The first photograph ever taken was captured by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827. The photograph, called "View from the Window at Le Gras," was captured using a technique known as heliography, which involved coating a metal plate with a light-sensitive substance, and then exposing it to light through a camera obscura. The exposure time for the photograph was approximately eight hours. Unfortunately, the original photograph no longer exists, but reproductions of it can be viewed at the Gernsheim Collection in the University of Texas at Austin and the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas. 

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of photography. He was born in 1765 in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, and began experimenting with ways to capture images using light as early as 1816. He developed a technique called heliography, which involved coating a metal plate with a light-sensitive substance, such as bitumen of Judea, and then exposing it to light through a camera obscura. The plate was then washed with a solvent to remove the unhardened bitumen, leaving a permanent image. This process required a long exposure time, often several hours, and the resulting image was reversed and not very detailed.Niépce continued to work on improving the process, and in 1829 he partnered with Louis Daguerre, another French inventor and artist, to develop a more efficient method of capturing photographs. This partnership led to the creation of the daguerreotype process, which was announced to the public in 1839. Despite this, Niépce did not live long enough to see the success of daguerreotype as he died in 1833.Niépce's contributions to photography were largely overlooked during his lifetime, but his work laid the foundation for the development of modern photography. His invention of heliography and his partnership with Daguerre were critical to the development of the daguerreotype process, which was the first practical method of capturing photographs.

First human being to be photographed: can you spot him?

The first photograph of a person is believed to be a daguerreotype called "Boulevard du Temple," which was taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838. The photograph shows a busy street in Paris, France, and captures several people in the frame, including a man having his boots shined and a woman crossing the street, however due to the long exposure time (about 10 minutes) the people in the scene are not visible as they were moving during the photo was taken. The photograph is a view of the busy Boulevard du Temple in Paris, and is considered one of the earliest examples of street photography. Daguerre's technique, called daguerreotype, was a significant improvement over earlier methods of photography, as it required a much shorter exposure time and produced a more detailed and accurate image.