The Creation of Photography

Several centuries later, after the pinhole camera had been used thousands of times and improved upon as well, French inventor: "Joseph Nicephore Niepce" (1765-1833) created the first Photographic Image by using the "Camera Obscura". Before Niepce people just used it for viewing/drawing purposes and not to create photographs. Niepce used "Heliographs" (an invention that let light 'paint a picture') as a prototype which would later be the foundation on which Niepce would generate his first photograph.

Joseph Niepce

Joseph Niepce's first attempt at creating a photographic image (1822) was done by using an engraving which he positioned onto a metal plate that was treated with bitumen and then exposed to light. The darker areas of the engraving did not permit light to penetrate it, however the lighter areas allowed light to interact with the chemicals that the plate had been doused with. Niepce then used a solvent, in which he put the metal plate, that allowed an image to be seen. The downfall of his whole experiment was that even after eight hours of exposure (that was needed for a photographic image to be seen), it would slowly start to fade away until nothing remained.

His first photographic image that was recorded was an engraving of Pope Pius VII, which can be seen below:

References:
Mary Bellis: "History of Photography and the Camera", 2013. [online] Available at: http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/stilphotography.htm
[Accessed 23rd October, 2013]