Shots heard around the world : 200 years since the first-ever photograph

The first photograph was taken by Frenchman Nicephore Niepce in 1826, titled 'View from the Window at Le Gras', requiring hours of exposure and using light-sensitive chemicals.

Niepce's work was followed by Louis Daguerre, who created the commercially viable photographic process, and by the mid-19th century, figures like Abraham Lincoln and Queen Victoria had their pictures taken.

The first Wanted poster featuring a photograph was for Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, in 1865.

In 1900, the Kodak Brownie camera went on sale for $1, making photography accessible to the masses and popularizing the 'snapshot' for personal memory.

Photography has transformed travel, dining, self-perception, laws, and views on war, as noted by Susan Sontag's 1977 essay 'On Photography'.