First Attempt

Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805)

The first person to try to capture and "fix," or make permanent, the light image of the camera was the Englishman Thomas Wedgwood.

Wedgwood was acquainted with the camera obscura from an early age. His father, Josiah Wedgwood, used it in decorating his famous pottery. Around 1800, Thomas Wedgwood placed flat, translucent objects or paintings-on-glass onto paper or leather sensitized with silver nitrate. Then he exposed them to sunlight. Because he had no way of fixing the images, Wedgwood's "sun prints" were not permanent. Continued exposure to light darkened the image until it was completely obscured.

Wedgwood's experiments with fixing the camera image were cut short by his early death.