In 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce pointed a camera obscura from an upstairs window in rural France and exposed a pewter plate to light for roughly eight hours. The resulting image, View from the Window at Le Gras, is widely regarded as the earliest surviving photograph. It is hazy and difficult to decipher, yet for the first time, an image of the world had been captured and preserved by light itself.
Over the next few decades, photography developed at astonishing speed. Inventors refined processes, photographers captured the first people ever recorded on camera and pioneers began exploring the medium's commercial and creative possibilities. Drawn from This is Photography: The First 200 Years by Nathalie Herschdorfer, these six milestones from the 1800s trace the remarkable beginnings of a medium that transformed how we see, record and remember the world.
1. 1826: The earliest known photograph
View from the Window at Le Gras is the earliest known photograph: a pivotal moment in the history of visual media. Made in around 1826 by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, it offers a glimpse of his country state, Le Gras, from a high window. It was produced using a camera obscura, which projects an image onto a surface through a small hole. After numerous experiments, Niépce used bitumen of Judea, a form of asphalt, spread across a pewter plate as his photographic medium. He exposed this plate for roughly eight hours, during which time light from the projection gradually hardened parts of the bitumen.
The parts not exposed remained soft and were removed using lavender oil. The result was hazy yet unmistakable – a profound rendering of the world through light. Niépce was notably secretive about his process, referring to it as ‘heliography’, or ‘light writing’. It was not immediately recognized by the scientific community, but he found a champion in Francis Bauer, a respected botanical illustrator. Their correspondence marks an early recognition of the significance of this new medium, although it still faced much scepticism.
The photograph itself would not remain in public view for long. It disappeared after 1905, its whereabouts a decades-long mystery. In 1952, it was rediscovered in a private collection by Helmut Gernsheim, a German born photographic historian. Today, it is housed in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. It is both an iconic artefact from the birth of photography and a testament to Niépce’s pioneering work.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), View from the Window of Le Gras, 1826. Heliograph on pewter.
2. 1833: The world’s first ‘photocopy’
Imprinted onto photosensitive paper through contact with sunlight, this early experimental image is a reproduction of nine pharmacy flask labels. Several years prior to the official announcement of the invention of photography in France and Britain in 1839, the Monegasque-Brazilian artist and inventor Hercule Florence was busy developing his own form of light-sensitive transcription. In the 1820s, Florence had travelled to colonial Brazil, eventually embarking on a naturalist expedition across the Amazonian river basin to create a ‘sonic inventory’ of the natural world. Yet, in failing to find a suitable printer for his manuscript detailing his extensive travels, Florence turned towards the possibility of recording this information himself through photographic reproduction. Produced in 1833, this was one of Florence’s earliest experiments into the emergent medium of ‘light writing’. By conceiving of photography not simply as a tool for recording the natural world, but as a technology of information transmission and mediation, Florence’s conception of photography was profoundly modern. In creating the world’s first ‘photocopy’, Florence anticipated the ubiquity of photographic techniques and processes across contemporary life.
Hercule Florence (1804- 1879), Photograph of Nine Pharmacy Labels, c. 1833. Contact copy with photosensitive paper.
3. 1838: The first people ever caught on camera
At first glance, this Paris street appears empty. The photograph’s long exposure time was unable to capture its bustle, and the only figures who stayed still long enough to appear in the frame – about five minutes – are a shoe-shiner and his customer. They are thought to be the first people ever caught on camera. The photographer, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, had become fascinated with capturing the images he could see in his camera obscura. In the early 1830s, he had worked with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce to achieve this aim, but without success. In August 1839, however, in front of an astonished audience at the Académie des Sciences in Paris, his groundbreaking ‘daguerreotype’ process – by which this image was made – was revealed by French astronomer François Arago. A sheet of silver-plated copper was exposed inside a box camera, and the image was then fixed with salt water. This process was able to capture the kind of detail that had not been possible using earlier techniques. In March 1839, Daguerre’s studio had caught fire, destroying many of his early images. This is one of fewer than twenty-five that survived the blaze.
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851), Boulevard du temple, 1838. Daguerreotype. Credit: Bavarian National Museum. The first people ever caught on camera.
4. 1840: One of the first staged photographs
Hippolyte Bayard is known to posterity as a pioneering French inventor who, around 1840, developed one of the earliest direct positive photographic processes, allowing images to be created on paper without the need for a negative. Despite this remarkable achievement, Bayard struggled to gain recognition, overshadowed by fellow Parisian Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre.
Bayard produced still lifes, urban and rural landscapes, and portraits. Drowned Man is a striking example of a staged self-portrait, in which Bayard, working in his studio, deliberately arranged the scene to convey a powerful narrative. The photographer depicts himself as a drowned man, lying motionless with closed eyes and an expression of lifelessness. The image is not a mere record but a theatrical composition, blending art and storytelling.
While Bayard himself did not comment on the meaning of the work, interpretations come easily: an expression of professional despair and neglect, symbolizing his ‘death’ in the public eye despite his significant contributions to photography. Drowned Man stands out as an early use of the medium to communicate personal emotion and conceptual ideas, expanding its use beyond simple documentation and cementing Bayard’s reputation as a true and early visionary.
Hippolyte Bayard (1801-1887), Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man, 1840. Direct positive print.
5. 1845: A major breakthrough in the reproduction and dissemination of images
In 1841, William Henry Fox Talbot, the so-called father of photography, introduced the first negative–positive photographic process. Using paper treated with light-sensitive silver compounds, Talbot’s method produced a translucent negative from which multiple positive images could be printed. This offered a significant advantage over the daguerreotype, which could be reproduced only by copying the image with a camera. The ability to create large numbers of photographic prints allowed Talbot to produce The Pencil of Nature, the first commercially published book of photographs.
Released in instalments between 1844 and 1846, The Pencil of Nature was a manifesto for the new artistic medium of photography. Beginning with an overview of Talbot’s methods, it proposed an array of possible uses for ‘photogenic drawing’, with twenty-four plates ranging from portraits and scenic views to rare artefacts and botanical specimens. This image of carefully arranged fruit sets up a direct comparison with still-life painting and drawing, demonstrating the ability of photography to compete with more established mediums. By distributing his methods in this way, Talbot hoped to profit from his invention while simultaneously embedding the concept of photography within the public consciousness.
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), A Fruit Piece, from The Pencil of Nature, 1845. Salted paper print from paper negative.
6. 1850: The first professional female photographer
A pioneer of the daguerreotype process, Bertha Beckmann was the first professional female photographer. Over the course of a career that spanned four decades, Beckmann developed a distinctive and accomplished style of formal portraiture that attracted clients from across the class spectrum. Born in Cottbus, Germany, she was introduced to photography as a young woman, possibly by Eduard Wehnert, with whom she established her first portrait studio in the early 1840s. Beckmann married Wehnert and continued to run the studio alone after his untimely death in 1847. Her combined skills in business and photography brought her astounding commercial success; after operating a renowned portrait studio in New York between 1849 and 1851, she returned to Leipzig, where she quickly built a reputation as one of the most sought-after photographers in Germany. By 1865, she had accumulated sufficient profits to build a vast mansion on the outskirts of the city.
This image of Beckmann’s Leipzig studio, taken at the height of her success, exemplifies the scenic paraphernalia of mid-nineteenth-century portrait photography. Sitters would pay to pose in carefully arranged photographic sets, constructed using a range of standardized props, such as artworks, furniture, vases and drapery. The strategic use of objects gave an impression of bourgeois respectability, which aligned with wider visual protocols of the time. Beckmann was therefore operating within a highly conventional business model, emphasizing that her photographic skill played a key role in her stunning success.
Bertha Beckmann (1815-1901), Studio of Bertha Beckmann, Leipzig, 1850. Daguerreotype.
Words by Nathalie Herschdorfer.
This is Photography: The First 200 Years is available now.
