Who created the permanent photographic negative?

• A. William Henry Fox Talbot
• B. Louis Daguerre
• C. Sir John Herschel
• D. Janssen

Answer: (A)

Having a durable negative that can be used to make multiple prints is what transformed photography from a one-off image into a reproducible process. William Henry Fox Talbot developed the calotype process, which produced a negative image on paper coated with silver iodide. This negative could be reused to create many positives by contact printing, allowing copies of a scene to be made. That ability to reproduce photographs from a single negative is the defining feature of the first permanent photographic negative. By contrast, the daguerreotype yielded a direct positive image on a metal plate that couldn’t be copied, and while Sir John Herschel contributed important fixes and terminology, he didn’t create the first practical negative. Janssen wasn’t involved in this development.