The First Photograph Ever

The first photograph was an image produced in 1826 by the French inventor Nicephore Niepce on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea. But for centuries images had been projected onto surfaces – artists used the camera obscura and camera lucida to trace scenes as early as the 16th century.

These early “cameras” did not fix 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.

Source: Wikipedia