Talk:Nicéphore Niépce

Earliest known photograph
There seems to be a contradiction in the article with the paragraph stating "the earliest known example of a Niépce photograph (or any other photograph) was created in June or July of 1827 or 1826" &mdash; and the final paragraph, which states that an earlier photograph dated from 1825 was recently discovered. Is there some disagreement as to the authenticity of the latter? If not, then the earlier statement should be modified to reflect this development. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.177.171.117 (talk) 22:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Biography assessment rating comment
WikiProject Biography Assessment Drive

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 15:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

untitled
What was sold was an heliography not a photography. Here's the first photography : http://www.sycamore-square.com/suite403-1.htm Ericd 18:26, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Here's the link that was removed: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1885093.stm

The BBC link calls it a type of photography. Perhaps in absence of something more definitive, links to both could be included in the article. Both seem to be important examples of Niepce's early work. -- Infrogmation 20:09, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

You can include the link. But despite the fact that the BBC is supposed to be a serious media it contradicts all serious historians about the birth of photography. What was sold is not a photography it's more something like a photocopy. IMO the article has to be substantially reworked about to emphasize about difference between photography/heliography/litography, but this something over my skills... Take a look at : http://www.niepce.com/pagus/pagus-inv.html Ericd 21:04, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Name
Niepce isn't another way of spelling his name. It's mearly a bastidardised way of spelling his name.

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation
I'm in a photography class at my high school and we are currently covering the history of photography. Obviously Mr. Niépce has to be mentioned, yet I get the feeling that my teacher is clueless on how his name is pronounced. (She pronounces it like Neep- kay) Is she correct? If not, what is the correct pronunciation?Deyyaz [ Talk 22:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're absolutely right, your teacher is clueless. The correct pronunciation is Nee-eps (the second syllable is between eps and apes). Good for you for being skeptical! Pinkville (talk) 01:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * As pointed out here, the name Nièpce/Niépce/Niepce is probably an archaic, Latinised spelling (compare French orthography) for Nièce, hence the p is likely spurious and the original pronunciation was [njɛs] (i. e., nyes, rhyming with yes). Hence, [njɛps] is probably a spelling pronunciation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:51, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * While the original Greek had a hard K, the French way of pronouncing the name followed French pronunciation rules that soften the c when followed by an e or an i. Pronunciation of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Nicephore was baptised as Joseph but he adopted the name Nicephore, in honour of Saint Nicephorus the 19th century Patriarch of Constantinople, while he was studying at the Oratorian College in Angers.RPSM (talk) 10:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Plagiarism
It appears that sections of this article have been copied from the [Niépce Museum web site]. For example, the article states:
 * In 1818 he developed a very strong interest for this ancestor of the bicycle without pedals and transmission and cousin of the dandy horse from Karl von Drais. He built himself a model and called it the vélocipède. Nicephore made quite a sensation running his contraption on the local country roads but he could not resist improving it by different means: the adjustable saddle among them. This velocipede with the saddle is exhibited at the Niépce Museum. In a letter to his brother, Nicephore thought of motorizing his machine, thus imagining the moped.

and the web site states:
 * It was in 1818 that he developed a very strong interest for this contraption, cousin of the dandy horse (ancestor of the bicycle without pedals and transmission) and built himself a model. Nicephore made quite a sensation running on his velocipede on the local country roads but he could not resist improving it by different means: the adjustable saddle among them. This velocipede with the saddle is exhibited at the Niépce Museum.In a letter to his brother, Nicephore thought of motorizing his machine, thus imagining the moped.

Is the text from the museum public domain or compatibly licensed, or have they granted permission? -AndrewDressel (talk) 13:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The story of how Helmut Gernsheim*s heavy retouching replaced the original unretouched reproduction now at Texas University
In Photography and its Origins (Routledge 2015) the curator of the Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Jessica S. McDonald gives the story of how the heavily retouched version of The World's First Photograph, or more specifically,  "the earliest known surviving photograph made in a camera" came to be widely reproduced in any and every publication dealing with the subject. This type of very heavy retouching was common in the 1960s when delicate values would not reproduce in newsprint (pre-Photoshop).

Barbara Brown Head of Photograph Conservation Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center The University of Texas at Austin says that "This most famous reproduction of the World's First Photograph was based upon the March 1952 reproduction produced at Helmut Gernsheim's request by the Research Laboratory of the Eastman Kodak Company in London. The pointillistic effect is due to the reproduction process and is not present in the original heliograph. The Kodak reproduction was touched up with watercolors by Gernsheim himself in order to bring it as close as possible to his approximation of how he felt the original should appear in reproduction."

The bitumen of Judea was washed with oil of lavender and turpentine - not lavender water (end of second paragraph in link to Texas University) - that's something you splash behind your ears. RPSM (talk) 05:37, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The text now reads: Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving product of a photographic process: a print made from a photoengraved printing plate in 1825.

Well, as the print, heavily retouched by Helmut Gernsheim, was made from the original heliograph by the Kodak Laboratories in the 1950s, it is not the world's oldest surviving product of a photographic process is it?

The "photoengraved printing plate" is, in fact, the world's first (surviving) photograph and is not a printing plate, but a heliograph made with Bitumen of Judea and washed off with oil of lavender and turpentine. RPSM (talk) 13:24, 8 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "... the world's oldest surviving product of a photographic process" referred to the 1825 paper print reproduction of an engraving, which was indeed made by using a "photoengraved printing plate", and not to "Gernsheim's watercolor" (one writer's refreshingly dismissive characterization of the Kodak print Gernsheim "retouched" in 1952) of the 1827 camera image. Some people — particularly those involved in its sale and purchase roughly ten years ago — insisted on calling their breathtakingly high-priced 1825 ink-on-paper artifact "a photograph". IMO, that is a gross abuse of the term, and it would be more aptly described as "a photocopy", but I have no standing to dictate terminology here; therefore, the technically accurate "product of a photographic process" (no matter how many generations removed) wording, my attempt to obviate the need for a distracting nomenclature controversy tangent. 66.81.247.155 (talk) 04:28, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

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