The first photograph made was back in the year 1588 with the help of “camera obscura” and later in the 19th century with the “camera lucida”. These early camerasdid not record an image, but only projected images from an opening in the wall of a darkened room onto a surface, turning the room into a large pinhole camera. The phrase camera obscura literally means dark chamber. While this early prototype of today’s modern camera may have had modest usage in its time, it was an important step in the evolution of the invention.
    The first permanent photograph was an image produced in 1825 by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. His photographs were produced on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. Bitumen hardens with exposure to light. The unhardened material may then be washed away and the metal plate polished, rendering a negative image which then may be coated with ink and impressed upon paper, producing a print.