Year 1 - History
The invention of photography
Photographs from history: what can they tell us about Britain's recent past?
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit explores photography as a recent invention that records history, highlighting early photos of lost ways of life and the challenges of early 20th-century photography. Students learn about changes in recent history, including food, clothing, and more, through photos from the past century.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to explain what photography is and why historians find it interesting.
Key Notes
- Photography is the process of capturing an image using a camera.
- This process produces a photograph, a picture of whatever the camera was pointed at.
- Photography is quite a recent invention, and has only been used for about 200 years.
- Photographs are interesting to historians because they have captured ways of life that have now disappeared.
Vocabulary To Learn
- photography: photography is the process of taking a photograph
- photograph: a picture made using a camera
- camera: a camera is a device used for taking photographs
- historian: an historian is someone who studies and writes about the past
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Pupils may assume that people have always been able to take photographs.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Summarise this historical learning in two key ideas.
Photography is the process of capturing an image using a camera. This process produces a photograph, a picture of whatever the camera was pointed at.
2. Define this history term and explain why it matters in this topic. 'photography'
photography is the process of taking a photograph.
3. Correct this common history misconception using evidence language.
Mistake: Pupils may assume that people have always been able to take photographs. Correction: Explain that photography was invented 200 years ago and, before that, photographs did not exist. People would have drawn or painted to record what they could see in front of them.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 1 History guide library.