200 Years of Photography: A Timeline (c. 1826/27–2026/27) | World Photography Day

Two centuries of photography. Twenty years of the Sony World Photography Awards.

This World Photography Day, we look back at the history of the medium that’s changed how we capture our reality.

Although there’s no single agreed date for the invention of photography, this year we can begin to celebrate 200 years since the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera was produced.

It’s Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s View from the Window at Le Gras, an image created using heliography – a process Niépce developed himself, from the Greek for ‘sun-writing.’ The photograph took days of exposure to light to form. Eventually, it revealed an image of buildings and rooftops outside Niépce’s window in Chalon-sur-Saône in the Burgundy region of France. Today, it stands as one of the starting points for the medium of photography.
 

The Harry Ransom Center in Texas, which currently holds this image, explains the process:
 

‘Niépce dissolved light-sensitive bitumen in oil of lavender and applied a thin coating over a polished pewter plate. He inserted the plate into a camera obscura and positioned it near a window in his second-story workroom.’

Historians generally date the photograph to 1826–27, with 1827 often cited as the more likely date of its creation.

There’s another significant date in photography’s history that falls on 19 August: on this day in 1839, the French government made the details of Louis Daguerre’s daguerreotype publicly available. Developed from work he began with Niépce, the process created a single, highly detailed image directly onto a polished, silver-coated copper plate, without the need for a negative. This historic date is now celebrated globally as World Photography Day.

So rather than trying to pin photography’s 200th anniversary to a single day, we’re celebrating it across a whole year – from the 2026 World Photography Day and well into 2027! And we can’t complain – it means more time to appreciate the beginnings of this significant medium that has transformed how we document, understand and see the world.

This year also marks the launch of the 20th edition of the Sony World Photography Awards – two decades of celebrating photographers from around the world. As we look back at 200 years of photography, it feels like the perfect moment to reflect on the photographers shaping its future.

1800s - The Birth of Photography

• Niépce produces View from the Window at Le Gras, the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera, before entering into partnership with Louis Daguerre.
   
• Daguerre publicly reveals the daguerreotype in 1839, while William Henry Fox Talbot separately introduces his negative-positive process in England.
   
• Throughout the century, new processes including the calotype, wet collodion and gelatin dry plate make photography increasingly practical, while experiments in colour begin to emerge.
   
• By the late 1800s, photography appears widely in publications and mass-produced cameras bring it to a growing non-professional audience.
   

1900s - Rapid Evolution and Popularisation of Photography

• Early 1900s: The Lumière brothers’ Autochrome process brings colour photography to the market, while smaller cameras and roll film make photography increasingly accessible.
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  Mid-century: Photography becomes a dominant form of mass communication through newspapers, magazines, advertising and photojournalism, while also becoming firmly established as an art form.
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  Late 1900s: Digital photography emerges, transforming how images are captured, stored, and shared
   

The 2000s - The digital revolution and photography in everyday life

• In the 2000s, digital photography transforms the medium, making images faster, easier and cheaper to capture, edit and store, with smartphones eventually putting a camera in almost everyone’s hands.
   
• Photography becomes part of everyday communication, as social media and digital platforms transform how images are shared, discovered and consumed.
   
• World Photography Organisation is founded in 2007 and the Sony World Photography Awards launched, creating a major global platform for photographers around the world.
   
• By the 2020s, photography is an integral part of daily life, while continuing to evolve alongside new technologies and ways of seeing.
   

Make your mark on photography’s history

Enter the Sony World Photography Awards 2027 for your chance to have your work seen on a global stage, connect with photography’s community and become part of the story of photography.