First Times / First Photos (Premières fois / Premières photos)

What is a first image? A proof? A test? An achievement? A failure? An event? A memento, or perhaps a spark? Through one hundred years of major and minor photographic innovations, this book presents a collection of “firsts”: snapshots, scoops, images previously unpublished, front-page photographs, the oldest image, and many others. These “firsts” are technical, aesthetic, scientific, and societal, ranging from photography’s earliest experiments to the first remotely transmitted pictures and the first image of stars being born.

Images of "First Times / First Photos" book by Luce Lebart. Images courtesy of Spector Books.