street view

Incredibly just a few years after the first surviving photograph was taken (the View from the Window at Le Gras captured by inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1826), the technology became pervasive enough that one dedicated archivist was able to compile a globe-spanning procession of street photography, chronicling the one hundred and eighty-one years since its popular, commercial adoption. The starting point—1838—marks when France arranged to pay Louis Daguerre, Niépce’s former business partner, a pension for the rest of his days, in exchange for his developing process, which it gifted to the world.