22 Of The Most Incredible "First" Pictures From History
Well, you have to start somewhere.
The world's first photo ever taken.
While several others had experimented with capturing images, the first permanent photo was made by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. His earliest surviving picture is called "View From the Window at Le Gras" and was taken from a window of his estate at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France.
The world's first picture of people.
Photos made in 1838 required a long exposure time, which meant that anything moving would immediately disappear from the picture. Luckily for photographer Louis Daguerre, there was a shoeshiner in the lower lefthand corner of this picture who stood still just long enough to be caught on camera.
The world's first "selfie" (also the world's first portrait!).
Robert Cornelius was a lamp maker turned pioneer of photography. After his skills in silver polishing made him a perfect candidate to begin experimenting in early photography, he snapped the world's first portrait outside of his family store in Philadelphia, 1839.
The world's first photo "hoax."
Hippolyte Bayard had claimed to be the inventor of photography. But after Louis Daguerre beat Bayard to the French Academy of Sciences, Bayard took it personally. In response, Bayard created this picture in 1840, along with the written statement "The corpse which you see here is that of M. Bayard."