Hippolyte Bayard was a french photographer and pioneer who invented a photographic process known as direct positive printing. He claimed to have invented photography before the two other inventors that have the credit for the  invention of photography ( Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot ).

In protest, he photographed himself as a drowned men, in what is believed to be the first staged photography in history.

Hippolyte Bayard – Drownedman (1840)

More info on Hippolyte Bayard:

• http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1876
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Bayard
• http://photographyhistory.blogspot.pt/2012/01/bayard-forgotten-pionner.html