The First Photograph

Picture from Wikipedia

This is a picture of the view from the window in this mans workroom:

 Picture from Wikipedia

He’s name is Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and the picture is the first photograph ever taken. It was taken in 1826 and shows Mr. Niépce’s courtyard outside his house in France with landscape and trees. The exposure was 8 hours and you can see that the sunlight illuminates both sides of the courtyard. The picture was taken with a camera obscura:

  Picture from http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/index.html

A camera obscure is a box that projects the image trough a hole an on to a surface like an overhead. It was used for drawing over the image to create a picture and was very popular at the time. Instead of drawing, Niépce put a plate that was treated with light sensitive bitumen. That way the motive was imprinted on the plate and became visible after it was washed. The photographer called he’s new method “heliography” but died in 1833 without any success in his attempt to interest the Royal Society with his new invention. His friend Louis Daguerre continued his work and had success with the new Daguerreotype method, which was much more efficient.