When you first look at this picture it doesn't seem like much, just a dark and blank photo of a deserted city. But when you really look at it you'll see a man getting his shoes cleaned. The camera it was taken with had an exposure of 7 minutes so the city looks empty but in reality the man getting his shoes cleaned and the cleaner (harder to see) are just relatively staying still compared to the carts and people walking. This image, taken in Paris, France in 1838 was illegibly photographed by the famous French photographer named Louis Daguerre. The photo shows the Boulevard du Temple, a fashionable area of shops, cafés and theaters.
This photo, although a great discovery, sn not close to being the first photograph. That
credit belongs to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who used a crude camera to capture the view from his French Estate in 1826 or 1827. But with almost everyone having a smart phone in there pockets and almost 350 millions photos being uploaded to Facebook per year Louis Daguerre’s achievement might seem insignificant but it was a very large accomplishment for his time.
