Frozen In Time: Famous First Photographs
By Vandya Rai
August 18, 2022
The World’s Very First Photograph
Taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using the heliography technique. The view is from an upstairs window of his estate in Burgundy, France. It is the earliest surviving photo.
1826
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Photo With Humans
Captured by Louis Daguerre, the inventor of the daguerreotype camera. This is the oldest photo of Paris, and also the first to have people in it, as seen on the right-hand corner.
1838
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Selfie
In frame is Robert Cornelius. He sat in front of the lens for over a minute before covering it, to capture this self-portrait successfully for the first time.
1839
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Photo of the Moon
Taken by John W. Draper from his rooftop observatory at New York University. The image has since seen some damage.
1840
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Portrait of a Woman
Dorothy Catherine Draper, posing for her brother Dr. John W. Draper at his photo studio in Washington Square. This is the earliest surviving photo of a woman.
1840
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Aerial Photograph
Taken from a hot air balloon, depicting Boston from a view of 2000 feet. Captured by James Wallace Black titled, “Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It”.
1860
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Colour Photograph
A coloured ribbon, captured by Physicist James Clerk Maxwell, who developed the three-colour process. The man who hit the shutter button was Thomas Sutton, the inventor of the SLR.
1861
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Photos of Movement
Horse In Motion, by photographer Eadweard Muybridge, which took him 6 years to get right. He arranged 12 trip-wire cameras along a racetrack of a galloping horse.
1872
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Coloured Landscape
Landscape of Southern France — by Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron, a pioneer in photography. This image was a projection onto the screen of three ranges of green, red, and blue.
1877
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Underwater Portrait
Clicked by Louis Marie Auguste Boutan in Banyuls-sur-Mer in the South of France. His flash photography rig had to run for 30 minutes to capture the proper amount of light.
1899
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Photo From Space
Taken by the V-2 #13 rocket, depicts the Earth from an altitude of 65 miles. A 35mm motion picture camera snapped a frame every second as the rocket ascended into the atmosphere.
1946
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Digital Photograph
Captured 20 years before Kodak invented the first digital camera. This photo is a digital scan of a shot taken on film. In frame is the son of Russell Kirsch — the engineer of the first digital image scanner.
1957
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Photograph of Earth From Moon
Taken by a Lunar Orbiter traveling close to the moon. This was during its 16th lap around the moon.
1966
Image Souce: NASA
The First Camera Phone Photo
Taken when camera phones didn’t even exist! Entrepreneur Philippe Kahn combined a digital camera and a cell phone to send this picture of his newborn daughter across the web in real-time.
1997
Image Source: Wikipedia
The First Photo of a Black Hole
The first known image of a black hole, captured by NASA’s Event Horizon Telescope. This celestial body sits in the center of the Messier 87 galaxy, 55 million light years away from Earth.
2019
Image Source: Wikipedia