The first camera collector

[truls]

Tried to search who was the first camera collector, not easy to find useful info. So, is there someone who was the first camera collector? And when did camera collecting became a popular hobby? Years ago probably only wealthy beings had the possibility of buying cameras. As the digital came, more cameras was affordable, so we all can now collect and have fun.

[Stephen]

I think the first camera collector was William Fox Talbot, the inventor of photography, who built many of his own cameras, many of which survived in his estate, and are on display in the museum at Laycock Abbey.

His invention was the photographic negative and the Calotype process, not to have taken the first photo.

Stephen

[mickeyobe]

Nov 13, 2014 17:52:55 GMT -5 truls said:

Tried to search who was the first camera collector, not easy to find useful info. So, is there someone who was the first camera collector? And when did camera collecting became a popular hobby? Years ago probably only wealthy beings had the possibility of buying cameras. As the digital came, more cameras was affordable, so we all can now collect and have fun.

I think we must first define the word Camera.

Centuries ago Vermeer and other artists. used cameras, that is a darkened room with a hole in one wall, to project and copy by hand scenes projected on the opposite wall.

Then came lenses and much smaller contraptions to project scenes or objects onto paper or canvas also for hand copying.

Finally came the forerunners of today's cameras that used photosensitive materials to capture the image. This was perfected by dedicated experimenters who discovered how to make permanent images.

Now, today, we have remarkable digital cameras. No one can say for sure if its images are, indeed, permanent.

What is a camera?

I presume Michelangelo and Vermeer and others each used more than only one room.
Could they have been the first true collectors or merely roomers?

Mickey

[SidW]

Stephen has suggested the first collector.

Camera collection generally seems to have taken off in the 1970s, when many of the national collecting societies were formed. So perhaps a growing interest in the 1960s.

I tried the auction houses, but they seem to be better at photographs than cameras. It's not easy to search for "first photographic sale".

[truls]

It could be a subject for a book, I am not the right human to Write this story. Could not find books of this type either. Thanks for replies, interesting.

[philbirch]

I think Mickey is probably the first collector. He's been around since Billy Fox Talbot was a pup.

[mickeyobe]

Jan 7, 2015 18:15:41 GMT -5 philbirch said:

I think Mickey is probably the first collector. He's been around since Billy Fox Talbot was a pup.

You called him Billy.

Were you close chums or his baby sitter?

Mickey

[philbirch]

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