Photography, as we know it today, began in the late 1830s in France. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used a portable camera obscura to expose a pewter plate coated with bitumen to light. This is the first recorded image that did not fade quickly.
Niépce's success led to a number of other experiments and photography progressed very rapidly. Daguerreotypes, emulsion plates, and wet plates were developed almost simultaneously in the mid- to late-1800s. type of emulsion type emulsionin the mid- to late-1800s. type of emulsion
Photography was only for professionals and the very rich until George Eastman started a company called Kodak in the 1880s. Eastman created a flexible roll film that did not require constantly changing the solid plates. This allowed him to develop a self-contained box camera that held 100 film exposures. The camera had a small single lens with no focusing adjustment. The consumer would take pictures and send the camera back to the factory for the film to be developed and prints made, much like modern disposable cameras. This was the first camera inexpensive enough for the average person to afford.