That man having his shoes shined in that street in Paris might well have seen Napoleon in person in one parade or another somewhere in the city of Paris...
The Daguerre street scene is the first photograph of a human being: the fellow having his shoes shined was the only one who stood still long enough to register on the plate.
Incredible to think that nearly 200 years ago people took photos that still impact us today. Photos gave rise to film which led to video and eventually smart phones.
The problem with his "essence of photography" was that it took single, unique images. William Henry Fox Talbot - at roughly the same time - had invented the negative-positive process which allowed the production of multiple copies. For a century and a half, until the invention of digital photography, that was how photographs were made. To me, that is the "essence of photography." Best wishes from Vermont ❄️
It took a lot of work to get there. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce had invented a process, but the image quality wasn't thrilling. Also, recent scholarship indicates his famous first photograph of 1927 took several DAYS, not eight hours as previously thought. Daguerre kept pushing to have a better image and a shorter exposure time.
Which of these would you regard as the earliest high quality photo ? The "laced window" negative to positive by Fox-Talbot 1835 seems a decent candidate
These photos were taken before the abolition of slavery in America and Brazil, before the Mexican-American war, the civil war, the Spanish American war etc we can see the future of the people of these pictures.
@@Iamme516These photos were taken long before the invention of automobile. It means we can see horse buggies and carriages in the 19th photos, which I find fascinating.
There's some evidence that Thomas Wedgewood took photographs around the year 1800 but was unable to prevent them from fading. It would be interesting if one of those has survived somewhere
Cool pictures. I wonder if they lived happy lives? Two hundred years from now when people look of photos from our time, they might wonder the same things.
WOW!!!!! That was amazing. I wonder how people at that time reacted seeing these photos. I never knew photography is that old. That for showing and sharing these photos to us.
Recent scholarship based on Niépce's notes and recreating his processes indicates his famous first photograph ca. 1827 took several DAYS, not eight hours as previously thought.
Now that I just turned 62 I realize that when I was young these seemed like lights years old but time has passed in leaps and I see that it's not really that long ago, I find aging strange, for lack of s better term.
Vue de Notre-Dame de Paris en 1838, à 3'56, avant les restaurations de Viollet-le,-Duc, la flèche, abattue fin 18eme n'est pas encore reconstruite. Le Paris d'avant Hausmann décrit par Balzac...
Apparently they are photos of etchings (artwork). I found that strange to be the first things to photograph instead of something like the leaves, statues, and buildings later shown. I guess people were too challenging to photograph until they got holding a pose perfected for timing.
I saw a pic of a lighthouse in St Augustine in 1824 supposedly. Obviously they exaggerated these dates. There are no photographs of Florida taken in the 1820s or 1830s. The first known photos taken in Florida date to the 1860s.
@@Deadbond1 there is no written or another evidence that Indians were kept as slaves.. offcource they were ruled by British but mostly local Indians used to be clerks peons assistants when they were given jobs in other English colonies..but that was not the case of Africans tho...lol
@@vinayak90417 hi, this comment was very old, I remember I was replying to a person called indian lover. I don't know how his comment disappeared! Or he changed his name. So basically, he loved the time 1800, and I disagreed. Thanks for noticing this and seeking clarification. Appreciated
Fascinating, truly. I get lost in videos like this. I just flashed back on what a little girl I used to babysit (a long, LONG time ago) said when we looked at a book of black and white pictures. She looked up at me and asked when color was invented, and she didn't mean color photos; she meant actual COLOR. I still laugh about that now.
Love myself some super vintage photos. I saw something interesting. There was a picture on the wall of one of these photos. I wonder how old is that picture.
The mystery behind that photo was recently solved. The photo is not a Wedgewood photo, but made by an amateur named Sarah Anne Bright, Circa 1839-1840. The "W" on the photo was the mark of William West, an entrepreneur who sold photogenic stock paper to those interested in experimenting with photography. I thought of including it when making this video, but left it out because by 1839, contact photos seemed less interesting when compared with other groundbreaking photos from the same time. Accounts of Wedgewood's experiments reveal that his photos of 1800 - 1802 were microscopically small, blurry, and had to be viewed by candle light only, or they would fade in seconds. So far, no authentic Wedgewood photos have been found.
The picture of the guy pulling the horse near the start of the video is NOT a photo! I've seen all the oldest photos many times and never encountered that one. Also it's a drawing
Niepce's earliest experiments were photographically created copies of artwork, made as a proof of concept, before he attempted to photograph scenes of nature like the scene from Le Gras. The subject matter is a 17th century Flemish engraving, but you are not looking at the original, you are looking at his Heliograph of it. Therefore, it IS a photograph
I'm happy to present the photos other uploaders of 'oldest photos' usually skip or are unaware of : the real works of discovery and experimentation of an emerging technology, some of which are only partially successful, but pave the way ahead.
Heliograph is the name Niepce gave to his photographic process, meaning "sun drawing'. This process, when merged with Daguerre's improvements, led to the Daguerreotype.
Think of this. When these photos were taken, the use of electricity was in it's infancy. The electric light was just starting to be tinkered with. Indoor plumbing wasn't even heard of yet.
When these early photos were first taken, the automobile was not invented yet. It means we can see horse drawn buggies and carriages in the 19th century photos. Fascinating!!
@@davidhutchinson7888 I didn't say it was invented, it was being tinkered with. In fact, experiments with incandescence was going on in the 18th century.
I don't believe the 'first verified photograph' is real: early photos needed long exposures, and thus still subjects. The boy and the horse are in motion.
The photo you refer to is not a scene from nature, but a photographic reproduction of a hand made engraving. Niepce made it as a proof of concept as part of his experiments.
@@davidrodgersNJ Don't tell that to The Bibliotheque Nationale de France, who bought the original for 450,000 Francs in 2002. They have deemed it a 'National Treasure'.
Many experimenters were trying to invent photography years before 1826. Angelo Sala was the first to discover that paper would turn black in sunlight when wrapped around silver nitrate, in 1614. In 1727, Johann Schulze was the first to create an image on a prepared page from sunlight. Thomas Wedgewood took impractical photos as early as c. 1798. And Niepce himself began photo experiments in 1816 ... but until 1822, no one knew how to 'fix' the image to make it permanent. Sadly, Niepce's 1822 experiment is lost. The 1826 view from Le Gras is a milestone as the first successful fixed image from nature.
