back
20 comments
The human in question is standing in the bottom-left of the photograph, on the pavement by the curve in the road. He is having his boots shined.

So there is enough information to know that there are two human beings. Sounds like those records of the very first man to climb a mountain, you know, except of all those native guys that went there before and carried the bags, guided and have all support so that european could be the first man to get there.

Reminds me of the narration in a National Geographic short documentary that I saw in the visitor center of Yellowstone National Park (recollecting from memory): "Lewis and Clark were the first human beings to set foot on this land" ... (and 2 minute later) "... "Native Indians had been living here for thousands of years".
The truly interesting story of the first photographs were back in 1827 when Nicophore Niepce invented the silver halide process that's still in use today. Daguerreotypes came later, were a technological dead end, so toxic, so limited. Niepce has another claim to fame in that he also invented the bicycle. Two big inventions in one lifetime, quite an accomplishment!
Sure, there were probably dozens of people there, but he was the only one who stood still long enough to be captured clearly on the long exposure.
They mention later in the article that the second figure is also visible, but much less distinct. The first figure is unmistakably a person, but if you remove the first figure, the second figure loses context and isn't so clear.
The article makes it very clear that they are talking about the first "recognizable human form" in a photograph, and they go on and on in great detail about what they mean by that.
How amazing that the first person to be in a photograph was there simply off of the chance event that he decided to have his shoes shined. If it had been something else, he would have moved off the plate by the time it was developed. The fact that it was an event that, for the most part, required him to stay put has put him into history forever. /mind blown
Its funny, I actually think when the picture was flipped back to how the photographer saw the scene, that it was a better composition. The road seemed unnatural in the original.

I wonder now if that is just some internal bias to it being "more real"?

I felt the same way, it suddenly felt much more correct.

I couldn't pinpoint why. I hadn't noticed the text on a sign by then.

Maybe it's because I've seen the photo before, but not corrected, but I had the opposite reaction.
William Henry Fox Talbot in 1835 photographed a latticed window at Lacock Abbey. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fox_Talbot#/media/File:L...

Fox Talbot and Daguerre were contemporary inventors with different processes - but AFAIK there are no people in Fox Talbot's work until 1840 so Daguerre appears to be the first to record a human via this new technology.

To think, less than 200 years later and we can capture moving images of three dimensional light (RE: Lytro Immerge announcement earlier this week).
Can anyone find it on street view? Must be somewhere around here: https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8662696,2.3648286,3a,75y,144...
Maybe here: https://goo.gl/maps/CAC6NxkE8LN2

It seems his studio was very close to the above location: http://www.midley.co.uk/diorama/Diorama_Wood_2.htm

I'm guessing it's not there.

> removing the narrow, dark and dangerous streets of the medieval city and replacing them with parks and open spaces. This process began in 1853.

This is beautiful. I wonder what the first picture of a person's face is?
It's believed to be Robert Cornelius' self portrait in 1839 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664436/
So selfies have been around for 176 years :-)
I figured that it wouldn't be a selfie.
But the first photo with a recognizable face was: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664436/