Camera Obscura – The World’s First Photograph

The history of photography began with a simple experiment in 1816. French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépceplaced a sheet of paper coated with silver chloride at the back of his Camera Obscura – a “dark chamber” with a tiny hole projecting the outside world onto an inner surface. He pointed the camera out of his window in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes.

After several days of exposure, an image slowly appeared: the outlines of a house, rooftops, and trees – inverted and in negative tones. This was the first photograph in the world. But Niépce faced a problem: without a fixing process, the paper continued to darken when exposed to light, and the image eventually vanished. He called this early method “Retina”, inspired by the human eye.

A few years later, Niépce made a breakthrough with bitumen of Judea applied to a pewter plate. In 1826 or 1827, he created the first permanent photograph, famously known as the View from the Window at Le Gras. This image is considered the true starting point of the history of photography. You can read more in our article On the Trail of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.

From Historical Experiment to Contemporary Art

The Camera Obscura has never lost its magic. In our project The 7th Day, we build simple pinhole cameras and use long exposure photography to capture not just a moment, but the passage of time. Just like in Niépce’s early experiments, still objects remain sharp, while the movement of the sun, clouds, or people leaves only traces or ghostly shadows.

The world’s first photograph was not only the beginning of a technological revolution, but also an artistic reflection on transience and the way we perceive reality.