Thomas Bachler. Heliographies

AI generated: The image shows a blurred view from a window with faintly recognisable structures, probably buildings or landscape. It is one of the earliest photographic images.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce: ohne Titel Heliografie, 16,5 x 21 cm, 1826 | Eigentum der Harry Ransom Center's Gernsheim Collection, The University of Texas at Austin

200 years ago, the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765 - 1833) took the world's first (surviving) photograph. He took the famous "window view" in 1826 with a camera obscura from his studio window in the south of France.

Niépce used a process he developed himself, known as heliography - or "sun drawing" in German. He brushed a light-sensitive emulsion of very finely powdered natural asphalt and lavender oil as a thin layer onto a metal plate and exposed it to sunlight for many hours. Heavily exposed areas hardened, while the other areas remained soft and could be washed off. The image of the world in front of Niépce's studio window remained on the plate.

He had originally developed the process in order to be able to easily transfer artwork, such as pen and ink drawings, onto lithographic stones. While the process was used in the printing trade and several lithographs are known to have been created using heliography, it fell into oblivion as a photographic process. Today, the window view from 1826 is the only heliographic photograph that can be attributed to Niépce.

AI generated: The image shows an arrangement of metal plates with engraved motifs attached to a wooden wall. An engraved image of a glass can be seen in the foreground.

Blick in die Kabinettssausstellung im Bereich »Kamerastadt Dresden« der Technischen Sammlungen | Foto: © Museen der Stadt Dresden, Sophie Arlet

Dresden-based photographer Thomas Bachler is one of the very few artists who intensively explore the possibilities of this archaic technique. The series "A Glass of Water" and "Street Foliage" show the heliographs directly.

Bachler used the light-sensitive plates to take photographs with the camera or to make photograms. All these pictures are therefore unique, they only exist once. In the "Gestalten" series, he uses the process to transfer photographs onto an intaglio printing plate. Heliography is merely an intermediate step here, an aid for the subsequent printing.

On the occasion of the exhibition opening, Thomas Bachler took a heliograph of the Versöhnungskirche Striesen. The camera was positioned on the Ernemannturm for two sunny weeks in January. The image was developed live for the vernissage.