Invention of the Week: The Camera and Photography

I would like to raise my glass to you, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, for inventing the first permanent photograph in 1826. While you were certainly not the first person to think of such a thing (that honor belongs to Johann Heinrich Schultz who figured out that a silver + chalk + light = darkened images in 1724), you made the all important innovation that would eventually come to shape American and global society in ways previously unimagined. In reality, your contribution would give democratic nations the teeth they were lacking. When Matthew Brady (and lesser knowns Alexander Gardner, George Bernard, Timothy O' Sullivan, and James Gibson) began photographing the American Civil War, they changed the way wars were understood and perceived by the public. While the TV and Vietnam may have changed the military's strategy in terms of warfare and protecting soldiers, Niépce, your invention afforded the public sphere a window into the good, the bad, and the horrifying aspects of warfare. To be sure, your invention has lost its power in the face of the internet and, before that, television, let's be honest: your innovation changed the face of governance and the terms of war. Committing atrocities could potentially leave a fingerprint that would provide the world with evidence.

In addition, the camera beyond Niépce's contribution altered the way time would be understood by people. The past was always a murky subject, and while writing allowed cultural knowledge to be stored, transmitted faithfully over time, and reinterpreted, the camera appealed to the sense most honed in homo sapien sapien: vision. No longer did one have to hear stories about their great-grandparents or their dead uncle, but no they could match the face to the name and the story; no longer did one have to endure a long-distance relationship and long courtship sans some image to remind them of the objection of their affection; and no longer did people have to strain to remember what they looked like as a baby, a teen, a young person, or a middle aged person...it could be preserved.

And, I cannot hesitate to mention the more contemporary iteration of cameras and their use: instant gratification! Without the camera, where would we be? How could we go out to a bar, club, dinner, or anywhere and not take a picture or ten or hundred to post on Myspace and Facebook immediately after the event (or with Blackberries and iPhones, immediately after the picture is taken)? I cannot even remember what it was like to go out and enjoy myself without a flash in my eyes, without some strange picture showing up the next day reminding me of something I had forgotten...or, god forbid, having to bring my film to the drugstore and wait a whole 24 hours to get the prints...How did we ever survive?

So Niépce and your predecessors...I salute you! And so do the millions of teens and college-aged kids who use your invention three or four times a day to update their profiles on a seemingly infinite number of networking sites!