Niépce

Nicéphore Niépce was a French inventor born on March 7, 1765, in Chalon-sur-Saône, and died July 5, 1833, in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes. He is celebrated as a pioneer of photography for developing early techniques to capture permanent images on material surfaces. His experiments in the 1810s and 1820s laid the groundwork for modern photography.

Niépce is best known for heliography, a process using a pewter plate coated with a light-sensitive residue called bitumen of Judea. After a long exposure in a camera obscura, the exposed areas harden and become insoluble, while the unexposed areas are dissolved away with a solvent, producing a visible image. The most famous result from his experiments is View from the Window at Le Gras (c. 1826), a photo taken from a window at Niépce's estate that is regarded as the oldest surviving photograph.

In 1829 Niépce formed a partnership with Louis Daguerre to refine photographic techniques. Niépce died in 1833, and Daguerre later announced the daguerreotype in 1839, a commercial method that built on Niépce's early ideas. Niépce's contributions are recognized as foundational to the development of photography, and his work is preserved in institutions such as the Musée Nicéphore-Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône.