16 First Photos in History (from the oldest to the one that opened Instagram)

Nowadays, we live surrounded by photographs, and it is possible to say that most people have been clicked on at least once in their lives, especially given the practicality of the advent of cameras integrated into phones. However, the technique necessary to record moments in images demanded a lot from the minds of intelligent and creative people. Since the emergence of photography, a little less than 200 years ago, the work applied by lovers of the art of using a machine to immortalize an instant has allowed us to move from black and white images to color, reaching total digitization.

O awesome.club invites you to take a visual journey through the most important moments in the history of photography. They changed the way the process was carried out, helping us to better understand the world around us.

The first photograph in the world dates from 1826, and was called “View from the window at Le Gras”. It was produced by the Frenchman Joseph Niépce, considered, along with Louis Daguerre, the inventor of the first successful photographic process. The image shows properties in the vicinity of Niépce’s property, and was obtained after exposing, for eight hours, a metal alloy plate composed of bitumen-coated tin in a darkroom. Currently, the photo is part of a permanent exhibition at the University of Texas (United States).

the street image Boulevard du Temple it is the oldest in Paris, but it went down in history for being the first photo to show a person (two, actually). The street was very busy, but the 15 minutes of exposure required for the click prevented traffic and pedestrians from being recorded. The only ones we can see, in the left corner, are a shoeshine boy and his client, who remained more or less still during that period. The photo was produced by Louis Daguerre in 1838 and, although there is no news about the whereabouts of the original image, photographic copies have survived to this day.

Many decades before the emergence of the concept of selfie, an American made history by making, in 1839, what is considered the first photographic self-portrait. Robert Cornelius was an entrepreneur who used his knowledge of metallurgy and chemistry to perfect the daguerreotype, a photographic procedure invented by Louis Daguerre. The photo Cornelius took of himself was taken in front of his family’s store, and required him to stand still for 10 to 15 minutes.

Léon Foucault was a French physicist who experimentally demonstrated the Earth’s rotation by means of a large pendulum (named the Foucault pendulum in his honor), performed the first measurements of the speed of light, and even participated in the production of the first photo of the Sun. On April 2, 1845, together with colleagues Armand Hippolyte and Louis Fizeau, Foucault obtained a daguerreotype measuring almost 13 centimeters, which showed many details, including some sunspots.

The daguerreotype of a person being arrested in 1847 France is considered the first journalistic photo, despite the press technology of the time allowing newspapers to publish only text and illustrations. The Crimean War (1853-1856) and the Civil War, in the United States (1861-1865), are among the first relevant facts that had the presence of reporters photographing what happened.

Nadar was the pseudonym of a French photographer, owner of a studio where all the greatest personalities of the time passed, and who, in 1858, made the first aerial images in history. He portrayed Paris from a balloon. The feat was so successful that, five years later, Nadar had his own aircraft built. In 1860, the American James Black used the same technique to obtain clear aerial images of the city of Boston. The name the work was given says it all: “Boston as seen by eagle and wild goose.”

Nadar was not only a pioneer in aerial imagery, but also underground. In 1861, he was granted permission to make records of the Paris Catacombs, a roughly 300-kilometer network of tunnels and subterranean environments that serve as a burial ground for some 6 million human remains. The biggest challenge was producing artificial lighting, which was only possible using one of the first portable batteries ever invented, called Bunsen batteries.

James Clerk Maxwell, author of the classical theory of electromagnetism, used his knowledge of physics to create the first color photo in history. To do so, he proceeded to take three identical photos of a Scottish fabric ribbon, but each using a filter with the primary colors: red, blue and green. The result was three different transparencies, which were projected separately, each one with the respective filter of the register. By joining the three images superimposed on a screen, the color image emerged.

French biologist Louis Marie-Auguste Boutan began looking for a way to photograph underwater as a way of documenting his research. His brother, who was an engineer, helped him create the first underwater camera, for which he needed to develop flash lamps capable of illuminating the place. The first successful image was made in 1893, depicting the Romanian Emil Racovitza.

On September 17, 1908, the first fatal air accident in history took place: an aircraft created by the Wright brothers, considered to be aviation pioneers, crashed during a test at the Fort Myer military base (United States). A photographer was at the scene and recorded the event, which made it possible to know that the victim, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, was not wearing the helmet that could have saved his life.

Perhaps the work developed by John Logie Baird is not so well known, but he was the creator of electromechanical television and responsible for the first transmission. On January 26, 1926, in London, he successfully tested his invention in front of a group of scientists and a journalist from the newspaper. The Times, which produced the first photo of a television. Who appears in the image is Bill, a puppet. Despite the display’s small dimensions, Bill was perfectly recognizable.

The first photo of Earth from space was taken in 1946 aboard a V-2 rocket, which was about 100 kilometers above the surface. The image was grainy and in black and white, which prevented the transcendence of the “blue ball” obtained in 1972, which would become one of the most reproduced photos in human history.

Nowadays, with any cell phone, it is possible to take a digital photo without wasting time. But the task was not so easy in 1957, when a prototype scanner created for this purpose was developed at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. The first scanned image, in black and white and without grayscale, was of Russell Kirsch’s three-month-old son, leader of the team responsible for that technological achievement.

On June 11, 1997, Philippe Kahn made history by getting the first photograph taken and shared with a cell phone, kick-starting instant visual communication. That day, Sophie was born, daughter of the mathematician and entrepreneur. Kahn then put his creativity to work and connected his cell phone to a digital camera, taking pictures in the delivery room and broadcasting directly to more than 2,000 relatives and friends. This was two years before the launch of the VP-210, considered the first handheld phone with an integrated camera.

Instagram currently has over 1 billion users posting over 100 million images every day, but it all started with this image. Kevin Systrom, one of the founders of the social network, posted a portrait of a dog sitting near a taco restaurant in Mexico, next to his girlfriend’s foot. “If I had known this was going to be the first photo, I would have tried a little harder,” he would later say. The post, captioned “test,” was published on July 16, 2010, nearly three months before Instagram was released to the public.

Eight giant telescopes in different parts of the world synchronized their work to capture images that were later joined and processed over the course of two years, using state-of-the-art computers. The result of the project, in which more than 200 experts participated, was the first photo of a black hole, located 55 million light-years from Earth.

Which of the images shown above is, in your opinion, the most impactful? What do you think is the most important photo ever taken by humanity? Leave your comment!