News on Relevant Science: 10 Significant Moments in the History of Photography

On a summer day in 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made what is believed to be the first photographic image with a camera obscura, also known as a "pinhole camera." The process used a plate covered with a substance called bitumen, which hardened in relation to light as it came through the small hole into the dark, airtight interior of the camera obscura. Washing down the plate after several hours of exposure with oil of lavender produced a permanent image. Since then, photographers have made great strides and great art. Below are 10 magical and significant moments in the history of photography.

E.J. Bellocq photographs the women of Storyville

In the late 1950s, photographer and archivist Lee Friedlander recovered and eventually developed from the glass negatives 89 images by New Orleans photographer E.J. Bellocq. The photos, taken in 1912, are portraits of prostitutes who worked in the city's notorious Storyville district. As a professional photographer, Bellocq often photographed ordinary, even boring subjects. But for reasons still unknown, he was compelled to unflinchingly create this series of portraits of women who worked and lived outside of society.
Lee Miller photographs World War II for Vogue magazine

American-born model and photographer Lee Miller, pictured here wearing a dress of mirrors, apprenticed with surrealist artist Man Ray. She quickly became one of the 20th century's finest photographers. When World War II broke out, she stayed in London to work as Vogue magazine's war photographer and correspondent. Her experiences in London and post-war Europe were profound, perhaps even traumatizing. A photograph by collaborator David E. Scherman of Miller in the bathtub of Hitler's Munich apartment taken after visiting the Dachau concentration camp is one of the most controversial images to come out of her time as a war correspondent.
James Van der Zee and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1968, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Allon Schoener happened upon a Harlem storefront with a sign that read, "Photographer, Van der Zee, Weddings, Family Gatherings, Children." Inside the store was Van der Zee, then in his 80s, surrounded by boxes containing thousands of portraits he's taken of Harlem's families, jazz musicians, and religious leaders. The timing of this discovery was fortuitous. Van der Zee was about to be evicted, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art was preparing its exhibition "Harlem on My Mind" a celebration in photographs of the history and culture of Harlem. The show rescued from obscurity and revived the career of Van der Zee, who went on to create some iconic portraits of new celebrity fans of his work, including painter Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Andy Warhol discovers the photo booth

Artist Andy Warhol's "Photo Booth Self-Portrait" marks his discovery of the photo booth as a tool for making art. His experiments with this fun and cheap way of capturing images led him to create one of the more powerful portraits of the 20th century, the large silkscreen-on-canvas Ethel Scull Thirty-Six Times (1963). To create this piece, Warhol asked collector Ethel Scull to sit in a photo booth in a pinball arcade at New York City's 52nd and Broadway and on his cue, "…start smiling and talking." As Scull struck pose after pose, the machine generated two dozen strips that Warhol silk screened to create a grid of pure-pop portraiture.
Philippe Halsman photographs Salvador Dali

Philippe Halsman's Life and Time magazine cover portraits, including a forlorn Albert Einstein, an image that found its way onto a U.S. postage stamp, and a gloriously sexy Marilyn Monroe, are familiar and iconic images. His late 1940s collaboration with surrealist artist Salvador Dali produced a series of equally stunning if bizarre images, including a skull shaped out of a tableau vivant of seven nude women.
Walker Evans documents the lives of sharecroppers

In 1936, photographer Walker Evans was working for the Farm Security Administration, created as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to address poverty in rural America. That same year, Fortune magazine asked Walker and writer James Agee to travel to Hale County, Alabama, to document the lives of white sharecroppers. Walker's photos of sharecroppers and the interiors of their homes were published, along with Agee's prose, in book form titled Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Their collaboration remains an example of literary innovation and forward-thinking journalism.
Robert Mapplethorpe walks on the wild side

Singer, poet, and author Patti Smith said of her close friend photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, "What excited Robert the most as an artist was to produce something that no one else had done." Mapplethorpe's more extreme photographs still have the capacity to shock even the most open minded of art lovers. He knew the explicit and controversial photos he took showing extremes of S&M culture weren't for everyone, and that no one had created anything like them before. Mapplethorpe's body of work also includes stunning portraits of society people, artists, and musicians, as well as flowers, and American flags.
Mathew Brady and the Civil War

Much of what we know about the Civil War comes from the photographs of Mathew Brady. President Abraham Lincoln granted permission for Brady to travel to the battlefields and camps and document the war as it unfolded. Brady reportedly said, "I had to go. A spirit in my feet said 'Go,' and I went." Brady employed several additional photographers in order to fully capture the scope of the War Between the States. After the war, Brady was unable to manage the debt he'd incurred as a result of the project, and died alone and penniless. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns said his series The Civil War would not have been possible without Brady's photographs.
The discovery of Vivian Maier's photographs

Beginning in 1951 and continuing throughout her lifetime, Maier took thousands of photographs of New York City and Chicago street life, but kept her body of work a secret. She worked most her life as a caregiver or nanny, while passionately and voluminously, in photos, film, and audio, documenting the world around her. In 2009, two years before she passed away, John Maloof stumbled across Maier's photographs in a Chicago thrift auction house. He became a champion of her work which now shows in prestigious galleries.
Filters for the iPhone's Instagram app

Wired magazine believes the key to the popularity of the Instagram app for the iPhone is its vintage filters. The app, in combination with an iPhone, allows users to take and share the photos across several platforms. After taking a photo, the user can choose from 16 filters to enhance, even completely transform the image. The filters stimulate Instagram's millions of users to observe the world around them with new eyes. "What Instagram is doing," writes Wired columnist Clive Thompson, "is giving newbies a way to develop deeper visual literacy."