Today is the anniversary of....

The World‘s First Photograph

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French, 1765-1833). View from the Window at Gras. Heliograph, c. 1826.

Recognized as The World‘s First Photograph, Niépce‘s heliograph was taken from a third story window of his estate, Gras, near Chalon-sur-Saone, and depicts the rooflines and outbuildings of the inventor‘s country house.

The image was made in the camera upon a pewter plate. This particular exposure lasted approximately eight hours. The plate is not only the first of its kind but also unique — no other original copies of the work could have been produced by the artist.

Niépce brought the plate to England in 1827 in an unsuccessful attempt to sell the process to the Royal Society of Arts. There the plate vanished until its eventual rediscovery in 1950 by the photo-historians. The plate came into possession of The University of Texas at Austin in 1963.

• Look your subject in the eye

• Use a plain background

• Use flash outdoors

• Move in close

• Move it from the middle

• Lock the focus

• Know your flash's range

• Watch the light

• Take some vertical pictures

• Be a picture director

Learn the "Rule of Thirds"' and other composition principles.