From Queen Victoria to a hippo: the pictures that changed photography from the 1820s to the 1870s

All week we’ll be bringing you the most revolutionary photographs ever taken, by the biggest names. Today, it’s the birth of photography, with the earliest heliograph, scandalous nudes and the first ever manipulated image

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  • Le Cardinal d’Amboise (detail), 1826, by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

    Nicéphore Niépce is credited as the inventor of photography. This is one of his first heliograph plate images
    Le Cardinal d'Amboise (detail heliograph), 1826. Niepce is credited as the inventor of photography and these are among his first images.

  • The Open Door, 1843, by William Henry Fox Talbot

    This was taken using a mousetrap camera, invented in 1835 and named by Fox Talbot’s wife for its looks. It was one of the first cameras ever made, and took the earliest known photo negative
    The Open Door, 1843.

  • Botanical specimen, c 1840, by William Henry Fox Talbot

    Taken from the first photographically illustrated book ever published
    Botanical specimen, c.1840.

  • Daguerreotype of

    St Paul’s Cathedral, 1840s, by an anonymous photographerThe French Academy of Sciences donated Louis Daguerre’s invention to the world in 1839 – but it was so expensive it was rendered obsolete with the invention of the wet collodion process in the 1850s
    Daguerreotype of St Paul’s Cathedral, 1840s, by an anonymous photographer

  • Articles of China, 1844, by William Henry Fox Talbot

    Articles of China, 1844.

  • The Hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens, 1852, by Juan Carlos Maria Isidro

    This scene from London Zoo is likely the first image ever taken of a hippo
    The Hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens, 1852.

  • The Valley of the Shadow of Death, 1855, by Roger Fenton

    Fenton took two images of a ravine that had come under cannon fire by Russian forces during the Crimean war. Certain scholars believe he added the cannon balls into this photograph to make it seem more dangerous – which could make it the first ever manipulated image
    The Valley of the Shadow of Death, 1855.

  • Portrait of a patient at the Surrey County Asylum, c 1855, by Dr Hugh Welch Diamond

    Diamond was a psychiatrist and photographer who took pictures of his patients to document their expressions. He believed his calotypes could help people with mental health problems
    Portrait of a patient, Surrey County Asylum, c.1855.

  • The Two Ways of Life, 1857, Oscar Rejlander

    An early composite, which uses 30 images
    The Two Ways of Life, 1857 (a composite of 30 images).

  • Nude, c 1855

    This coloured stereoscopic picture was designed to give the viewer the illusion of a three-dimensional image. Its inventor, Sir Charles Wheatstone, also invented the concertina
    Nude, c1855.

  • Queen Victoria, c 1856 by Roger Fenton

    Queen Victoria, c.1856, Roger Fenton

  • Still life with ivory tankard and fruit, 1860, by Roger Fenton

    Still life with ivory tankard and fruit, 1860.
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