The first photograph is considered to be this image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. It was produced with a camera, and required an eight hour exposure in bright sunshine. However this process turned out to be a dead end and Niépce subsequently began experimenting with silver compounds based on a process discovered by Johann Heinrich Schultz in 1724. Photo credit: Nicéphore Niépce (1826) |