Talbot, William Henry Fox, 1800–1877, English inventor of photographic processes (see photography, still photography, still, science and art of making permanent images on light-sensitive materials.

See also photographic processing ; motion picture photography ; motion pictures .
..... Click the link for more information. ). A man of enormously versatile intelligence, he invented the "photogenic drawing" process in 1834. From 1841 on he patented his numerous processes for making negatives and positive prints, called calotypes and later talbotypes. His patents threatened to impede the technical progress of the medium and Talbot was forced to release his processes. His relationships with other early photographers and photographic inventors were very bitter. Talbot wrote The Pencil of Nature (1844), one of the first books illustrated with photographs. Interested also in archaeology, he was one of the first to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions at Nineveh.

Bibliography

See studies by A. Jammes (1974) and L. J. Schaaf (2000).

Talbot, William Henry Fox

(born Feb. 11, 1800, Melbury Abbas, Dorset, Eng.—died Sept. 17, 1877, Lacock Abbey, near Chippenham, Wiltshire) English chemist and pioneer photographer. In 1840 he developed the calotype, an early photographic process that improved on the daguerreotype; it involved the use of a photographic negative from which multiple prints could be made. In 1835 he published his first article documenting a photographic discovery, that of the paper negative. His The Pencil of Nature (1844–46) was the first book with photographic illustrations. Talbot also published many articles on mathematics, astronomy, and physics.