Photography History
The Early Masters of Photography: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
👆 This image is the FIRST permanent photo EVER taken! French inventor, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833), managed to make an optical photograph of the view from his window, without the image slowly dissolving and fading. After a few years of experimentation, his technique finally evolved into the foundation for the development of contemporary photography.
The Early Masters of Photography
In this series of articles, I will share the most important names in the history of photography with you. I’ll be writing about their inventions, discoveries & ideas. As a photographer, I find this very important since these are the people who shaped photography into what it is today. I strongly believe these are people you should know a thing or two about before diving into the technical side of photography. I’ll be trying to make these articles as comprehensive as possible for you. Happy reading & learn lots! 📷
Who Was Niépce?
It was the year of 1765 when Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was born in Chalon-sur-Saône, France. He was part of a very wealthy family and had 2 brothers & a sister. Before Niépce enlisted in the French army (under Napoleon Bonaparte) during the French Revolution in 1791, he had always had a strong passion for chemistry and physics. Ultimately, he got dismissed from the military because of his health and decided to go back home to be with his wife and family. Since then he remained vigorously engaged in the world of research and made several non-photography related inventions.
(In this article I will mostly focus on Niépce’s photographic inventions, but I’ll mention a few others as well.)
The Pyréolophore & The Velocipede
In 1807, Niépce and his brother Claude obtained a patent from Napoleon’s government. Their first invention was born and they named it The Pyréolophore, which was the first internal combustion engine in the world.
Niépce developed a strong interest in the predecessor of the bicycle without pedals and transmission. In 1818 he built his own model and called it the velocipede. He stirred up quite some controversy among the locals when he tried his new invention on the country roads... So luckily he quickly made some improvements, including an adjustable saddle.
Heliography: The Technique That Created The First Photograph
In 1813, Niépce began to experiment with lithography, which was a very popular printing technique at the time. Unfortunately, he was unskilled in drawing and it was rather difficult for him to find proper lithographic stones to work with. This drove Niépce to find a way to provide images automatically.
He started his attempts at photography by coating pewter with light-sensitive substances in an attempt to copy layered engravings in sunlight. He later named this technique heliography, which means sun drawing. Projecting an image onto a photosensitive plate was successful, but every time the plate was exposed to light, the image faded again. Niépce kept on experimenting with all kinds of photo-sensitive materials and chemicals in order to perfect his heliography technique.
The Birth Of Photography
In 1826, everything finally came together. Niépce had found the right combination of chemicals and materials to preserve an image! He put his camera obscura in his window to expose for 8 hours, and the image of several buildings and a pear tree in his garden burned on the photosensitive plate. The photo, titled “La Cour Du Domaine Du Gras”, is considered the very first surviving photo in the world. Ever since then, Niépce has been known as the inventor of photography.
