The first photograph never taken (1826)

by Finn Patraic

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In Histories of Early Photography, Louis Daguerre Faithfully appears as one of the fathers of the medium. Its patented process, the daguerreotypeIn broad use for almost twenty years at the beginning of the 19th century, produced so many images that we associate with the period, including famous photographs of Abraham Lincoln,, Edgar Allan Poe,, Emily DickinsonAnd John Brown. But if things had disappeared differently, we could better know the most difficult name to pronounce your partner on time Joseph Nicephore Niépcewhich produced the first known photograph of all time, taken in 1826.

Something of an inventor of Gentleman, Niépce (below) began to experiment with lithography and with this old device, the camera obscura, in 1816. Finally, after many tests and errors, Niépce developed his own photographic process, which he called “heliography”.

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It started by mixing chemicals on a flat tin plate, then placing it inside a camera. After exposing the plate in the light for eight hours, the inventor then washed and dried it. What remained was the image we see above, taken, as Niépce wrote, of “the room where I work” on his field of campaign and now hosted Texas University at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin.

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On the Ransom Center website, you can see a Short video describing The house of Niépce and showing how the researchers recreated the point of view from which he took the photo. Another video Offers an overview of the process that Niépce invented to create its “heliographer”. In 1827, Niépce went to England to visit his brother. During his stay, with the help of the English botanist Francis Bauer, he presented an article on his new invention at the Royal company. His conclusions were however rejected because he chose not to fully reveal the details, hoping to make economic gains with a owner method. Niépce left the image tin with Bauer and returned to France, where he soon accepted a ten -year partnership with Daguerre in 1829.

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Unfortunately for Niépce, his heliographer would not produce the financial or technological success he was considering, and he died four years later in 1833. Daguerre, of course, developed his famous process in 1839 and went into history, but we must remember the efforts of Niépce, and Marvel to what could have done with himself with limited materials and no training or pre-in-way. Daguerre can receive a large part of the credit, but it is the “Gentleman scientifically in mind” denpceted and his heliography that led – write the Photographic conservation manager of Ransom Center Barbara Brown—Po “The invention of the new medium”.

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The image of the Niépce tin plate was rediscovered in 1952 by Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, who published an article on the discovery in The photographic newspaper. Subsequently, the Gernsheims had the company Eastman Kodak created creation of the reproduction above. “Pointillist effect” of this image, writes Brown, “is due to the reproductive process”, and the image “was affected with watercolors by (Helmut) Gernsheim himself in order to bring him as close as possible to his approximation of the way in which he felt that the original should appear in reproduction.”

Note: a previous version of this article appeared on our site in 2015.

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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him to @jdmagness

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