Photography, an art and science rooted in the Greek for "drawing with light," involves creating images by recording light either electronically via an image sensor or chemically using light-sensitive materials like film. This versatile practice is essential across diverse fields, from scientific research and manufacturing to art, media production, and personal recreation. The process fundamentally relies on a lens focusing light onto a surface, where it's either digitally processed or chemically developed from a latent image into a visible photograph.
While early pioneers like Nicéphore Niépce, Henry Fox Talbot, and Louis Daguerre developed their ground-breaking "Heliography" and "Daguerreotype" processes, the term "photography" was independently coined by figures such as Hércules Florence around 1834 and first appeared in public print in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung on February 25, 1839. This modern imaging technology evolved from ancient discoveries, notably the "camera obscura" or dark chamber, described by Aristotle and Euclid, and significantly advanced by the Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham in the 10th century.