25 Rarely Seen First Photographs Ever Taken of Things

Photography has become an ingrained part of our lives and culture as whole that it seems surreal to think about the first ever photographs captured. In contemporary times, as everyone owns at least one smart phone, taking pictures becomes an incredibly easy task. We can snap many exceptional pictures now all with a mere touch of our finger on the screen.

Yet it is quite captivating to think and have a look at the very first pictures ever captured which are the pictures of different objects, entities and humans. These photographs also display a significant fact that how far the technological advancements have changed the nature of photography. We can produce high resolution photographs. Let’s witness the first photographs taken over time.

Astoundingly, there is only one known copy of the first photograph ever captured. Back in the day, due to lack of high tech taking a duplicate of the first photo was out of question. The photo was taken through a heliographic process, a Greek word from helios meaning “sun”, and graphein meaning “writing”. This technique is called heliography.

The pioneer of heliography, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who was also the photographer of the first known photo, captured this photograph while looking through his window at the visible street below him in Burgundy, France. If we look closely or zoom in at the photo, only the side of house and a tree can be found in the image.

The onset of cell phones in particular and social media in general has popularized the notion of selfie which has nonetheless become a significant part of our lives. While in cotemporary times, social media influencers have promoted the idea of taking selfies however, these influencers cannot be regarded as the avant-gardes. So historically, the first selfie was captured in 1839 regardless of the knowledge of its existence.

In Philadelphia 1839, the pioneer Robert Conrelius was the first person to take a selfie. Cornelius had to run into the frame once he adjusted the lens cover, despite the picture being fading. However, he had to sit in the same position for more than a minute before covering the lens. His commitment is commendable!

It has now become common to come across colored pictures from the past. In current times, the old pictures which were black and white can be easily colorized but; this was not the case in the past. While there is still some essence of the original colored photos. Yet this particular photo was not the first colored feature photo however, it was regarded as the first to use color in landscape photography.

It was photographed by Louis Arthur Ducos de Hauron in 1879 and captured the essence of southern France at the time. He was the instigator in the field of color photography, and he invented the technology that enabled this image to be printed. A true window into another universe.

This photo is a proof that outdoor photography was at its initial stage. We have effectively seen endeavors to archive the world’s urban communities. This 1839 photo, captured by Frenchman Monsieur de St Croix, is considered to be the first photo taken of London. It depicts Parliament Street, and provisions a noticeable equestrian sculpture of King Charles I.

The photo displays signs of life though the length of openness implied that the rushing about of the city isn’t promptly evident, there are indications of life. These incorporate a Hackney taxi, just as various Londoners approaching their day.

If we first look at the photo, it cannot be seen as the image of moon as it is not clearly apparent. With time, the photo has been damaged and lacks clarity. It now depicts if the picture was captured underwater or displays the shot of an eye. However, in reality, it is regarded as the first in depth photograph of the moon.

Daguerreotype is the first successful process, an early kind of photograph which was taken by John W. Draper on 26th March, 1840. He made this set of experiences and money when he situated his camera on New York University’s housetop observatory.

This photo at first might appear as another landscape photograph; however this is not the case for its popularity. We can hardly find any human figures in the picture. Apparently, it is claimed that this is the first known snapshot of a person which was captured by Louis Daguerre in 1838 through daguerreotype. Surprisingly, it took him seven minutes to take this shot from the studio’s window. 

The seven minutes time indication suggests that many of the people who were moving around Paris’ Boulevard du Temple cannot be seen in the picture. Yet, we can still find a couple of human figures in the picture if zoom in the photograph. One figure which is quite prominent is a person who is standing to get his shoes polished. 

At the outset of photography, most of the photographers focused on portraits through the daguerreotype process. As a result, this picture became the symbol of the first portrait of a woman. This breakthrough was achieved by John. Draper who changed the photographic process and person in the picture is his own sister, Dorothy Catherine. This famous picture was taken in Dr. John’s studio at New York University.

In the past, due to lack of modern cameras, it took a few minutes to take this shot and Dorothy Draper sat motionless for over a minute without any change in her expressions. Thus the result is quite visible; we have a clear picture of a woman from 1839.  

Natural calamities have an evident impact on people and have been a crucial subject for photography over time. The first known image of a natural disaster traces back to 26th April 1884. As astoundingly it sounds, this shot was taken by an amateur photographer, who was also a fruit farmer A.A. Adams about 14 miles away.

This picture was captured through a box camera in Kansas which is home to the well known Dorothy and Toto from Wizards of Oz. This image is a phenomenon in itself and perhaps where the advent of chasing natural mishaps began.

The first to embrace the tradition of presidential photograph belongs to John Quincy Adams. He stroked a sitting pose for his picture in 1843 at his own residence in Massachusetts. Since that time, presidential photographs have become conventional for presidents while holding the office. These are now taken to continue the lineage and the legacy.

This first presidential photograph was a daguerreotype taken after 14 years of the sixth president of the United States of America was retiring from holding the public office. However, he was the first president to be given this honor but it was until 1849 that an office holding president was presented with this privilege. This privilege went to James Polk in 1849.

Abraham Lincoln is considered as the most notable president and a historical figure who is well known due to the civil war. His particular attire is frequently seen in all of his pictures: holding a stove pipe, hat and his beard and that cynical smile he wears most of the time. However, this image belongs to a younger Lincoln which is quite surprising to witness.

This portrait dates back to 1846 or 1847, the time when Lincoln was a newly elected as a congressman who was representing Illinois. Though the photographer of this historical photo has been failed to identify however the Library of Congress has given the credit to Nicholas H. Shepherd for capturing the portrait of a young never seen before Lincoln.

This peculiar visible image is considered as the first colored photograph ever produced. The colored image itself was a breakthrough and a distinction for the coming age of photography. This promising image was created by mathematician and physicist James Clerk Maxwell, who was accredited with producing a three-colored scientific filter method for colorization process. Hence, this was the start for the base of all kinds of colored photography.

Surprisingly as it sounds, the shutter for this image was pressed by Thomas Sutton, the camera innovator himself. The image was revealed for the first time in 1861 at a lecture. However, people might ponder about the object in the image which is actually a checkered ribbon bow tie.

In recent times due to camera, it has become less difficult to report and document regular news. Whatever that may be, regardless of whether that is a world changing occasion or something just of neighborhood account, the camera has become fundamental to archiving life. This daguerreotype photo, taken by an obscure photographic artist, is accepted to be the first taken to record a news shot.

In particular, it caught the moment when a Frenchman was captured in 1847, and thus introduced to the camera. While we don’t have the slightest idea what happened to this person, he stood out forever for this unique mark in photojournalism.

Unfortunately this phenomenal image has disintegrated with time; yet this shows a lightning strike. The photographic artist, William Jenning, caught this sensational moment in 1882 determined to set up whether lightning was more complicated than the zigzags as previously portrayed in art.

It is obvious Jennings had the option to affirm that lightning showed with more prominent multifaceted nature than formerly accepted. This in depth picture, which actually shows lightning stretching out, was covered by Scientific American in 1885.

Louis Marie Auguste Boutan created the underwater camera which was used to capture imminent historical photos. However, it is believed this picture shot in 1899 is not the first ever photo captured underwater yet it is generally accepted as the first portrait to be captured underwater.

This portrait belongs to biologist and oceanographer Emil Racovitza from Romania while he was in the depth of sea in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Southern France. If look closely, we can see the marine biologist holding a card in his hands that states “Photographie sous marine,” which in French means “underwater photography”.

Only five years after the Wright Brothers set out on their first controlled flight, there came the first photo to show the result of a plane accident. Unfortunately, this mishap happened in 1908 after a critical accident by pilot Thomas Selfridge.

He was part of the Aeronautical Division of the United States Army when his 1908 Wright Military Flyer he was guiding descended on September 17 around Fort Meyer, Virginia. Sadly, he was the first person to die because of a plane accident. However, Orville Wright was also part of the same flight and survived the plane crash.

In terms of aerial photography, our first image in mind comes of contemporary planes and modern drones. It is believed that the world originally recorded picture from above occurred in 1860 on account of a tourist balloon. It was captured by James Wallace Black over the city of Boston at a stature of 2,000 feet.

Where it is quite fascinating to witness this aerial image yet it is not the first aerial photograph as previously believed. The first aerial photograph is considered to be taken by the Frenchman balloonist, Gaspard–Félix Tournachon in 1858 which is now lost.

Paris is popular for the Seine River that flows through the French capital. Commonly, it is a spot that evoke sentiments of romance and love. Nonetheless, the city as depicted in the image is subject to harsh flooding that wreaks havoc.   Nature and beauty are playing side by side. 

This is the first known archived picture of a flood by an alien photographic artist and is accepted worldwide. This image depicts the rising waters inundating the roads of Paris in 1856. These frequent floods would end up being one of the most ruinous and costliest in the French capital’s set of experiences.

The first known photograph of a flood.

Mankind first arrived at space in 1962 through Yuri Gagarin’s circle of the Earth. However, the first photo of space came right around twenty years prior. This was accomplished on October 24 1946 by sending a V-2 rocket to catch a shot of Earth at a height of 65 miles.

The connected 35mm motion picture camera could not endure the fast thrust and descent, where the rocket rushed back to Earth at a huge 500 feet each second. Notwithstanding, the camera’s film roll was effectively recuperated. It had taken a shot each second and a half.

In the past, we have come across multiple pictures archived related to land battles and wars. This image is the pioneer for capturing the ongoing sight of the battlefield. The photo depicts the Battle of Sedan, which took place on 1st September, 1870 during the time of Franco-Prussian War. The photographer, Carol Popp de Szathmari was part of the French forces.

The image conspicuously depicts the advancement of Prussian troops while the French forces are defending their positions. This photograph gave fame to the first war photographer Carol Poppe de Szathmari who became a prominent figure in the advancement of photographic journalism.

Another example of daguerreotype, this is the first known photo of the sun. This picture was available to the public five years after the first moon snapshot. This major breakthrough was achieved by two physicists: Leon Foucault and Louis Fizeau. The two physicists utilized an exposure of 1/60th of second to capture this crucial snap.

This image also holds unprecedented significance because the human eye is unable to securely see the value in the subtleties of the sun. The detail incorporates various perceptible sunspots, a movement that could not have been broadly valued at that point.

The Big Apple has gravely changed the scenario in the past centuries. Indeed, even in the nineteenth Century, New York was still intensely countryside. This daguerreotype was produced by an unknown photographer in 1848 that depicts the modern day city’s Upper West Side. In the past many pictures were developed through daguerreotype process.

It is accepted to have been taken near Bloomingdale Road, and included a white house close by a picket fence. The first photo of New York originates before this plate, yet it is not known to have pulled through all this time. That image included the city’s Unitarian Church.

The most iconic and symbolic picture of all time, this daguerreotype was taken in 1846 which is accepted as the first known photograph of the White House. The honorable image was captured by John Plumbe, Jr., a Welsh photographic artist who had shifted to the United States with his family in 1821. At this point, Plumbe, Jr. had a privilege of being the country’s preeminent photographer. 

Historically, this picture remains his most renowned creation. Other than its notable importance, it shows the White House as it initially looked before President Truman made significant changes just about a century after the fact.

After witnessing various historical daguerreotypes now comes the age of digital photographs. In contemporary times, tech driven society has changed the perception of photography as well. However, the question still arises how was the first digital photograph produced? Well let us bear witness to this momentous occasion in history. The first digitally produced photograph belongs to Russell Kirsch who took a shot of his baby son in 1957. However, usage of the conventional film camera is now considered only as hobby of a handful people.

This revolution was started 20 years before Kodak invented its first digital camera. Initially, this notable picture was captured through the film camera which however was later digitally scanned. The outcome of the image resolution was only 176 x 176.

As previously believed, the photographs of our planet Earth captured though NASA’s manned mission to moon are not the first to take the picture of Earth.

The credit goes to Lunar Orbiter 1, who made this effort while wandering close to the moon on August 23 1966. When the photo had been taken, the Lunar Orbiter then, at that point sent the image through transmission to Robledo de Chavela, a NASA global positioning system in Spain. This picture happened on the Lunar Orbiter’s sixteenth circle of the moon.

Today, the remnants of Machu Picchu are one of the most broadly visited tourist spots on the planet. Notwithstanding, when this photo was taken by American pioneer Henry Bingham III in 1911, information on its reality was substantially more restricted. As a result, people were not aware regarding these ruins. Without a doubt, it was Bingham’s photo that brought this unprecedented Inca construction to worldwide attention.

When this photo was taken, a portion of the jungle growth that had stowed away the city had been gathered up. Notwithstanding, it required numerous months for Bingham and his expedition to eliminate a significant part of the wilderness development.

These are the 25 never seen before first photographs even taken of different things, people and historical sites.