The first photographic image was first taken in 1822 by a man named Joseph Nicephore Niepce but sadly only one of the later images survived that was taken in 1826- using a camera obscura or as some call it a pinhole camera - which is a box with a hole on one side, light from outside passes through the hole and hits the mirror inside where it is shown upside down, in colour and with the same outline. Obscuras had been use before Niepce but was used by artists would trace the outline that the obscura would show and before that people used the camera obscura to look at the sky and stars.
The image depicts the view from an upstairs window at Niépce's estate, Le Gras, in the Burgundy region of France, the picture he named was: View from the window at Le Gras (which is shown below). The photograph was taken by displaying the obscura hole open for eight hours in order to capture the view. It was recorded on a pewter plate covered with the same mixture from his past experiments - a bitumen solution (similar to asphalt) - and placed the plate into a camera that was looking out from an upstairs window of his house at Le Gras. When the plate coating of bitumen hardened and Niepce could see the outlines of the photo, (which took eight hours!), Niepce took the plate back inside his dark room, and using an acid mix of lavender oil and white petroleum, he melted away the parts of the bitumen that had not been hardened by the light.
A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to let light sensitive photographic equipment be treated in order to develop a photograph. This refers to a pinhole camera, similar to what Niepce used, due to it being in the dark, light sensitive matter will not be ruined by the light and so the light sensitive material will be usable to capture the wanted picture. Keeping the plates in a dark area would ensure that they would not be ruined.
The image depicts the view from an upstairs window at Niépce's estate, Le Gras, in the Burgundy region of France, the picture he named was: View from the window at Le Gras (which is shown below). The photograph was taken by displaying the obscura hole open for eight hours in order to capture the view. It was recorded on a pewter plate covered with the same mixture from his past experiments - a bitumen solution (similar to asphalt) - and placed the plate into a camera that was looking out from an upstairs window of his house at Le Gras. When the plate coating of bitumen hardened and Niepce could see the outlines of the photo, (which took eight hours!), Niepce took the plate back inside his dark room, and using an acid mix of lavender oil and white petroleum, he melted away the parts of the bitumen that had not been hardened by the light.
A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to let light sensitive photographic equipment be treated in order to develop a photograph. This refers to a pinhole camera, similar to what Niepce used, due to it being in the dark, light sensitive matter will not be ruined by the light and so the light sensitive material will be usable to capture the wanted picture. Keeping the plates in a dark area would ensure that they would not be ruined.