NIÉPCE, Joseph Nicephore

b. 7 March 1765; d. 5 July 1833

Niépce (pronounced Nee-ps) is universally credited with producing the first successful photograph in June/July 1827. He was fascinated with lithography, and worked on this process. Unable to draw, he needed the help of his artist son to make the images. However, when in 1814 his son was drafted into the army to fight at Waterloo, he was left having to look for another way of obtaining images. Eventually he succeeded, calling his product Heliographs (after the Greek "of the sun"). Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, writing in 1857, informs us that he was a man of private means, who had began his researches in 1814. When he eventually succeeded, he came over to England later that year and sought to promote his invention via the Royal Society (then as now regarded as the leading learned body concerned with science). However, the Royal Society had a rule that it would not publicise a discovery that contained an undivulged secret, so Niépce met with total failure. Returning to France, he teamed up with Louis Daguerre in 1829, a partnership which lasted until his death only four years later, at the age of 69. He left behind him some examples of his heliographs, which are now in the Royal Photographic Society's collection.

This is the first known photograph.** There is little merit in this picture other than that fact. It is difficult to decipher: the building is on the left, a tree a third in from the left, and a barn immediately in front. The exposure lasted eight hours, so the sun had time to move from east to west, appearing to shine on both sides of the building.

For further information on Niepce, see here.

Though Niépce's contribution is interesting, for the purposes of photography as we know it today, it is irrelevant.

** I have been taken to task by some who point to the picture in the Turin Shroud as being the first photograph. Whether the shroud dates back to the time of Jesus Christ, which most scholars discount, or whether it dates from around 1000AD, it does certainly show an image of a dead person. Whether this was produced intentionally though is more unlikely. The picture shown here is generally acknowledged to be the first image produced intentionally.

© Robert Leggat, 1999.