Soul of a Moment, 1826

-Alexander Pope

I find old pictures fascinating, capturing that day, that hour, that minute, that second in time. The soul of that moment still lingers after the passing of time. I can stare for hours…

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was the first to capture that moment in time. Using his own invention “the heliograph” in 1826 or 27 (he did successfully make them as early as 1822 but this is the oldest to survive) he pointed his constructed Camera obscura box out his second story window in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France.  Opening his manual lens and letting it stay open for 8 hours.

This is what he captured in that moment in 1826…

original View from the Window at Le Gras heliograph by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

Not much changes until in 1838 when Louis Daguerre comes up with his invention the daguerreotype (he had befriended and worked with Niépce up until his death in 1833).

Here is where we see the first human ever to be captured in time…

On a spring morning Daguerre points his Camera obscura out his window overlooking Boulevard du Temple in Paris and opens the lens for 10-12 minutes capturing the first humans getting their shoes shined on the corner…

First human on captured on film, Boulevard du Temple, Paris by Louis Daguerre, 1838

Just a year later in 1839 another first for photography, the selfie…

Across the ocean in the back of his father’s gas lamp-importing business on Chestnut Street in Center City, Philadelphia, Robert Cornelius took both the first Portrait and first self portrait ever taken using the daguerreotype technique.  Cornelius had learned how from reading articles like this one announcing the discovery in 1839.

Cheraw gazette and Pee Dee farmer,(S.C. Newspaper) October 04, 1839

Robert Cornelius, daguerreotype self portrait i.e. the first selfie, 1839