Having worked in the photographic industry for close to 20 years and thought
I knew the technology history of photography this is the first I've ever
heard of someone in the U.S. ...not to mention Va. having developed a
photographic process in 1839. Beaumont Newhall in his book The History of
Photography site the earliest know images were developed by Sir Humphrey Davy
for his friend Thomas Wedgwood (son of the potter), they were not permanent.
Joseph Niepce of France develop a process using a highly polished metal plate
with a solution of bitumen of Judea ( an asphalt like material) in 1826...by
1835 Daguerre had modified the process and improved on it.  The father of
modern photography is William Henry Fox Talbot . He perfected the process of
imaging using silver nitrate. This is the process that is basically still in
use today. That was in 1835. By 1845 calotype negatives were being used to
produce photographic images......almost all of the images shot by Civil War
photographers was done using Collodion negatives (invented by Frederick
Archer of England in 1851) . Tintypes invented by Hamilton Smith of NY in
1856 were still used during the Civil War period because they were so easy
and fast to make.

This is the first I heard of someone Va. developing a process....What's his
name?

Bill Buser
former VP of an Eastman Kodak Company

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