Nicéphore Niépce

Nicéphore Niépce
Portrait, c.1820
Born
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

(1765-03-07)7 March 1765,
Chalon-sur-Saône, Kingdom of France
Died5 July 1833(1833-07-05) (aged 68)
Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, Kingdom of France
Occupations
  • Inventor
  • photographer
Years active1795–1833
Known for
Signature

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French: [nisefɔʁ njɛps]; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833) was a French inventor and one of the earliest pioneers of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving products of a photographic process. In the mid-1820s, he used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. Among Niépce's other inventions was the Pyréolophore, one of the world's first internal combustion engines, which he conceived, created, and developed with his older brother Claude Niépce.