The Birth of Photography
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An enterprising Frenchman by the name of Joseph Nicephore Niepce (at right about 1795) made the next major leap in photographic evolution. Niepce is the world's first photographer, and ironically, there are no photographs of him. The reason why will become evident.
He did not start out aiming to become a photographer. Niepce had wanted to be an artist, but at the insistence of his father to learn a skill, he took up engraving. Being the inventive type, Niepce began to develop a method of what we call today photogravure where an image is etched into a copper printing plate by means of light sensitive salts. This was of course accomplished with a camera obscura. In 1816, experimenting with paper, Niepce coated a sheet with silver salts (very reactive to light) and put it into the camera. What resulted was a crude black and white negative of the plants outside of his window. This was the first photograph in history, Niepce called them "retinas".
However, there was a problem. The silver salts would continue to develop until the entire image had turned black. Niepce resolved to find a solution to the problem. By 1826, he had found a way to make a permanent image, although crude. He used a rectangular pewter plate, sensitized with bitumen and set the camera in the window of his Paris apartment. A full eight hours later, the image had finally developed (see below). In the image is a pigeon house and a barn. Niepce called this photograph a "Heliograph". While this was a great leap in the technology, there was still yet more work before a marketable product was produced. In 1829, Niepce partnered with a painter by the name of Louis Daguerre who also was struggling to find a way of permanently fixing an image. Niepce would die just four years later, never seeing the final result of his work.
