The First Photograph Featuring a Person in the World [World First. Series #9]

It was an event from an era when no one yet knew the weight of the word "photography."

The camera was nothing more than a curious experimental device; when people saw one on a street corner, they would stop and cast looks of interest and skepticism.

In an age when paintings and prints were the only means of depicting reality, the idea of "carving reality with light" was revolutionary, and at the same time, akin to magic.

World First. (Free Magazine)

What kind of life gave birth to the "first photograph ever taken" in the world? [World First. Series #1]

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▼ Visual Encyclopedia: Medieval Europe

Paris, Morning in 1838

In the first half of the 19th century, a time when cities were rapidly expanding due to the Industrial Revolution and people's lifestyles were changing dramatically, the French inventor Louis Daguerre perfected a completely new technology called the daguerreotype.

He improved the structure of the existing camera obscura and created a method of burning an image directly onto a silver-plated copper plate sensitized to light.

This technology achieved a level of clarity that rivaled any painting or print of the time, but at the cost of requiring a long exposure time of 7 to 10 minutes for a single shot.

One morning in 1838, Daguerre set up his camera on the bustling Boulevard du Temple in Paris and quietly opened the shutter. As carriages passed by and pedestrians came and went, the light was slowly etched onto the silver plate.

And by chance, the figures of a shoeshine boy and his customer, who had stopped in that spot, were the first humans in the world to be clearly captured in a photograph.

Background of the Photograph

In the early 19th century, the idea of "fixing" light had already sprouted among scientists and inventors, but making it into a practical form was extremely difficult.

While there were many attempts using chemical reactions, they did not lead to a definitive success, as the images would quickly fade or lack clarity.

Amidst this, Daguerre perfected a method of burning an image directly onto a silver-plated copper plate sensitized to light.

This technology boasted astonishing clarity for the time and could reproduce details vividly, but it had the constraint of requiring an exposure time of 7 to 10 minutes for a single shot.

The Boulevard du Temple in 1838 was one of the liveliest areas in Paris, where people walked and chatted, merchants called out, and carriages clattered over the cobblestones.

However, with long exposure, such moving subjects would dissolve into light, leaving no trace behind.

As a result, the recorded cityscape looks strangely quiet, as if time had stopped.

Yet, in one corner, on the side of the road at the bottom left of the frame, there was an exception.

Because the shoeshiner and his customer remained almost perfectly still during the process, their outlines and figures were firmly burned onto the silver plate.

Daguerre's photograph

Until then, visual records had depended on the subjectivity of painters. Daguerre's photograph was the first moment that captured 'the person who was there' using light itself, and the anonymous shoeshiner and his customer were etched into world history while remaining nameless.

The air of 1838 Paris, the bustle of the streets, and the breath of the city during the Industrial Revolution are condensed into this single image. It was not merely a record, but the first story to prove the essence of photography: 'capturing human activity moment by moment'.

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