An historical gift of a split second

In 1838, Louis Daguerre was experimenting with a new technology called photography in Paris. Compared to today, it was cumbersome. For a photograph to be taken, the subject had to remain still for up to 30 seconds otherwise the image was blurred. In spite of this shortcoming, it was popular and today daguerreotypes are prized antiquities. Daguerre was still perfecting his technique in 1838 when he stuck the nose of his camera out of his attic window and took this photograph. If you look carefully in the bottom right at the curve in the road, you will see a man standing. This is the first known photograph of a human. The reason this unknown man was photographed was because he was getting his shoes shined and had to stand erect and unmoving for the number of seconds it took for that first camera to take this first picture of the first human being on film.   [See my books at https://authormasterminds.com/steve-levi.]

Steve Levi is an Alaskan writer who specializes in the Alaska Gold Rush (nonfiction) and the ‘impossible crime,’ (fiction.)  An ‘impossible crime’ is one where the detective must figure out HOW the crime was committed before going after the perpetrators – like a Greyhound bus with bank robbers and hostages disappearing off the Golden Gate Bridge –THE MATTER OF THE VANISHING GREYHOUND. Steve’s books can be found at www.authormasterminds.com/steve-levi

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