One of
the pioneers in the development of photography. He developed
the calotype, a paper negative-positive process, often
referred to as salt print process. Although the paper prints
did not have the clarity of daguerreotypes (announced in the
same year, 1839), his work was an important contribution to
photography. The 1839 announcement of Daguerre's invention
prompted Talbot to publish the results of his own work on
what he called the calotype. Talbot's process, even
more than Daguerre's, became the basis of modern photography
because, unlike Daguerre's, which produces a single, positive
image, Talbot's callotype is a negative image from which an
unlimited number of positives can be printed. His book The
Pencil of Nature (issued in six parts, 1844-1846), [was]
the first to be illustrated with photographs …
Source: Marilyn Stokstad, Art History, 1995 (p.987).
