The first photo to ever capture the image of a human being was taken in 1838.
The image was shot by Louis Daguerre in Paris back in 1838. Daguerre was not just a photographer – he was also the inventor of the daguerreotype process of photography. The man's appearance in the photo is a fluke, as it was taken with a 10-minute exposure. Typically such a long exposure would render moving objects invisible. Thus the man in the photo must have been standing relatively still for a significant amount of time.
PetaPixel adds:
Aside from its distinction of being a super early photograph, it’s also the first photograph to ever include a human being. Because the image required an exposure time of over ten minutes, all the people, carriages, and other moving things disappear from the scene. However, in the bottom left hand corner is a man who just so happened to stay somewhat still during the shot — he was having his shoes shined.
Source
- First Ever Photograph of a Human Being (Michael Zhang, PetaPixel: October 27, 2010)
