9 September 1839: Sir John Herschel takes the first glass-plate photograph
9 September 1839: Sir John Herschel takes the first glass-plate photograph ‘Cameras’ have been around for a very long time. We know the Chinese were playing around with pinhole cameras in the fifth century BC. A pinhole camera is simply a box with a small hole in the front. Light enters through the hole and an upside-down image is displayed on the inside back wall of the box. We also know the Chinese were aware that certain chemicals underwent a change when exposed to light. Combine the two and you should have a ‘photograph’. Sadly, no ancient selfies have come down to us. But you never know… After that, the ancient Greeks toyed with the technology, then the Arabs and the Europeans after them, and on into the Renaissance. But it wasn’t until the early 19th century that photography, as we understand it, was born. Frenchman Louis Daguerre is famous for inventing the daguerreotype – an early form of photography that used metal plates – in 1839. But on 9 September ...