Daguerrotype

After acknowledging the Daguerrotype (initial form of the camera), Delaroche said in 1839 'from today painting is dead'. Great painter saw the Daguerreotype, the first commercially successful photographic process, invented around 1837 by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre.

L'Atelier de l'artiste, an 1837 daguerreotype by Daguerre, claimed to be the first to complete the full process.

Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 3rd arrondissement, Daguerreotype. Taken in 1838 its believed to be the earliest photograph showing a living person. It is a view of a busy street, but due to the exposure time lasting at least ten minutes, the moving traffic left no trace. Only the two men near the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other, stayed in one place long enough to be visible. Note that, as with most daguerreotypes, the image is a mirror image.

Daguerreotype of Louis Daguerre in 1844 by Jean-Baptiste Sabatier-Blot