Nicéphores window – A One Shot Story

By thorsten

18 September, 2025

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One Shot Story
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Nadja and me we stopped in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes while travelling through France in the summer of 2022. Nicéphore Niépce experimented here with heliography. 200 years ago he used camera obscura bodies and Bitumen of Judea as light sensitive material. By applying the tar-like bitumen to a pewter plate and exposing for days straight from his window into the garden, Nicéphore took the first photograph made in a camera. “View from the Window at Le Gras” was fixed with oil of lavender, and is today part of the Harry Ransom Centers collection in Austin, Texas.

I had the pleasure to shoot from the same spot with my Nikon F3, 35mm ƒ2 and Ilford HP5.


Who knows, without Nicéphore some of us would be painters.

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About The Author

By thorsten
Major influence just now: Severance on Apple. Incredible work by cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné (and everybody else working on it). Imho the best show since Sopranos and Twin Peaks. Further running: Akira Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, Billy Wilder, and as always, Kubrick. The night before Salgado died I ran into Donata Wenders and her husband Wim. We talked about shooting film, and printing in the bathroom.
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Comments

Ibraar Hussain on Nicéphores window – A One Shot Story

Comment posted: 18/09/2025

Thanks for this man, I admit I’m pretty ignorant about such history so it’s inspired me to dig deeper
The image you took here looks Great - even better because of the way you’ve used the negative for framing
Superb !!
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