The First Photograph
The Harry Ransom Center, The University Of Texas At Austin
As this is an online university resource, this source was originally created to fill a database. Every potential subject needs to be covered and documented. This “document” is an incredibly thorough packet of information about Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, the man who created the first photograph using lithography technology and creating the beginning of images being burned or copied onto another surface. It covers everything in a general overview, a viewing of the first photo, a bio on the man, it discusses the technologies used and how everything has been preserved.
As this is all documented specifically for The University of Austin At Texas the authors did not have any firsthand knowledge of the process but I’m sure they had an amazing database from which to gather information. The original picture is housed at the Ransom Center where this information is coming from in the first place.
Because this has to do with an invention of an enormous magnitude the story has been remembered and reported for years. This information has been studied and appreciated and that is what it’s intention is in this instance. There are no biases or persuasions involved here. It is nothing political and the man in question, Niepce, is not a controversial figure, he is either a hero or of no consequence.
I am a photographer, which makes Joseph Nicephore Niepce a hero, of sorts, to me. Niepce was a scientific man who had an interest in lithography, the process of printing from a flat surface treated so as to repel the ink except where it is required for printing, and he had a mind that allowed him to experiment with this new technology. In 1824 he began these experiments with moderate success. What Niepce was trying to understand and evolve was a process called heliography which was a type of photographic engraving made using a sensitized silver plate and an asphalt or bitumen varnish. In the end he would come up with the beginnings of Photography.
Ultimately, it took him two years to actually take a picture. This first image was of the surrounding foliage outside of Niepce’s second story window. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/viewing.html is the link to some information about where this original picture is housed now and what has been done so it can be viewed correctly. Apparently it is difficult to see the image as it is on an oddly reflective bit of plate glass. To counter this effect the people at The Ransom House, where the picture is on display, a “special enclosure has been constructed to produce the correct levels of display light and to block out the brighter surrounding or ambient light that would reduce the viewing properties of the plate itself” (Harry Random Center www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitins/permanent/wfp/viewing.html viewing the first photograph tab).
Primary source http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/
