But the word photography could be heard even in 1839. Many historians suppose that this term was first used by an Englishman John Frederick William Herschel on March 14, 1839. But there is another version dating back to February 25, 1839. According to it, it was an astronomer from Berlin Johann Heinrich von Madler who was the first to use this term. Photography was in for a long way of development.

In 1861 an English physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831 – 1879) got the first color photograph. It was a really significant event. It was a great challenge and responsibility to speak about color photography at the time when getting even an ordinary black-and-white image was a grand problem. In order to produce indubitable evidence of his trichromatic theory, a photograph of a tartan ribbon on the black velvet was taken.

He arranged for three photographs of a tartan ribbon to be taken in broad daylight. These three negatives were exposed respectively through a transparent flat dish with bright-green, bright-blue and bright-red liquid. Then the three negatives were printed on glass plates.

On 17 May 1861, James Clerk Maxwell gave a lecture on color at the Royal Institution in London, during which he projected through red, green and blue colored filters three photographs of a tartan ribbon taken through the same filters. This first-ever color photograph was a surprisingly faithful reproduction of the original.

This is by no means the final stage in the development and formation of photography as one of the most popular visual arts.

We now live in the epoch of digital technologies. The method of getting an image has changed dramatically. A digital camera, a computer, a printer, a scanner – they all have become indispensable in photography. But the history of discoveries hasn´t finished yet…