177 years ago, Joseph Nicephore Niepce exposed a pewter plate coated with bitumen and oil of lavender to a view of a French farmyard. The result is known as “The First Photograph,” but it was only last week that the scientists at the Getty Conservation Institute announced how it was made. The components of the process were guessed at previously, as older articles mention them and Niepce left written notes, but they have now been scientifically verified. There is surprisingly little oxidation of the image, and the institute will be keeping it in a box filled with inert argon gas.