I have many ancestral connections to London. So I find this earliest photograph of the city particularly fascinating. It was taken by Monsieur de St. Croix in 1839, during his first public demonstration of the photographic process. This image was formed on a copper plate coated with silver, without the use of a negative. The process, known as a daguerreotype, resulted in the earliest snapshots in existence.
This remarkable picture shows Parliament Street from Trafalgar Square with the statue of Charles I in the foreground. Look carefully and you can see ghostlike traces of the people who stayed and watched long enough to register in the exposure. The two sat at the foot of the statue and the man sitting in the hackney carriage may be the first Londoners ever photographed.
