Janez Puhar was born in Kranj in 1814 when Slovenia was still part of the Austrian Empire. Despite being interested in the arts and sciences, he followed his mother’s wishes and became a Catholic priest but kept a keen interest with experimental photography and art. After mastering the process of daguerreotype he developed his own method of producing photographs and furthered this by inventing a process of printing images on to glass, which he named hyalotype. Sadly, due to overexposure to harmful chemicals, Puhar died aged 49. Several of his original works are still on display today in the National Museum of Slovenia and in the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana.