FAQ: WIEP Patronage

The Delaware Photographic Society (DPS) is grateful to all our WIEP Patrons. With your financial support DPS continues to present the annual Wilmington International Exhibition of Photography. DPS was founded in January, 1931 as the Delaware Camera Club to support and promote the art of photography. DPS continues this today as an educational 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, and donations are deductible to the full extent provided by law.

In the past WIEP patronage was only available to DPS members but now everyone can contribute if they wish.

Thank you.

Patronage Levels

As a patron you will be listed in the official exhibition catalog as well as on this website unless you elect to remain anonymous. The listings will indicate your patronage level as:

  • Daguerre Level: $5-$19
  • Fox Talbot Level: $20-$49
  • Lumière Level: $50 and above

Why Those Names?

The names are those of key contributors to the science of photography through history.

In 1827, Joseph Nicephore Niépce made the first permanent photograph with a camera obscura. In 1829, Niépce formed a partnership with Louis Daguerre to perfect the process Niépce had developed. Daguerre announced the Daguerreotype in 1839 and it popularized photography although it was a different process from those that followed (silver on a copper plate).

John Herschel discovered the first effective photograph fixer and informed Henry Fox Talbot and Daguerre of his discovery. Fox Talbot invented the first glass negative from which multiple positive prints were made. In 1841, Fox Talbot announced the Calotype process which is essentially the same negative-positive process used to this day for black and white photographs using conventional film and printed on a paper substrate.

In 1861, James Clerk Maxwell took the first color photograph but it was not until 1907 that brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière launched the Autochrome process which was the first fully practical color plate.

Finally, zoom up to 1969 when Willard Boyle and George Smith at Bell Labs developed the CCD (Charge Coupled Device) which is the basis of digital photography. For this they were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.