Info The first picture of a person. The image shows a busy street, but because exposure time was over ten minutes, the traffic was moving too much to appear. The exception is the man at the bottom left, who stood still getting his boots polished long enough to show.
Comment Scuse me in advance if this comment is somewhat long, but this topic interests me a lot. Some remarks. 1/ Yes, this image is very famous. Other versions exist on Commons : see 1, 2, 3, 4(animated gif)- but the nominated image is of better quality IMO. But 2/ The caption isn't accurate. There are strong assumptions that the first portrait ever made was taken by Daguerre in 1837 (so before the "boulevard du Temple" view): it was M. Huet's portrait, found in 1999 ref.. After this publication, there was a sort of battle between French and American scholars (linked to the paternity of daguerreotype portrait) but this very first portrait is now mostly acknowledged. 3/ Most important point, regarding the scope: perhaps the most valuable image within this scope should be a portrait, as portraits assured the success and the very large dissemination of daguerreotype. It is why I prefer for example this portrait of Balzac (1842, by Louis-Auguste Bisson and not by Nadar as indicated in the description). --Myrabella (talk) 07:28, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
