• Vegetal

    • Discover: The First Published Photographic Image

    AUTHOR:
    Kimberly Glassman

    This is considered the first photographic image published, but who made it? Golding Bird (1814-1854) was a British medical doctor and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Bird used a boxwood block chemically prepared in the manner of Talbot's preparation of paper.

    Bird's photogenic drawing of ferns was laid on the block, and exposed to light, leaving its image on the surface. A wood engraver then cut the "photogenic drawing", which was then printed directly from the block in the usual manner in a rich reddish brown colour that matched the colour of Talbot's first salt print photograms.
    The photographic image from Golding Bird on a page of a newspaper on 20th of April, 1839.
    The photographic image from Golding Bird on a page of a newspaper.
    The photographic image from Golding Bird on a page of a newspaper.
    The facsimile was accompanied by a multi-part article, "A Treatise on Photogenic Drawing", reprinted from the Magazine of Natural History in 1839. Later in life, when his health was failing him, he travelled from London to Tenby for a ‘physician’s holiday’, where he collected zoophytes in nearby caves and explored the hedges for ferns and flowers, analysing his finds in his microscope and mounting the specimens. His skill as a doctor and his love of nature printing followed him throughout his life and travels.