The early basis for photography goes back to the idea(s) of capturing a person’s actions through the use of light. Photography began during the early sixteen and late seventeenth centuries when the Greeks were able to project images onto different surfaces, but they were never able to capture the image or reproduce it in any way.

The first basic camera, or light capturing image, was developed in 1588 and was called the Camera Obscura. This early camera started out as a tool to aid artists and painters in improving their works. The camera worked in such a way that the lens would be focused on the subject or scene in which the artist was working on, then the camera would use a single reflecting mirror to project the captured light onto the surface the artists was working with. The main advantage of this camera was that it allowed for a more clear and realistic portrayal of the subject.

It was not until 1822 when French Researcher Joseph Nicephore Nicepce  was able to print the first photograph on paper coated with various chemicals that allowed the image to appear for a short amount of time. It was not until fellow country man Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre came around in 1837 that the first photograph was permanently printed during his “daguerreotype” – a process of capturing images that he names after himself.

A couple of years later the photography process received another major advancement with the invention of the Calytype printing process. While very similar to the daguerreotype, it used the negative and positive aspects of the photograph’s negative to print several copies of the exact same image. It was the invention of this printing press that lead to the use of photographs in advertisements and modern-day marketing.

Ten years later Frederick Scott Archer developed the Collodion process that allowed photographers to decrease the exposure time from almost half an hour to just two or three seconds. This development in the photography process led to a rise in portrait photography around the world and an advancement in the amount of photographers, inventors and public interest.

While this process aided in the spread of photography, there were still two problems with the photography process that was keeping it from the mass audiences – the need for immediate printing and the inability to take more than one photograph at a time with out having to change out a lot of materials.

That is where Richard Leach Maddox comes into the story. In 1871 Richard Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process. This process gave the photographer more leeway when it came to the time between taking the photograph and having to print it.