World's First Photo

angkor cut-and-pastes "'The image acknowledged as the world's first photograph - taken by a French inventor in 1826 - has passed its first full-scale analysis with flying colors and is now awaiting an airtight case that will keep it safe for centuries to come, scientists said Wednesday.'" See also the first color photography.

Comments

Hidden Photos

[boa13]

There are quite a few more photos available at the Prokudin-Gorskii Exhibition than officially linked from the pages of the exhibition. If I'm not mistaken, 111 photos are available, but only 61 are linked. How to reach them is quite trivial and left as an execise for the reader. Hey, you'll even get the chance to have a beautiful picture of Alix Chevallier!

Should be seen in person

[glenmark]

I saw the real thing several years ago in a lobby to one of the upper floors of the Harry Ransom Center here at UT. The picture is tiny, and the image faint, looking for all the world like a scrap of tinfoil with the image only visible from certain angles, manifested as a slight difference in the gloss of the surface. I can't help but wonder what it looked like when it was new.

There were many wonders to behold in that building. On that particular visit, I was "behind the ropes" to do some maintenance work on a database server sitting in the corner of one of the center's conservation rooms. Sitting near me were a remarkable array of items, ranging from a model sailboat used in the making of an old John Huston film, to a collection of original Edgar Allen Poe manuscripts. And these were items that weren't even on display. I would've love to have just spent months rummaging around in that one room...

Sadly, much of the collection of the Harry Ransom Center is accessible on to scholars on a by-reservation basis. Fortunately, plans are in place to make the collects more accessible to the public.