A little wonder, every day

The earliest surviving photograph and Maxwell’s color experiment

AI-generated cover reconstruction of Niépce preparing a plate in his workshop beside a camera obscura.

reproduction of Niépce's heliograph *View from the Window at Le Gras*.

scan of the 1861 tartan-ribbon color photograph.

public-domain portrait of James Clerk Maxwell, probably derived from a photograph by Fergus of Greenock.

AI-generated reconstruction of Maxwell's three-filter projection demonstration.

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AI-generated cover reconstruction of Niépce preparing a plate in his workshop beside a camera obscura.

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In 1826 or 1827, French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce fixed a view from a window onto a metal plate. It is the earliest known photograph made with a camera to survive today. In 1861, physicist James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated how a color image could be assembled: photographer Thomas Sutton photographed a tartan ribbon three times through red, green, and blue-violet filters, then projected the three images on top of one another.