Gallic artificer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was one of the pioneers of photography , and in 1826 , he took what is now the oldest surviving photograph with his camera obscura . Can you identify the subject depict in the photograph ?
What ’s impressive is that , blurry as it is , the photo does demo an identifiable figure of speech . The picture is title “ View from the Window at Le Gras , ” and its subject is the ceiling and building of Niépce ’s countryside acres in Saint - Loup - Diamond State - Varennes . He covered a polished pewter denture with bitumen of Judea , set it inside his camera obscura , and uncapped the lens in front of a windowpane . The exposure is the result of an eight - hr exposure , which is why the construction is sort out on both side . This heliograph is the earliest - known lasting photograph .
Niépce tried and flush it to worry the Royal Society in heliography , and terminate up gifting the photograph to a phytologist . It was finally evolve by photohistorian Helmut Gernsheim , who tasked the Kodak Research Center with making a reproduction of Niépce ’s oeuvre . It currently resides at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin .
The First Photograph [ Harry Ransom Humanities Research CenterviaThe Smithsonianviamental_floss ]
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