( CNN ) -- At first glance , it does n't seem that remarkable : An old black-and-white scene of a strangely deserted city , smudged in places by some primitive photographic process . But this image , taken in Paris , France , in 1838 , is believed to be the earliest known photograph featuring a person . Look in the photo 's lower left corner and you 'll see a man getting his boots cleaned on the sidewalk . The boot-cleaner is there too , although he is harder to spot . The image has been posted online before , but it gained a higher profile after news site Mashable published a full-page version on Wednesday in partnership with Retronaut , a website that archives photos from the past . It was taken by Louis Daguerre , the French photographer famous for pioneering the daguerreotype , an early type of photo produced on a silver plate or a silver-covered copper plate . According to Retronaut 's Amanda Uren , the exposure time for the image was around seven minutes . The street appears deserted because while the two human figures were relatively still , other pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages were moving too fast to register on the plate . The photo shows the Boulevard du Temple , a then-fashionable area of shops , cafÃ©s and theaters . The two people on the sidewalk are the most recognizable human figures in the photo , although Uren points out that a detailed examination reveals other possible people on a bench and in a window of the building in the foreground . The image is not close to being the earliest known surviving photograph , though . That distinction belongs to a photo by Joseph NicÃ©phore NiÃ©pce , one of Daguerre 's partners , who used a crude camera to capture the view from a window at his French estate in 1826 or 1827 . Today , when almost everyone has a phone camera in their pocket and more than 350 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day , Daguerre 's milestone seems quaint . In 2014 , he might have just snapped a selfie .
The earliest known photograph to depict a person was posted online this week . It was taken in Paris , France , in 1853 , by Louis Daguerre . The photo shows a man getting his boots cleaned on the sidewalk .