The Obscura was an precursor to today's photographic camera. "Dark Chamber" in Latin, the earliest versioins contained a darkened chamber penetrated by light through a pinhole. Because of this, whatever scene the camera was pointing at would be shown, upside-down, on the other side of the chamber. Before the obscura was used to take photographs, it was used to view Solar eclipses without retinal damage. Later, the image was reflected on drawing paper, on which an artist would trace the image. When Niépce created a light-sensitive plate, photography was born.

The first permanent photographs were made by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The first surviving photograph is of the courtyard of his house. He kept his discoveries secret and consequently received no financial backing, but formed a partnership in 1829 with L.J.M Daguerre, another experimenter with photography. In 1839, six years after Niépce's death, Daguerre found a practical method of creating photographic images.