From a Paris rooftop in 1839 into the darkroom: focus the camera, tint the plate gold, gather light, raise and fix the image, and hold a memory in a mirror — an adventure with one silver plate.
Paris, 1839. The wooden box on this rooftop is the first camera ever sold. The lens on its front gathers light from outside and lays the scene onto a sheet of ground glass at the back. What appears is upside down and reversed left to right, yet still alive, down to the leaves stirring in the trees. No one had ever kept this light before.
The Giroux camera sold in 1839: Le Daguerreotype .
Walk up to the camera on the roof and step inside the dark box. Match what glows on the ground glass with the world outside. Choose what to capture: the boulevard, a portrait, or a still life.
Light from the top of the scene crosses through the lens and lands at the bottom; light from the right lands on the left. That is why the image turns over.
A sunny boulevard seen from an upper floor. People and carriages pass, the trees sway, and on the corner a man has his boots shined.
Why is the scene on the ground glass upside down?
