Boulevard du Temple (photograph)

The earliest known photograph, the heliographic View from the Window at Le Gras, had been produced some ten years earlier using a technique that required an exposure time of some eight hours, which meant that only static objects could be recorded. However, by 1838, Daguerre had developed his own method whereby the exposure was reduced to only four to five minutes. The photograph was taken at 8:00 AM between 24 April and 4 May, either in 1837 or 1838, Two other images were taken on the same day, one at midday, which survives, as well as a third plate in the evening, which has since been lost. The plate is about . It has been speculated, however, that this is not a bootblack, but a water pump. ==Publication and exhibition==

Daguerre first publicly announced his invention to the French Académie des Sciences in January 1839. In early March 1839, a fire destroyed his studio. Daguerre urged the firefighters to let his studio burn, but to save his adjacent house, which contained his laboratory. The daguerreotype apparatus and pictures, documents, and household linen were rescued. His notebook, which contained his experiments, was reportedly found ten days later. However, only 25 daguerreotypes are left which can be definitely attributed to Daguerre. Daguerre showed this image to Samuel Morse at his studio in March 1839. Morse later described this daguerreotype in a letter that was published in April 1839 in The New York Times. This image was labelled as having been taken at ''"huit heures du matin" (at eight o'clock in the morning) and a very similar plate was mounted in the left panel marked as "midi" (midday). The triptych was put on display at the Munich Arts Association where it immediately attracted attention, with the Leipzig Pfennig-Magazin saying of the 8:00 AM image that "there appeared to be a man having his boots polished who must have been standing extremely still."'' The images were stored at the royal palace and later at the Bavarian National Museum archives, where they gradually deteriorated until, in 1936 or 1937, the American historian of photography Beaumont Newhall rediscovered them and made reproductions for display in New York. In 1949, he published them in his book The History of Photography from 1839 to the Present Day. During World War II, the original daguerreotypes were kept in poor conditions until, in 1970, they were given out on loan to the Munich City Museum. Restoration was attempted, but ended in disaster, ruining the originals even further. Since then, daguerreotype facsimiles have been reproduced from Newhall's copies. ==Analysis==

Various people have scrutinised the image to see if there are traces of any other activity. There may be faint images of other people and possibly a child looking out of a window, and a horse. As with all Daguerre's plates, the picture is a mirror image. Bearing this in mind, the camera location and angle have been analysed. There may have been photographs of people before 1838. Hippolyte Bayard claimed to have taken photographic self-portraits in 1837, but these have not survived. ==See also==