
The first photograph of a human being (1838) - jnord
http://mashable.com/2014/11/05/first-photograph-of-a-human/
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soneca
_The human in question is standing in the bottom-left of the photograph, on
the pavement by the curve in the road. He is having his boots shined._

So there is enough information to know that there are two human beings. Sounds
like those records of the very first man to climb a mountain, you know, except
of all those native guys that went there before and carried the bags, guided
and have all support so that european could be the first man to get there.

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adiM
Reminds me of the narration in a National Geographic short documentary that I
saw in the visitor center of Yellowstone National Park (recollecting from
memory): "Lewis and Clark were the first human beings to set foot on this
land" ... (and 2 minute later) "... "Native Indians had been living here for
thousands of years".

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dkonofalski
How amazing that the first person to be in a photograph was there simply off
of the chance event that he decided to have his shoes shined. If it had been
something else, he would have moved off the plate by the time it was
developed. The fact that it was an event that, for the most part, required him
to stay put has put him into history forever. /mind blown

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ch
Its funny, I actually think when the picture was flipped back to how the
photographer saw the scene, that it was a better composition. The road seemed
unnatural in the original.

I wonder now if that is just some internal bias to it being "more real"?

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mod
I felt the same way, it suddenly felt much more correct.

I couldn't pinpoint why. I hadn't noticed the text on a sign by then.

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deepnet
William Henry Fox Talbot in 1835 photographed a latticed window at Lacock
Abbey.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fox_Talbot#/media/File:L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fox_Talbot#/media/File:Latticed_window_at_lacock_abbey_1835.jpg)

Fox Talbot and Daguerre were contemporary inventors with different processes -
but AFAIK there are no people in Fox Talbot's work until 1840 so Daguerre
appears to be the first to record a human via this new technology.

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moron4hire
To think, less than 200 years later and we can capture moving images of three
dimensional light (RE: Lytro Immerge announcement earlier this week).

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sbw1
Can anyone find it on street view? Must be somewhere around here:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8662696,2.3648286,3a,75y,144...](https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8662696,2.3648286,3a,75y,144.53h,93.15t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sM0t2Z6Odkr6zpyF4lgWiMA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en)

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kawera
Maybe here:
[https://goo.gl/maps/CAC6NxkE8LN2](https://goo.gl/maps/CAC6NxkE8LN2)

It seems his studio was very close to the above location:
[http://www.midley.co.uk/diorama/Diorama_Wood_2.htm](http://www.midley.co.uk/diorama/Diorama_Wood_2.htm)

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farnsworth
This is beautiful. I wonder what the first picture of a person's face is?

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moron4hire
It's believed to be Robert Cornelius' self portrait in 1839
[http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664436/](http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664436/)

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buzzdenver
So selfies have been around for 176 years :-)

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DrScump
I figured that it wouldn't be a selfie.

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moron4hire
But the first photo with a recognizable face was:
[http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664436/](http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004664436/)

