When photographing a car we sometimes forget the history behind it. Sometimes the story behind an object can help to give us inspiration to photograph from a different approach. Just as a portrait of a celebrity may be constructed to reflect their personality and history, the same can be said for a car. So with that in mind, here is a brief history of the car.

To many people, especially Americans, it is a given fact that Henry Ford was the father of the car. The truth is that Ford arrived relatively late in the technological march toward the modern automobile.

Building an Engine

When people first began seriously attempting to create self-propelled land transports, the prevalent locomotion technology was steam power. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French inventor, is credited with building the first self-propelled land vehicles – a steam powered tricycle and two steam powered tractors for the French Army. While their simple existence was a landmark, steam power was entirely unsuited to the application. Requiring an enormous heat source to produce steam fast enough to keep a vehicle moving, the engines were starved for steam by the small heat sources found on these vehicles.

Fardier de Cugnot replica by alainmichot93 on Flickr.

Another pair of French inventors, Claude and Nicéphore Niépce, were likely the first to produce an internal combustion engine. An inefficient attempt that was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried and ground Lycopodium moss), coal dust, resin and oil, the brothers used their engine to power a boat propeller.

Over the following seventy-five years, newer and better internal combustion engines were developed. Often these were bolted onto an existing wagon or other vehicle to create a makeshift automobile.

1885 Benz Patent-Motorwagen by Michiel2005 on Flickr.

The real breakthrough came in 1885 when German engineer Karl Benz was granted a patent for a three wheeled motor driven cart. The vehicle was an advance over previous attempts by other inventors for two reasons: Benz’s four stroke gasoline engine itself was far more reliable than previous internal combustion engines and his vehicle was a purpose-built integral unit. This graduation from bolting an engine onto an existing vehicle to building the vehicle and engine to work together is widely considered the birth of the automobile as we know it.

Moving Toward the Modern Automobile

For the next couple of decades automobile technology improved as various inventors refined engine and vehicle design. In 1895, a Rochester, New York based inventor named George Seldon was granted the patent for the first American car. The patent allowed Seldon to market his vehicle in a virtually competition free marketplace until 1911 when a group of would-be auto manufacturers, led by Henry Ford, challenged Seldon’s patent and managed to get it overturned.

Ford Model T by Michiel2005 on Flickr.

The concept of mass producing cars was first implemented by Ransom Olds at a factory known as Oldsmobile. Greatly improving on the procedures Olds was using, Henry Ford streamlined the manufacture of automobiles and began the era of cars that move millions of people every day.

So, now when you photograph a car try not just see it as an object; Think of the blood sweat and tears behind this fine feat of engineering. View the car as a symbol of the progress we have made as humans.