Success on a plate for photography pioneer

Researchers have found new evidence of the significance of Joseph Nicphore Nipce's contribution to the history of photography, including a previously undiscovered method of image-making dating back to the 1820s.

The findings were unveiled by the National Media Museum in Bradford and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) yesterday, during a two day conference at the museum.

Dusan Stulik, senior scientist at the Los Angeles-based GCI, said: "Our findings are shining a different light on the early history of photography than has been previously described in literature. We have been able to create a fuller picture of Nipce and how he worked, and we can really demonstrate that everything related to photography that surrounds us today – digital cameras, film, TV, even 3D and video games – goes back to his inventions."

Recent technical analysis by GCI scientists has shown that three of the photographic plates Nipce brought to England, which are now housed at the National Media Museum, are not only his finest work but also demonstrate a range of different photographic experiments which he intended to show the Royal Society.

One of the plates studied, Un Clair de Lune, long thought to be enhanced with etching, is actually a photograph without any hand tooling at all.

Nipce used a pewter plate with a deposit of light-solidified material which resembles the resin obtained when heating lavender oil, which helped the plate accept the image. The plate provides the first and only known example of the process.

National Media Museum director Colin Philpott said: "These findings demonstrate how important the nation's collections are to understanding our cultural and scientific heritage, and the benefit of working in partnership with other major organisations in unravelling the story behind the objects."

In 1827, Nipce brought the plates to England to demonstrate his techniques to the Royal Society but was unable to share his experiments.

He died in 1833, leaving his sometimes collaborator Louis Daguerre to publicly reveal photography to the world in 1839.