Henry Fox Talbot - inventor of positive-negative photography

Today I visited the ancestral home of Henry Fox Talbot, the British inventor of the positive-negative process of photography in 1839.  He called his process the calotype. 

Lacock Abbey was the ancestral home of Henry Fox Talbot.  His earliest photography was largely taken on its premises.

On the left is a print of made from the oldest photographic negative in existance.  It was taken by Talbot from inside Lacock Abbey.  Next to it is a  photograph I took today showing the same window from the outside.

A portrait of Henry Fox Talbot taken in 1864.

It was definitely an exciting experience to be on the site of the birthplace of modern photography.  As I walked around the premises photographing with the latest in digital photography, the Nikon D800, I wondered what Fox Talbot would think of how far his invention has come.