Q: What’s the oldest photograph in the world? – Troy K. from Seattle, Wash.

A: Modern photography began in the 1820s, and the oldest surviving photograph known was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, a Frenchman who has been called the inventor of photography. It was taken in 1825 of a engraving of a young boy leading a horse. 

The surviving photo was recently auctioned off in 2002 for just under $400,000. Niépce coated a copper plate with a kind of light-sensitive bitumenin and was able to use that to create a negative of a photograph.

Niépce also took the second-oldest surviving photo in 1826 of a view outside a window in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, Niépce had to expose an  oil-treated bitumen for eight hours.

While it won’t probably win any awards, you can see the world’s second-oldest photo here. As you can see, the eight hour exposure doesn’t have a whole lot of detail and would probably be impractical for shooting a Laker’s game, but it is none the less humanity’s first foray into the art of photography.

Niépce used a camera obscura device which is essentially a box with a pinpoint on one end and a light sensitive material in the back of the other end of the box. It’s not known if his camera obscura box had image stabilization or a three-inch LCD screen, but we venture to guess that those were a little out of the question.

While he had experimented with photography since 1793, it took him nearly 30 years to create an image that didn’t fade away after development.

Now all you photojournalists out there are probably wondering what was the first photo of a human being. That was taken in 1838 by Louis Daguerre of a busy French street. Problem was, the traffic in the street was too quick to appear in the photo because of the 10-minute exposure. But there was one man who was standing at the street corner getting his shoe polished and therefore became the first Captain Morgan poser in human history.

UPDATE: Image could be new “oldest photograph”

Click here to check out the oldest known color photos.

 

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