The First Candid

Automated excerpt

Before August Sander and Diane Arbus and Olan Mills, before Facetune and duck face, there were two: a shoeshine boy and his client, captured by Louis Daguerre on the Boulevard du Temple in 1838, in what is thought to be the first photograph to depict human beings. It must have been taken somewhere around here! ,’ ” Van Aertryck recalled, visiting the area the other day. Van Aertryck and his colleagues turned to prints, paintings, real-estate registers, and topographical maps to re-create Daguerre’s environs, but these pre-photographic renderings had their limits.

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