first photograph of lightning captured on glass plate

1882
William Nicholson Jennings
Lightning

Marey 1882: Chronophotographic sequence of pelican in flight captured on single glass plate – motion study

1882
Étienne-Jules Marey
Birds

1827 - 1879

Muybridge 1878: 12-frame sequence of galloping horse on card – first photographic proof of all hooves airborne

1878
Eadweard Muybridge
The Horse in Motion

Janssen 1874: Venus silhouette crossing the Sun's disc, captured from Japan – first photographic transit series

1874
Pierre Jules César Janssen
Transit of Venus

Berkowski 1851: daguerreotype of total solar eclipse revealing corona structure – first known photograph of a solar eclipse

1851
Julius Berkowski
Solar Eclipse

Fizeau & Foucault 1845: daguerreotype of the Sun showing sunspots – first solar photograph, Paris

1845
Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault
First Sun Photo

Anna Atkins 1843: Cyanotype photogram of Polysiphonia formosa algae – first photographic book, Rijksmuseum

1843
Anna Atkins
First Book of Photograms

John Draper 1840: daguerreotype of the Moon showing surface detail – first astronomical photograph, New York University rooftop observatory

1840
John Draper
Earliest Image of the Moon

Daguerre 1837: silver-plated copper plate showing plaster casts, drawings and harp in studio – first surviving daguerreotype

1837
Louis Daguerre
First Surviving Daguerreotype

Talbot 1835: paper negative of Lacock Abbey's oriel window, tonally reversed – first reproducible photographic negative

1835
William Henry Fox Talbot
First Negative

Niépce 1827: blurred rooftop view from upper window, oldest surviving permanent photograph – heliograph on pewter plate

1827
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
First Permanent Photograph