Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital

by Todd Gustavson

Cameras, and what they capture, forever changed our perception of the world, and of ourselves. Few inventions have had the impact of this ingenious, elegant, and deceptively simple device. This gorgeous cornerstone volume, created in collaboration with the world-famous George Eastman House, celebrates the camera and the art of the photograph. It spans almost two hundred years of progress, from the first faint image ever caught to the instantaneous pictures snapped by today’s state-of-the-art digital equipment. The informative narrative by Todd Gustavson traces the camera’s development, the lives of its brilliant but often eccentric inventors, and the artists behind the lens. Images and highly descriptive captions for more than 350 cameras from the George Eastman House Collection, plus more than 100 historic photos, ads, and drawings, complement the text. A foreword by the George Eastman House Director Anthony Bannon, and insightful essays by Steve Sasson, inventor of the digital camera, and Alexis Gerard, visionary founder and president of Future Image Inc., completes this illuminating study of one of the greatest modern technological achievements.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction, History, Reference

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Robert Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book full of image and information regarding historic cameras.

[Wiseman · Rating 5 out of 5]

So interesting. I'll be looking back to this book for years!

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's all about photography lately, isn't it? Eastman House has a gigantic collection of photographic equipment - I know this because I helped get their collection into a database (kind of like making a dumptruckfull of cactuses and quilt scraps fit into a silverware drawer). It's presented here with interesting captions and anecdotes, examples of famous images, and, of course, fetishistically well-lit photos of the objects.

[Jesmine Aw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really great book. It tells of how a camera was first invented and how it first looked liked. Things started with camera obscura and people began to improve it further. I think this book benefits me in my art as some artists in the olden times uses camera obscura to draw and paint better.

[Peter Atwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous book, very well done and informative. I received it as a birthday gift and enjoyed it thoroughly. If you want to learn about the evolution of photography and photographic equipment this is a terrific resource.

[Anna (Bananas) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is porn for camera lovers. Photographers will drool over, devour, and want to hump this book. There are beautiful, sexy photos of cameras, coupled with seductive descriptions of them, on every page. Buy it, you will love it.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly what I have been looking for. I'm very interested in the history of photography and to me, to understand something, a skill, a subject, a sport or hobby, you have to understand the history and this book does just that. I love it.

[Agatha Donkar Lund · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to own this.

[Kevin Fogle · Rating 5 out of 5]

CAMERA PORN!!!

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of pictures and descriptions of historic cameras (up to digital age) and some interesting side stories, like the invention of Kodachrome (one good thing that happened on April 15).

[Linda Toft · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book, a pleasure to own. This is a keeper and will have a place on my shelf with my other favorite photography books. I am sure I will refer to it often.

[Calvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book, great photos of cameras that shaped the development of photography. I msut for a lover of photography

[Ahmed Belal]

it's a fascinating book about the camera, anyone could do a lot of research to have such a collection, but in this book, i found a new and interesting kind and shapes of cameras.