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Photographs are so fundamental to our lives today, it's almost impossible to imagine our world without them. Many of the biggest events in our lifetime we remember as moments frozen in time. And, it's all done through the gift of the still camera. Three forces would drive the invention of the camera: artistic longing, scientific curiosity, and the prospect of financial gain. And, three very different men would race to invent photography.The ancestor of the modern day camera originated almost a thousand years ago. In the eleventh century, Arabian astronomers used what was called a camera obscura to trace the movements of the heavens. This simple camera consisted of a darkened room with a small hole in one wall. The outside images were reflected upside down, onto the opposite wall. More than 700 years later, artists began using smaller camera obscuras to enhance the reality of their paintings. But, the photograph was yet to be invented.In the early 1800s, a Frenchman, Joseph Nicephore Niepce made the first brea

Posted: 1/25/2008 Length: 49:00 Price: $1.99 Video Type: Full Length

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