Even if you have an eidetic memory, you cannot resist the appeal of photos. Photos are a reminder of our yesteryears. Not only do we capture special people and places, but we also look at our old photos and recall how far we’ve come. Thanks to technology, we can just whip out our smartphones and take a quick selfie. But have you ever thought of the first ever photo in the world? God knows we have! It is OUR Roman empire.
First Photo in the World
The first camera photo in the world is attributed to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who took a grainy photo of a roof in the French commune of Saint-Loup-de-Varennes via the camera obscura. Historians are still divided over when the photograph was taken. Some believe it to be in 1826 whereas others place their bets on the year 1827. Regardless of the chronology, the first photo in the world, titled ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’ changed the world of photography. But what motivated him to take photographs? It was a fervent desire to copy prints and record reality that led him to a spiral of relentless experimentation.
Niépce called the first photo in the world a marvel of heliography (sun writing). Despite being generated in 1826 – 1827, the photograph went missing for quite some time, before being unearthed in 1952 inside a storage crate. At present, the photograph is a part of the permanent Gernsheim Collection of the University of Texas, having been purchased by the Harry Ransom Center in 1963.
The Process of Taking the First Camera Photo in the World
Disenchanted by the rapidly disappearing silver salt photographs, Niépce wanted to capture a photo on a light-sensitive plate, so the light itself would help him. To do so, he concocted a variant of asphalt (Bitumen of Judea; a wood colourant). He mixed the bitumen with lavender oil, spread it across a polished pewter plate (16.2cm X 20.2cm) and left it to dry. He then left the dried plate in the camera obscura for eight hours (or several days) near the window of his second-storey workplace. The parts of the plate which were exposed to the light were hardened.
To ‘develop’ the photo, he washed the residual asphalt with lavender water. After the wash, the rudimentary images of trees and roofs were visible (albeit in a brightly lit room) in the first ever photo in the world. Niépce died suddenly in 1833, leaving his notes and legacy to Louis Daguerre, who perfected his predecessor’s technique and created yet another revolutionary method of taking pictures.
Image Courtesy – Business Insider
