The Power of Photography

Photographers use their cameras as tools of exploration, passports to inner sanctums, instruments for change. Their images are proof that photography matters—now more than ever. By Robert Draper Thirty-four years before the birth of this magazine, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard sourly prophesied a banal fate for the newly popularized art of photography. “With the daguerreotype,” he observed, “everyone will be able to have their portrait taken—formerly it was only the prominent—and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same, so we shall only need one portrait.” The National Geographic Society did not set out to test Kierkegaard’s thesis, at least not right away. By wresting a precious particle of the world from time and space and holding it absolutely still, a great photograph can explode the totality of our world, such that we never see it quite the same again. Today photography has become a global cacophony of freeze-frames.

Milestones in Photography -- National Geographic History of Photography and the Camera Updated October 05, 2015. continue reading below our video Niepce placed an engraving onto a metal plate coated in bitumen, and then exposed it to light. The shadowy areas of the engraving blocked light, but the whiter areas permitted light to react with the chemicals on the plate. When Niepce placed the metal plate in a solvent, gradually an image, until then invisible, appeared. However, Niepce's photograph required eight hours of light exposure to create and after appearing would soon fade away. In 1839 after several years of experimentation and Niepce's death, Daguerre developed a more convenient and effective method of photography, naming it after himself - the daguerreotype. Daguerre's process 'fixed' the images onto a sheet of silver-plated copper. In 1839, Daguerre and Niepce's son sold the rights for the daguerreotype to the French government and published a booklet describing the process. Talbot sensitized paper to light with a silver salt solution.

National Geographic Image Collection Book: Preview the New Photo Book An unparalleled treasury of iconic images and groundbreaking photography, the National Geographic Image Collection gathers together more than 11 million images chronicling the world from the end of the 19th century to the first decade of the 21st. The 450 selections in the new National Geographic Image Collection book, many never before published, represent the finest of the archive. See many of these selections—and get a glimpse into the archive itself—in this new Image Collection photo gallery and video. Director of Photography and Video: Melissa Wiley Creative Director: Greg Harris Web Producer: Katel Ledu Research and Production: William Barr Writers: Scot Hoffman and Korena Di Roma Copy Editor: Nancy Gupton Web and Flash Development: Stefan Estrada Video Production: Eric Hoffman and Summer Simpson