Camera: A History of Photography from Daguerreotype to Digital »

Todd Gustavson is Curator of Technology at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. He is responsible for the cataloging, storage, and maintenance of one of the world’s largest collections of photographic and cinematic equipment, containing more than 20,000 artifacts. He has curated or co-curated ten exhibitions for the museum, including the critically acclaimed traveling exhibition The Brownie at 100.

Cameras, and what they capture, forever changed our perception of the world, and of ourselves. Few inventions have had the impact of this ingenious, elegant, and deceptively simple device.

This gorgeous cornerstone volume, created in collaboration with the world-famous George Eastman House, celebrates the camera and the art of the photograph. It spans almost two hundred years of progress, from the first faint image ever caught to the instantaneous pictures snapped by today’s state-of-the-art digital equipment.

The informative narrative by Todd Gustavson traces the camera’s development, the lives of its brilliant but often eccentric inventors, and the artists behind the lens. Images and highly descriptive captions for more than 350 cameras from the George Eastman House Collection, plus more than 100 historic photos, ads, and drawings, complement the text.

A foreword by the George Eastman House Director Anthony Bannon, and insightful essays by Steve Sasson, inventor of the digital camera, and Alexis Gerard, visionary founder and president of Future Image Inc., completes this illuminating study of one of the greatest modern technological achievements.

Publishers Weekly

Gustavson's book is a history not of iconic images, but rather of the machines that made them possible. Examples, from the Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., where he is curator of technology, show how innovative ideas became products and how those products made possible the progressive transformation of photography from amateur pastime into a business and a central component in the world of modern art. Major developments are discussed from the earliest wet plate cameras to the camera NASA used on the moon. Detailed captions provide both the technical information to satisfy enthusiasts and glimpses into the personalities of those who created the cameras. Over 350 color illus. (Oct.)