It was a 10-minute exposure, so although the road looks almost entirely empty it was actually a bustling scene - it's just the traffic was moving too quickly to be captured. However, in the lower left-centre of the picture are two small figures: a man getting his shoe shined. He and the shoe shiner remained in place long enough to be captured.
There is something faintly disturbing about those two figures caught in time. Alone of all the many people who were travelling along the Boulevard de Temple in those 10 minutes - hundreds, perhaps thousands - only they have travelled down to us through the 175 years or so since the picture was taken. And by pure accident. They remind me of insects trapped in amber and preserved by happenstance for all of time.
If I was currently running an Unknown Armies or Call of Cthulu game, this photograph would feature in it. Who were these men, and is their apparently coincidental capture on film actually of cosmic significance?
Thanks for sharing the first photograph of a human being.
ReplyDeleteIt's indeed a big coincidence and it could be used for a game.
I'd like too see a Doctor Who episode centered around this :-).
Since there were hundreds or thousands present who are _not_ in the photograph, it seems only apt that the two who _are_ in the photograph were'nt actually there.
ReplyDelete"Very well, I will show you. I have here over two dozen photographs of the Boulevard de Temple, from the 1840's to Google Street View. In each of them, two men have contrived to occupy the exact same spot as in the primary daguerrotype. Their occupations vary - flower seller and customer in 1895, two dejected poilus in 1940, a pair of break dancers in 1983 - but their faces are never clearly visible, and they are always there."
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnd as I looked at those photographs antique and modern which Roger Thegs had laid before me I began to feel a strange and childish trepidation, and it seemed to me that there was something altogether too vivid and horribly alive about those figures contained within those pictures. I felt as if, absurdly, they might at any moment somehow spring into life from their eternal stasis. But curiosity overmastered my apprehension, and I continued to gaze upon them, even as I became aware that I could hear an extremely low, faint muttered whisper emanating from my friend. I turned to look at him and found that his face had take on an indescribable expression of eagerness mixed with utter dread as he intoned the words: "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
Delete> is their apparently coincidental capture on film actually of cosmic significance?
ReplyDeleteNo.
"You were always were a damnable sceptic, Kent. You tried to stop me; you discouraged me when I needed every drop of encouragement I could get; you were afraid of the cosmic truth, you damned coward. Well, then, let's see. Louis Daguerre took his photograph on this very date, at this very hour, in 1838, and I swear to you that the same men will be there again right now, in that very position! Go to window, you fool. Look out onto the Boulevard and see for yourself. Look, curse you, look!"
DeleteI think it is odd that no-one in this daft community tries to write fiction. Not a one. It would invite ridicule (from me certainly) but it is the primary source for the hobby and is at least one step up in class for fantasy related diversion.
DeleteReading other people's unpublished fiction is like listening to somebody tell you about the dream they had last night. If it isn't boring it's embarrassing for all concerned.
DeleteThe 'leaders' of the osr are so vain they would not be embarrassed I think and I would get laughing pleasure from their stories. They should be encouraged.
DeleteThe following stage would be to elicit fantasy poetry from their brains.
There once was a young man named Kent
DeleteWho was so incredibly bent...
That's the start of a limerick. I'll stop there for the sake of the children.
Maybe people will consider you a 'leader of the osr' too when you sell your product like zak told you, and then you could write a story (and sell it).
DeleteKent is not happy
DeleteAbout the making of cash
From OSR goods
(That was a haiku.)
I like the fact that there still exist so many physical artefacts from the last few hundred years of progress. The fact that we know that this is the first capture of a human in a photograph is amazing.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of my visit to the Smithsonian and being so close I could touch the Wright flyer (I didn't, because I didn't want to go to prison) the very first aeroplane that worked.
Nice find. And great picture to boot.
(CAPTCHA word: sksearty - which has to be something...)