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.
