1800-1877

English chemist and pioneer of photography who invented an early photographic technique called the talbotype, or calotype. This process used a sheet of paper coated with silver chloride that, when exposed to light for one minute, created a negative from which multiple images could be made. Had his method been announced a few weeks earlier, Talbot (not French inventor Louis Daguerre) would have been known as the father of photography. Talbot's Pencil of Nature was the first book to contain photographic illustrations.