First Photograph On A Camera
So how did we jump from projecting images onto surfaces to making a photograph? That is, a long-lasting effect of the camera obscura theory. There were attempts made throughout history, but it wasn’t until around 1800 that progress was made on this front. Around 1800, Thomas Wedgwood made the first reliably documented, although an unsuccessful attempt at capturing camera images in permanent form. His experiments did produce detailed photograms, but he and his partner were unable to fix them to last.
In the mid-1820s, Nicéphore Niépce first managed to fix an image that was captured with a camera, but at least eight hours or even several days of exposure in the camera were required and the earliest results were very crude. However, this is the image he took. It is of Niépce’s estate in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. To take the world’s first photograph, Niépce used bitumen of Judea (a substance used since the time of the ancient Egyptians) mixed with water and put it onto a pewter plate, which he then heated (already hardening the substance onto the plate to some degree). He then put the plate in a camera and pointed it out a second-story window. He left the camera alone for a long period of time, perhaps as long as two days. The bitumen then hardened onto the plate – less so in the places that received less sunlight.