Cameras and Film

'A camera is an optical instrument that captures a visual image'. 
My picture today is of several modern digital cameras, but many of the earliest early cameras could capture images without being able to preserve them. The first permanent camera image was made in 1825 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding box camera with pewter plates and requiring long exposure times to produce an image. I have an album full of old Daguerreotype family portraits.The process using copper plates was invented in 1839 but widely used in the 1840's and 1850's. It is no wonder that the people in the pictures aren't smiling for exposures as long as five minutes were necessary.

The use of photographic film was pioneered by George Eastman in 1888. His first camera, the "Kodak", a simple box camera went on sale. It came preloaded with enough film for 100 exposures and needed to be sent back to the factory for processing and reloading when the roll was finished. A lot of us grew up with the 'Brownie' box camera*, one of his first mass produced, inexpensive cameras.

In the interests of full disclosure, although my maiden name was Eastman, and my father's side of the family is full of well documented Eastmans, nowhere does there appear to be any connection to the founder of the Eastman Kodak Company which revolutionized the photography, film, and motion picture industries. George Eastman never married although his legacy includes the Eastman School of Music, and several buildings on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He made major donations to historically black universities in the South  and , with an interest in improving health, provided funds for clinics in London and other European cities to serve low-income residents.

In his final years he was in intense pain caused by a spinal disorder, and killed himself on March 14 (my birthdate) 1932 (not my birthdate).

Thanks to Laurie54 for hosting this challenge and leading me via  an admittedly circuitous route from cameras to an interesting history of a man with whom I share a name but to whom I am not related. He sounds like somebody I would have liked to know....

*extra