The answers to such a question could fill a book I suppose; some people might propose the car, some people might answer air travel and others may be convinced that television is the best innovation ever.

I am going to say what I think has been man’s most significant invention of modern day times…technology-wise of course. The Camera.

Just think about it. Up until the very first camera’s were created back in the 19th century the only way for man to record history and events was through the written word and art(painting). We only have an idea of what Henry VIII looked like through those who painted his portraits; we only have an idea of what the Battle of Waterloo or Trafalgar seemed like because of those who captured those events on canvas – and even then those artists used their imagination as to how the action would have been.

Photography changed everything through capturing the actual image of a person or event on paper. Until the 1800′s the history of man, the planets and universe existed only in books; through the camera we have been able to record an entire century. The people, the events, the best and the worst moments in those times and they are all on film.

And the camera itself has evolved in order to record our history more effectively – from the lithograph and the daguerrotypes, to the studio camera, the box brownie to the portable self-developing cameras to those today with their flash memory and memory cards. The Camera has come a long way just as humankind has; it has captured for prosperity man’s greatest achievements such as walking on the moon – it has also captured the worst times in man’s history and shall serve to remind us all whenever we choose to forget.

Surely it can be said that the camera signalled a second age in the history of mankind? and all thanks to two French men – Charles & Vincent Chevalier – who invented this little gadget and made it all possible.