- 1 day - 8h
- Dates to be announced
- Cost : 320 EUR
- Instructors: Jean Louis Marignier, CNRS researcher and author of "Niépce, l'invention de la Photographie", Michèle Lourseau, CNRS laboratory
In 1816, Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) began experimenting on the chemical fixation of photographs made with a camera obscura. It took him eight years to develop Heliography, the very first photographic process to secure permanent images. He also invented the first photomechanical process allowing him to reproduce and print images. In 1829, Niépce started collaborating with Louis Daguerre, and three years later, they invented a second photographic process: the Physautotype.

© Jean-Louis Marignier

In this course, participants assist Jean-Louis Marignier – the first researcher to rediscover these photographic processes – in the production of Heliographs (on copper or silver plates coated with bitumen of Judea), as well as Physautotypes (on silver plates coated by pine resin). These reproductions allow the participants to visualize the world’s first photographs and to understand the origins of subsequent photographic processes, such as the Daguerreotype invented by Daguerre after Niépce’s death.