| 1880 | North America • USA
| George Eastman introduces Roll film for cameras. |
| 1880 | North America • USA
| The first half-tone photograph is published in a newspaper, the New York Daily Graphic, it depicts a dilapidated shantytown. (4 March 1880) |
| 1882 | Europe • France
| French physiologist Étienne Jules Marey invents the chronophotographic gun, a camera shaped like a rifle that records twelve successive photographs per second. |
| 1884 | Europe • Great Britain
| Henry Peach Robinson publishes Picture Making by Photography (London: Piper & Carter). This work goes through multiple editions and influences a generation of photographers in the creation of allegorical photographs of sugary sentimentality. |
| 1884 | North America • USA
| The largest flood in 19th century America occurs when Ohio River rises 71.1 feet causing devastation and submerging parts of Cincinnati. The event is photographed by B.D. Jackson, J. Landy and others. (14 February 1884) |
| 1886 | Europe • Great Britain
| Peter Henry Emerson publishes Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads. [Read about] |
| 1886 | Europe • France
| Paul Nadar and Felix Tournachon carried out one of the first photo-interviews of the chemist M.E. Chevreul on his hundredth birthday and thirteen of the photographs were published in Le Journal Illustré on 5th September. |
| 1887 | Global
| Celluloid film becomes available |
| 1887 | North America • USA
| James Fairchild issued a US patent for "Apparatus for aerial photography". This used a clock mechanism to operate the shutter of a camera supported by a kite or a balloon. (8 February 1887) |
| 1888 | North America • USA
| Kodak No.1 box camera is marketed by George Eastman (Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co.) and popular amateur photography begins. |
| 1888 | North America • USA
| Frederick Ives announces the invention of the crossline halftone screen. The halftone allows the mass reproduction of photographs in newspapers and magazines. Ives failed to patent the process and made no financial reward from his labors. |
| 1889 | Europe • Great Britain
| Peter Henry Emerson publishes Naturalistic Photography for students of the art. (London, Sampson Low & Co.) that proposes photography should go outside the confines of the studio to record the natural world in an artistic style. His work on the everyday life in the Norfolk Broads in eastern England clearly shows his approach. |
| 1889 | North America • USA
| The Johnstown Flood kills over 2,209 people in southwestern Pennsylvania when the South Fork Dam bursts. George Barker was one of those who photographed the aftermath. (31 May 1889) |
| 1890 | North America • USA
| Jacob Riis publishes How the Other Half Lives on the New York slums one of the first books of social commentary backed with photographic evidence. It includes seventeen halftone photographs and a further nineteen hand drawings based upon photographs. [Read about]
Title | Lightbox | Checklist
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York (Penguin Classics)
Jacob A. Riis; & Luc Sante (Introduction) |  |
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| 1890 | Europe • Great Britain
| Peter Henry Emerson publishes his bitter The death of Naturalistic Photography that argues that photography is a "very limited art" and repudiates his earlier work. [Read about] |
| 1890 | North America • USA
| Illustrated American, the first picture magazine planned to use photographs, goes to press made possible by perfection of the halftone printing process. |
| 1891 | Europe
| Professor Gabriel Lippmann introduces a color process but it never achieves popularity due to its complexity. |
| 1892 | Europe • Great Britain
| George Davison and Alfred Maskell found the Linked Ring Brotherhood in Great Britain. The fifteen original members are Bernard Alfieri, Tom Bright, Arthur Burchett (1875-1913), Henry Hay Cameron (1856-1911, son of Julia Margaret Cameron), Lyonel Clark, Francis Cobb, George Davison, Henry E. Davis, Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863-1906), Alfred Maskell, Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901) and his son Ralph Winwood Robinson (1862-1942), Francis Seyton Scott, Henry Van der Weyde and William Willis (1841-1923). (27 May 1892) [Read about] |
| 1893 | Europe • Great Britain
| The Photographic Salon is the first show of the Linked Ring Brotherhood founded in Great Britain. (November 1893) [Read about] |
| 1893 | Europe • Germany
| The first exhibition of photography held at the Hamburg Kunsthalle organized by the director Prof. Alfred Lichtwark. |
