8/17/2002: First photograph

[Undertoad]

I was a little surprised that I had never seen this before. This is the first photograph ever made, by a Frenchman, Joesph Niepce. It was made in 1827.

He took a certain varnish which hardened when exposed to light, exposed it to the scene, then washed away the non-hardened varnish areas, producing a layer of "negative".

Supposedly there's a building there on the left, a tree behind it, a barn in the foreground. The light hit these things for 8 hours while the varnish hardened, so it's not a single point light source.

[Nic Name]

UT, I have that pic too. But I found evidence that this was not the first such photograph. An earlier image, by the same photographer, recently sold for large at one of the major auction houses.



http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_497301.html

PARIS (March 21, 2002 7:47 p.m. EST) - The earliest recorded image taken by photographic means was auctioned at Sotheby's in Paris on Thursday for the equivalent of $443,220.

http://www.nandotimes.com/entertainm...-2711946c.html

[Nic Name]

I was tempted to post the earlier photograph in Quality Images

[elSicomoro]

From what I've seen online, the one UT has posted is considered the first. Apparently, the one you linked to Nic is a copy of an engraving.

[Nic Name]

As between two photographs taken by the same photographer using the same techniques, it is absurd to argue that the photograph of a drawing is a "print" and that the first photograph of a scene of a building is the earliest photograhic image.

I guess it depends on which image one owns given the values at stake here!

[Undertoad]

The horsey shot is apparently a copy of a print, which for some reason doesn't count for some sources. In the shot I posted - which the Nando story says was 1826, not 1827 - one source said that it wasn't really a photograph, more of a lithograph, since it was produced using an etching/printing process. I guess they attach significance to the fact that it was the first time a shot of nature had been "taken" - a concept that hadn't previously been considered.

[Nic Name]

Bullshit.

It's a photograph of an etching.

That's still a photgraph taken by the same unique photgraphic technique as the later photograph by the same photographer.

Lithographic printing is something different.

Lithograph

Using a greasy crayon, the artist draws directly on a flat stone or specially prepared metal plate. The surface is then dampened and inked. The ink is repelled from the wet areas but sticks to the greasy areas, which are then transferred to paper.

Clearly, it is not the earliest photograph of a horse, given that it is a photograph of an etching of a horse, not of a real horse, but it's still an earlier photograph.

A photograph of another art piece, whether it's an etching or a sculpture is still a photograph, not a print.

It's not a photocopy, either.

[That Guy]

What is it that we (as humans in general, not just posters to the Cellar) find so enlightening to point out others' faults and errors. I've even found myself guilty of this, especially here. We point out each others' speling errors, grammaticularness errors, and most importantly, the factual (yet mostly trivial) errors.
Is it the sense of self-worth, or the inflated ego that we crave?

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by blowmeetheclown
What is it that we (as humans in general, not just posters to the Cellar) find so enlightening to point out others' faults and errors. I've even found myself guilty of this, especially here. We point out each others' speling errors, grammaticularness errors, and most importantly, the factual (yet mostly trivial) errors.
Is it the sense of self-worth, or the inflated ego that we crave?

For me, it's a hobby.

[MaggieL]

La Trahison des Images, by Rene Magritte

[Nic Name]

Maggie, I didn't know you smoked.

The Rape, 1934, by Rene Magritte

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Nic Name
Maggie, I didn't know you smoked.

Useta. Not anymore.

O: "Do you smoke after intercourse?"
A: "Dunno, I never looked."

[russotto]

Originally posted by Nic Name
Bullshit.

It's a photograph of an etching.

Was a lens used, or was it done by direct transfer?

[NateXLH1000]

http://www.sixsixfive.com/439.html

See also:

this is not art.

[Nic Name]

Niepce is recognized for the discovery of the first viable photographic process - using the power of light alone to make a plate from which an image can be printed.

Both Niepce's account of the process and the image "represent a historic discovery and a moment in the annals of science," Sotheby's said in a statement.

http://www.nandotimes.com/entertainm...-2711946c.html

Philippe Garner of Sotheby's said: "This image and its accompanying correspondence oblige us to rewrite those crucial first stages of the history of photography."

It was previously thought he produced the first permanent photograph in 1826.

Niepce created his photo of an engraving using a technique called heliography, where light is used to project an image on to a photo-sensitive surface.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_497301.html

In the case of the image posted by UT, that is the plate itself, and in the case of the image posted by me, the image was made from a similar "photographic" plate created earlier. If we say that an image made from a photographic "negative" or "positive" image is not a photograph but a "print" of a "negative" then, I think we've all been calling prints "photographs" for centuries. What makes it a photograph is how the image is created.