The First Photograph
Capturing the physical world on a metal plate.
Explore this event on the interactive timeline →French inventor Nicéphore Niépce successfully created the first permanent photographic image, "View from the Window at Le Gras." Using a camera obscura, he exposed a pewter plate coated in a light-sensitive derivative of petroleum (bitumen of Judea).
Verified Facts
- The exposure time required to capture this first image was incredibly long—estimated to be anywhere from 8 hours to several days in the bright sun.
- Because the exposure took so long, sunlight illuminates the buildings on both the left and right sides of the photograph as the sun moved across the sky.
- Niépce later partnered with Louis Daguerre, who would go on to invent the much faster, commercially viable "Daguerreotype" process.