A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic , such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created using a smartphone or camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see. The process and practice of creating such images is called photography. The word photograph was coined in 1839 by Sir John Herschel and is based on the Greek φῶς (phos), meaning "light," and γραφή (graphê), meaning "drawing, writing," together meaning "drawing with light." History of photography The first permanent photograph, a contact-exposed copy of an engraving, was made in 1822 using the bitumen-based "heliography" process developed by Nicéphore Niépce. The first photographs of a real-world scene, made using a camera obscura, followed a few years later at Le Gras, France, in 1826, but Niépce's process was not sensitive enough to be practical for that application: a camera exposure lasting for hours or days was required. In 1829 Niépce entered into a partnership with Louis Daguerre and the two collaborated to work out a similar but more sensitive and otherwise improved process. After Niépce's death in 1833 Daguerre concentrated on silver halide-based alternatives. He exposed a silver-plated copper sheet to iodine vapor, creating a layer of light-sensitive silver iodide; exposed it in the camera for a few minutes; developed the resulting invisible to visibility with mercury fumes; then bathed the plate in a hot salt solution to remove the remaining silver iodide, making the results light-fast. He named this first practical process for making photographs with a camera the daguerreotype, after himself. Its existence was announced to the world on 7 January 1839 but working details were not made public until 19 August. Other inventors soon made improvements which reduced the required exposure time from a few minutes to a few seconds, making portrait photography truly practical and widely popular.

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Photographic film
Photographic film is a strip or sheet of transparent film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals. The sizes and other characteristics of the crystals determine the sensitivity, contrast, and of the film. The emulsion will gradually darken if left exposed to light, but the process is too slow and incomplete to be of any practical use. Instead, a very short exposure to the image formed by a camera lens is used to produce only a very slight chemical change, proportional to the amount of light absorbed by each crystal.
Camera
A camera is an optical instrument used to capture and store images or videos, either digitally via an electronic , or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photography and videography, cameras have played a significant role in the progression of visual arts, media, entertainment, surveillance, and scientific research. The invention of the camera dates back to the 19th century and has since evolved with advancements in technology, leading to a vast array of types and models in the 21st century.
Smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone functions and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from older-design feature phones by their more advanced hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which facilitate wider software, access to the internet (including web browsing over mobile broadband), and multimedia functionality (including music, video, cameras, and gaming), alongside core phone functions such as voice calls and text messaging.
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