BEGINNINGS:

In the early nineteenth century, in 1826, French scientist Nicephore Niepce was a first photographic images, unpublished, could not be permanently fixed. The oldest photograph that remains is a reproduction of the image known as View from the Window at Le Gras, obtained in 1826 with the use of a camera obscura and a support via a chemical emulsion sensitive silver salts.

When Niepce ...began his research needed eight hours of exposure to daylight, for their images. In 1839, Louis Daguerre made public its process for obtaining photographs onto a polished silver surface, which he called daguerreotype. Solved some technical problems of the initial Niepce and reduced exposure times required. Almost at the same time Hercules Florence, Hippolythe Bayard and William Fox Talbot developed alternative methods. The Fox Talbot created by negative got a paper, and from these negatives reproduced positive prints, also on paper. The negative-positive process called calotype of Talbot or talbotipo.

Initially, the daguerreotype was much more popular, as it was very useful for portraits. These "daguerreotype portraits" began to spread among the bourgeoisie of the industrial revolution, being much cheaper than painted, giving a great impetus to this new technique.