Rob's Pages of Stuff

Just a collection of some earliest surviving images and recordings. 

View from the Window at Le Gras - 1826

View from the Window at Le Gras (La cour du domaine du Gras) was the second successful permanent photograph, created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes. Niépce captured the photo with a camera obscura focused onto a sheet of 20 × 25 cm oil-treated bitumen. Due to the 8-hour exposure, sunlight illuminates the buildings on both sides.

After an unsuccessful trip to Britain to attempt to interest the Royal Society in the process, Niépce gave the photo to the botanist Francis Bauer. It was last publicly exhibited in 1898, and was thereafter forgotten. Helmut Gernsheim brought the photo to prominence again in 1952 and the Eastman Kodak Company made a copy. In 1973, the University of Texas acquired the plate from Helmut Gernsheim. Today, the plate is on display at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center.

Tartan Ribbon - The first permanent colour photograph, taken by James Clerk Maxwell in 1861.

Maxwell contributed to the area of optics and colour vision, and is credited with the discovery that colour photographs could be formed using red, green, and blue filters. In 1861 he presented the world's first colour photograph during a Royal Institution lecture. He had Thomas Sutton, inventor of the single-lens reflex camera, photograph a tartan ribbon three times, each time with a different colour filter over the lens. The three images were developed and then projected onto a screen with three different projectors, each equipped with the same colour filter used to take its image. When brought into focus, the three images formed a full colour image.[49] The three photographic plates now reside in a small museum at 14 India Street, Edinburgh, the house where Maxwell was born.

A panoramic view of Angoulême, France in 1877 by Louis Ducos du Hauron

Louis Ducos du Hauron, a French pioneer of color photography, produced this in 1877. This is a cropped and retouched version. It was created by a "subtractive" method. This is the basis for all color photography, even today. It was not until the 1930s that this method was perfected for commercial use.

To hear Frank Lambert's Talking Clock, click here - Talking Clock Frank Lambert - 1878

Around 1878, Frank Lambert invented a machine that used a voice recorded on a lead cylinder to call out the hours. Lambert used lead in place of Edison's soft tinfoil, and as a result, this is the oldest known sound recording that is still playable, and was recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as such in 1992. It is currently on display at the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Pennsylvania.

To see the Roundhay Garden Scene (14 October 1888), click here for a 126Kb mp4 - Roundhay Garden Scene 1888

Roundhay Garden Scene is an 1888 British short film directed by inventor Louis Le Prince. It was recorded at 12 frames per second and is the earliest surviving motion picture. According to Le Prince's son, Adolphe, it was filmed at Oakwood Grange, the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England on October 14, 1888. It features Adolphe Le Prince, Sarah Whitley, Joseph Whitley and Harriet Hartley in the garden, walking around and laughing. Note that Sarah is walking backwards and that Joseph's coat tails are flying.

1930 NSM copy of 20 frames from the Roundhay Garden SceneIn 1930 the National Science Museum (NSM), London, produced photographic copies of remaining parts from the 1888 filmstrip. This sequence was recorded on an 1885 Eastman Kodak paper base photographic film through Le Prince's single-lens combi camera-projector. Le Prince's son, Adolphe, stated that the Roundhay Garden was shot at 12 frame/s however the later digital remastered version of Roundhay Garden produced by the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, uses 52 frames and is only 2.11 seconds long, as the film runs at 24.64frame/s, the modern cinematographic frame-rate. The National Science Museum copy has 20 frames, giving a run time of 1.66 seconds at 12frame/s.