by Roger Chartier:
Supposedly and most likely this is the first picture of a living person. It was taken out of a window looking down on the Boulevard du Temple in the 3rd Arrondissement of Paris.
The image here is a reverse of the real image and took about 10 minutes to make the exposure. You can see the sign on the building has reversed letters. Because of the length of the exposure people and horses could have passed by without being exposed. Only people who stood still long enough were exposed on the film long enough to be captured in the image. There are several people who are visible here.
1 The man on the bottom left is getting his shoes shined.
2 A woman under the street light.
3 A man sitting on a bench reading a paper.
4 A man standing under an awning.
5 A young child in the upper floor window of the building facing.
I have been to the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, and this and a few others from the period as well as the first daguerreotype images
ever taken are exhibited there.
If you click on the image, you will get a detailed larger file size copy.
