This astonishing image has to rank amongst the 100 greatest photographs of all time …
It is a daguerrotype, taken by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (after whom the process was named), an image recorded on a sheet of copper coated with silver and developed by mercury fumes. Ironically the hour at which it was taken is known, but the year is not. It was either 1838 or 1839.
At first glance this may seem like a rather ordinary … even boring … subject. And it’s badly scratched too. Aren’t I saying its so great, simply because its so old?
No.
Look carefully to the bottom left.
here you will see two human figures, a customer having his shoes polished by a bootblack. These two unknown characters were the first humans to be photographed. Their simple, everyday transaction has made them immortal.
How come there is no one else in the image? Weren’t the streets of Paris busy at that time?
They were. But Daguerre would have had to use an exposure of 10-15 minutes to get this image. So all the other Parisians, bustling back and forth, have not have been recorded. Such was the length of exposure that anything in the frame for less that a few minutes would not register.
All the commentaries on this photograph that I have read speculate that these two were probably unaware that they were being recorded. And they say that Daguerre knew neither of them. One photo-historian writes, “He (Daguerre) quite possibly didn’t notice them as he focused his camera, but his plate remained true to nature, and one can imagine his delight when the mercury fumes revealed their presence
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