Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.

The word Photography literally means 'drawing with light', which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw. Photography is the process of recording an image - a photograph - on lightsensitive film or, in the case of digital photography, via a digital electronic or magnetic memory.

In 1826, Nicéphore Niépce first managed to fix an image that was captured with a camera, but at least eight hours or even several days of exposure in the camera were required and the earliest results were very crude. Niépce's associate Louis Daguerre went on to develop the daguerreotype process, the first publicly announced and commercially viable photographic process. The daguerreotype required only minutes of exposure in the camera, and produced clear, finely detailed results. The details were introduced to the world in 1839, a date generally accepted as the birth year of practical photography.The metal-based daguerreotype process soon had some competition from the paper-based calotype negative and salt print processes invented by William Henry Fox Talbot and demonstrated in 1839 soon after news about the daguerreotype reached Talbot. Subsequent innovations made photography easier and more versatile.

List of photographers

• Charlotte Abramow (born 1993) - photographer and filmmaker
• Jennifer Des (born 1975) - photographer
• Nathalie Gassel (born 1964) - writer, photographer
• Germaine Van Parys (1893 - 1983) - film director, photographer, educator
• Katrien Vermeire (born 1979) -photographer, filmmaker
• Stephanie Windisch-Graetz (1939 - 2019) - artistic portrait and animal photographer
• Claudia Andujar (born 1931) - Swiss-born Brazilian photographer and photojournalist
• Brigida Baltar (born 1959) - visual artist and photographer
• Alice Dellal (born 1987) - model, photographer

The commercial introduction of computer-based electronic digital cameras in the 1990s soon revolutionized photography. During the first decade of the 21st century, traditional film-based photochemical methods were increasingly marginalized as the practical advantages of the new technology became widely appreciated and the image quality of moderately priced digital cameras was continually improved. Especially since cameras became a standard feature on smartphones, taking pictures (and instantly publishing them online) has become a ubiquitous everyday practice around the world.