Joseph Nicephore Niepce. Oil portrait of the French chemist Joseph Nicephore Niepce (1765- 1833). Around 1826 he produced the first primitive photograph using silver chloride as a photosensitive agent. The process he used was not practical because it required very long exposures and for a few years it remained no more than a curiosity. In 1829 Niepce started working together with another French chemist, Louis Daguerre, who was carrying out similar research. Niepce unfortunately died in 1833 and it was Daguerre that developed a more practical process in which copper plates were used with silver salts deposited on them. Portrait by L. Berger.