Even during prehistoric times, humans wanted to find a way to forever remember those special moments and even their hobbies. Hence, the reason for so many cave paintings depicting hunting and other similar images. From those cave paintings came hieroglyphics, the first photos and then finally the digital photography available today.
Joseph Nicephore Niepce invented the first photograph in 1826. This French inventor produced the photograph a pewter plate that was covered in a petroleum-like substance known as bitumen of Judea. Joseph dissolved the photo in another petroleum that was white in color, which washes away to expose a shiny polished metal plate.
William Henry Fox Talbot created a process prior to 1840 that utilized silver chloride to process negatives on sheets of paper. The method was known as calotyping and allowed a person to reproduce a positive image from the negative photographs.
The first colored photograph was not taken until 1861, by James Clerk Maxwell. Autochrome debuted on the market in 1907 and utilized dyed-dots of potato starch to produce the photograph.
Pictures continued to morph into what they are today; however, Texas Instrument did not manufacture the first film-less picture until 1972. The first professional digital camera appeared on the market in 1994, when Kodak released the Nikon F-3.