Retracing the Chemistry of the First Photograph

StarEmperor writes: "CNN has this article about experts trying to determine how the world's oldest known photograph (1826!) was produced." Even though the basic process is known, the details of how it was produced are lost.

Objects in the photo

[Viqsi]

Hrm. If I look closely at the top of the photo, I could swear I almost see clouds and sky...

And what is that thing in the center foreground? Is that a road partially obscured by shadow, or a rooftop?

And I can't see the pear tree at all...

Re:Objects in the photo

[soulcuttr]

I could be wrong, but I think that the tree is in the middle-to-left area just above the roof. It's sorta on the horizon (the lumpy dark blob). I can see why we want to find out by what process this picture was taken... it's so crystal clear!

-Sou|cuttr

More Important

[Picass0]

When was the first celebrity fake jpeg and when was it posted to usenet?

Good Chemistry

[Deanasc]

A good chemist keeps a proper detailed notebook and doesn't loose it.

My freshman Organic 1 professor taught me that.

Re:Good Chemistry

[Paul Neubauer]

Considering the age of the work, it is quite possible that the photographer did keep good notes but some else lost them later, or that they were destroyed, perhaps by accident. Of course it's also possible that he didn't consider the chemistry to be important later. How long was it until another process was in use? And did this person do more after this first image, or was it a one shot trick for him? Simply, how important did the photographer (heliographer) consider photography to be?

Re:Good Chemistry

[Paul Neubauer]

Ok, self-followup isn't good form, but self-correction is.

A bit of web searching find that the fellow was rather secretive about the process and was looking to sell the idea. So it's not too surprising no records of the process have been found. He did, however, team up with Daguerre for a bit later, so perhaps there was some degree of not caring about one process too much when searching for a better one.

Digital trickery

[alex.shultz]

There has been some Photoshopping (GIMPing?) done on that photo. In the original there is a thumb in the upper right corner of the picture.

Bigger Version of the Picture

[AKA da JET]

I found a larger version of the picture here [utexas.edu]. I still don't see the tree. :-/

Re:Bigger Version of the Picture

[texchanchan]

A UT student worker told me once that the University kept the "first photograph ever taken" (this one--"and it doesn't look like much") in a special room. In case of fire, the door would automatically lock and the room fill up with some kind of inert gas incapable of sustaining combustion--or life. "What, with you in there?" She said, "Well, it's supposed to lock automatically but we always have the door propped open with a chunk of wood."

The Tree

[CaptainCarrot]

Follow along the wing of the house that takes up the left side of the picture. It ends in what looks like a square tower. The tree is the black blob just to the right of that tower. You can't see the trunk; it's obscured by foliage.

Turin shroud

[Yarn]

Some people consider this to be the oldest surviving photograph. There was a fashion in Italy where artists used a 'camera obscura' to help them draw accurately.

Photoreactive chemicals were known (could be derived from seaweed and silver). It would be a simple step to think of putting this chemical on canvas and "photographing" a statue or something immobile.

Reverse Engineering

[Chayce]

Perhaps instead of trying to use a lot of different means to determine the chemical makeup. (which has probably been altered to quite an extent by the development process, and the long term exposure to light) we should instead experiment to reproduse the results with chemicals we know to have been avalible back then.

Older photo found -- up for auction

[Rick the Red]

I submitted this story but /. rejected it. I guess this thread didn't generate enough interest, but for the 12 or so of you who posted here:

World's earliest photo set to make £500,000 at auction [ananova.com]

Turns out someone in France has been holding an even earlier (1825) Niepce photograph, and now they're selling it.