100 PHOTOGRAPHS 87
VIEW FROM THE WINDOW AT LE GRAS by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce INNOVATION
It took a unique combination of ingenuity and curiosity to
produce the first known photograph, so it’s fitting that the
man who made it was an inventor and not an artist. In the
1820s, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce had become fascinated
with the printing method of lithography, in which images
drawn on stone could be reproduced using oil-based ink.
Searching for other ways to produce images, Niépce set
up a device called a camera obscura, which captured and
projected scenes illuminated by sunlight, and trained it
on the view outside his studio window in eastern France.
The scene was cast on a treated pewter plate that, after
many hours, retained a crude copy of the buildings and
rooftops outside. The result was the first known permanent
photograph.
It is no overstatement to say that Niépce’s achievement
laid the groundwork for the development of photogra-
phy. Later, he worked with artist Louis Daguerre, whose
sharper daguerreotype images marked photography’s next
major advancement.