Heliography (in French, héliographie) is the photographic process invented by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce around 1825, and which he used to make the earliest known permanent photograph from nature, View from the Window at Le Gras (c. 1826). The process used bitumen, as a coating on glass or metal, which hardened in relation to exposure to light. When the plate was washed with oil of lavender, only the hardened image area remained.

The word has also been used to refer to other phenomena: for description of the sun (cf geography), for photography in general, for signalling by heliotrope (a device also called a heliograph), and for photography of the sun.^[1]

Notes

1. Descriptions of the sun, photography in general, and signalling by heliotrope: Oxford English Dictionary 2nd ed. (1989) s.v. "Heliography". Photography of the sun: As used by and in discussion of Hiroshi Yamazaki.

References

• Art & Architecture Thesaurus, s.v. "heliography". Accessed 10 December 2007.
• Harry Ransom Center. The University of Texas at Austin. The First Photograph. Accessed 10 December 2007.

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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Heliography". Image Credit.

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