Milestones from the History of Photography

• 01

  First photograph ever taken

  
  via My Modern MET

  This is the first photograph ever taken. It was captured in 1826 or 1827 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a technique called heliography. 

  
  

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• 02

  First selfie

  
  via My Modern MET

  This is the first self portrait ever taken, paving the way for our obsession with selfies today. Robert Cornelius took this image of himself in 1839 and had to sit for just over a minute in front of his camera. 

  
  

• 03

  First photo of the moon

  
  via My Modern MET

  This daguerreotype was taken in 1840 by John W. Draper and is the first photo ever taken of the moon. It was taken from his rooftop observatory at New York University. 

  
  

• 04

  Oldest photo of New York

  
  via My Modern MET

  This is the oldest surviving photograph taken of New York. Taken in 1848, the daguerreotype shows the Upper West side of Manhattan looking very different to how it looks now. 

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• 05

  First photo with people

  
  via My Modern MET

  This photo is both the oldest photograph of Paris and the first photo taken with people in it. It was taken in 1839 by Louis Daguerre (who invented the daguerreotype), and a 10 minute exposure was taken. 

• 06

  First photo of a war

  
  via My Modern MET

  This photo was taken in 1870 by Carol Popp de Szathmari, the world's first war photographer. It is the first image of a battle, depicting a line of Prussian troops as they advance. The photographer was standing with the French defenders.

• 07

  First photo of a tornado

  
  via My Modern MET

  This photo was taken in 1884 in Kansas as a tornado moved slowly over Anderson county. Because it was slow moving, it allowed A.A. Adams to set up his box camera and take the photo that paved the way for future storm chasers. 

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• 08

  First photo of a president

  
  via My Modern MET

  This photo shows John Quincy Adams sitting in his home in 1843, fourteen years after he left the presidential office. The daguerreotype was taken by Philip Haas.

• 09

  First surviving aerial photo

  
  via My Modern MET

  This photo shows Boston in 1860 and was taken from over 2,000 feet in the air. Taken by James Wallace Black and Samuel Archer King, this photo was actually the second aerial photo ever taken. The first one, snapped by French balloonist and photographer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, was lost. 

• 10

  First photo of the Sun

  
  via My Modern MET

  This photo was taken in 1845 by French physicists Louis Fizeau and Leon Foucault. It was taken at 1/60th exposure, but still shows sunspots. 

  
  

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• 11

  First photo of Earth from the Moon

  
  via My Modern MET

  A lunar orbiter took this photo of Earth as it hovered over the moon, in 1966. 

  
  

• 12

  First color photo

  
  via My Modern MET

  Taken in 1855, this is the first color photo ever taken. Physicist James Clerk Maxwell developed a 3 color method to develop color. The photo shows a tartan ribbon. 

  
  

• 13

  First underwater photo

  
  via My Modern MET

  This underwater photo was taken by National Geographic photographer Charles Martin and botanist William Longley. They took it in 1926 by encasing cameras in waterproof housing and using a magnesium powered flash. This is a hogfish. 

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• 14

  First digital photo

  
  via My Modern MET

  In 1957, Russell Kirsch took the first digital photo ever of his son. This was 20 years before Kodak's digital cameras were invented: a digital scan was taken of a film image. 

  
  

• 15

  First Instagram photo

  
  via My Modern MET

  The first photo ever to be uploaded of Instagram was taken by Instagram's co-founder Kevin Systrom. At the time, in 2010, the photo was uploaded to an app called Codename, which changed to Instagram three months later. 

  
  

• 16

  First photo of a black hole

  
  via My Modern MET

  The first photo taken of a black hole was captured in 2019. The black hole is at the center of Messier 87 galaxy (55 million light years away from Earth), and what we see in the photo is actually the accretion disk around the black hole. 

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