In a sale celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sotheby's photography auctions, a set of nearly 200 early photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot quadrupled its pre-auction high estimate and achieved a new auction record for the artist: $1,956,000.
A rare collection of some of the world's earliest photographs is coming up for sale. Sotheby’s will be selling nearly 200 photos by 19th-century photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot at auction in New York next month.
Back in 1844, English photography pioneer Henry Fox Talbot began publishing the seminal book The Pencil of Nature, the first photo book ever to be published commercially. As it's in the public domain, you can read the book in its entirety for free online over at Project Gutenberg.
The world's first major photography exhibition was held back in 1839 when British scientist and photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot held a show to unveil his photo prints to the public. Fast forward nearly 180 years, and now an artist has created Talbot's first photo show as an immersive virtual reality experience.
Animator Drew Christie of Whidbey Island, Washington, was recently commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to create a set of animated short films that tell the story of famous photography pioneers.
If you've never heard a basic overview of the history of photography, then this cute little animated video from TED-Ed is here for you. It covers everything from the invention of the camera obscura, to the battle between the calotype and the daguerreotype, to the rise of portable cameras.
If you're at all interested in the history of photography, Henry Fox Talbot is a pioneer that you need to be familiar with. Although French pioneer Louis Daguerre is often credited with being "the father of photography," Talbot, based in England, had announced his own photographic process in the same year. Daguerre's daguerreotype process dominated the industry early on, but Talbot's process -- one that involved creating photographic negatives and then printing photos with them -- eventually became the standard model used in the 20th century.