In Paris, France on the bleak winter day of January 7, 1839, members of the French Academy of Sciences

gathered to witness the eagerly anticipated products of a new process invented by painter and printmaker Louis de Gere.

On display for the wrapped group of spectators was the first successful form of permanent photography known as

daryotype after its creator of course. The six and a half inch by eight and a half

inch images of light etched onto metal were so highly detailed and realistic

that it left its viewers in awe.

Inspiring a Parisian journalist to write an image of a dead spider captured through a solar microscope.

You can study its anatomy with or without a magnifying glass as in nature.

There is not a filament, not a duct, as tenuous as might be that you cannot follow and examine.

Among the collection that day was the earliest known photograph to include a recognizable human form.

After having set up his camera by a window in a studio one day in 1838,

Louis aimed it toward the street below and began the exposure of the copper plate within.

Boulevard de Tambel, a street that was part of the fashionable area of shops, cafes, and theaters would have been busy with people and

horse traffic at the time of the photograph. But Louis's photograph transformed a bustling

Parisian street into an eerie desolate scene depopulated of all life save for one man

one man standing still to have his shoes shined.

And now the street seems empty, upon closer inspection can be found,

ghostly transparent shadows.

Just a fair mole hints of the people and animals that once populated the street.

Beings who are living, breathing, and moving too fast to make a complete impression on the photographic plate,

haunting shadows of people who once were.

This is a strange and unusual podcast with Allison Horrocks and welcome to episode 28

...