Virtual exhibition “Photographic Innovations”

From the camera obscura to the cinematograph, the INPI (French National Institute of Industrial Property) highlights two centuries of patents that have shaped photography. To mark the launch of the Bicentennial of Photography, immerse yourself in the virtual exhibition "Photographic Innovations," a new journey through the Institute's heritage collections.

Since 1826, photography has revolutionized the arts and techniques. To mark its bicentenary, the INPI (French National Institute of Industrial Property) is dedicating a virtual exhibition to the many innovations that have shaped the history of this eighth art.

Through 19th-century patents, the exhibition Photographic innovations This reveals how photography was invented, democratized and finally animated.

From Gustave Le Gray's dry waxed paper negative (1851) to the Lumière brothers' cinematograph (1895), via Eugène Disdéri's carte-de-visite portrait (1854), George Eastman's first mass-produced portable camera (1888) or Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron's color photography processes (1865), each technical leap is also a story of industrial property.

Early processes, dissemination of the "snapshot", color capture, miniaturization of equipment, animation: come and explore the history of photography in five chapters and discover how, today, we can "capture light in passing, chain it together and force the sun to paint pictures" (according to a quote from Louis Daguerre, editor's note).