43 Of The Oldest Surviving Pics That Give Us A Glimpse Into The Past

Joseph Nicephore Niepce is credited with taking the world's oldest surviving photograph around 1826. To many, the blurry “View From the Window at Le Gras” might not seem like anything to write home about. It's literally the view from one of the upstairs windows of Niepce's estate in Burgundy, France. It depicts rooftops, a tree and the surrounding landscape.

But the magic of the image doesn't lie in what was captured. It tells the story of decades of hard and painstaking work by Niépce and those who came before him. He had used a camera obscura and a bitumen-coated pewter plate, which he exposed for several hours.

The groundwork was being laid long before Niepce's breakthrough. In 1685, a guy by the name of Johann Zahn invented the portable camera obscura but he didn't quite figure out how to use it to produce a print.

That award goes to Niepce who, after much trial and error, managed to manipulate the camera obscura to expose pewter plates coated with bitumen of Judea. It's believed to have taken the French inventor and photographer at least eight hours to produce the historical “View From the Window at Le Gras.”

In case you're wondering, the term “camera obscura” means “dark chamber” in Latin. According to How Stuff Works, it refers to a device or optical phenomenon that artists, photographers and more have used for centuries to project an external image onto a surface within a darkened room or box.

"The camera obscura works on the principle of light rays traveling in straight lines. When light passes through a small hole or aperture in a darkened space, an inverted and reversed image of the scene outside forms on the opposite surface," explains the site.

It was originally an entire room with small holes in one wall. Thankfully, it later evolved into portable cameras obscurae. "The camera obscura greatly influenced the development of photography," adds the site. "It served as a precursor to the camera and provided valuable insights into the behavior of light."

In 1838, just over ten years after Niepce took the first ever photograph, Louis Daguerre blessed the world with the first photo of a human being. Unlike “View from the Window at Le Gras,” Daguerre managed to develop the photo within 4-5 minutes. "Boulevard du Temple" depicts a street view from a window during the morning. It captures buildings, trees, and a couple of people.

"It’s a crucial piece in the history of early photography and a testament to how far the technology had come just a decade after the first photo by Niépce," notes photography site Capture.com.

If you're wondering who laid the groundwork for the selfies of today, you can thank a guy called Robert Cornelius. In 1839, he took the first self-portrait using the daguerreotype process.

"He took the selfie outside his family’s Philadelphia gas lighting business," explains How Stuff Works. "The photo is a part of the Library of Congress’ Marian S. Carson collection."

And the rest, as they say, is history!