Pixiq

The Worlds First Photograph.

1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

The invention of photography was enabled by a long history of innovation. Although lenses had been used for many different purposes for at least 4000 years prior, a photographic image had never been "captured" until Joseph Niépce, a frenchman, set up a Camera Obscura in a second floor window of his country house in France in 1826. The Camera he used was loaded with a polished pewter plate which was coated with bitumen of Judea and exposed by uncovering the lens. The plate was exposed to bright sunlight for eight hours. 

Although there were a few other images produced prior to “View from the Window at Le Gras”  this is the first known image of a real scene and is also hailed as the first permanently fixed photograph.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

is known as the inventor of photography.

"Although by the late seventeenth century the camera obscura projected pictures onto paper and in the eighteenth century the German inventor J. H. Schulze observed that silver salts darkened when exposed to light, it was over a century later when Niepce combined these two concepts to produce photography. From his workroom, which overlooked the courtyard of his family's estate, Niepce made the first true attempt at photography in 1816. He used paper sensitized with silver chloride to capture a view from the camera obscura. This crude image faded away after a short time, and he could not find a means to render it permanent." - The Ransom Center - U of Texas at Austin

 

 

"The First Photograph, housed in its original presentational frame and sealed within an atmosphere of inert gas in an airtight steel and plexiglas storage frame, must be viewed under controlled lighting in order for its image to be visible. In general, this procedure also requires viewing within a darkened environment free of other incidental light sources. This effect, suggestive of Gernsheim's fIrst viewing of the mirror-like effect of the pewter plate, attempts to give each viewer the chance to experience the effect of discovery from which the image can be seen to seemingly emerge from the original heliograph plate." - The Ransom Center - U of Texas at Austin

NPR : Analyzing the World's First Photograph

 Listen to the story.

The First Photograph - Overview

The world's first photo

THE IMAGES IN THIS POST ARE FOR ILLUSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY.

Previous - Setting White Balance in Photomatix Pro - Part 1

NOTICE:    THIS POSTING AS WELL AS ALL PHOTOGRAPHS AND GALLERY IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT - © JOHN NEEL AND ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR ANY PUPOSE WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM THE WRITER, THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND/OR PIXIQ. THE IDEAS EXPRESSED ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND THE AUTHOR.