"Taking photos" begun about 150 years ago, when Joseph Niépce took a picture of the back of his house. Today with all the technology we don't realise how difficult was doing that with a minimal quality of picture...
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View from the window in Le Gras - by Joseph Niépce (1826)
The birth of the Earth (1968)
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Aerial view of Boston - James Wallace Black (1860)
Tape of wool - James Clerk Maxwell (1861)
Two naked standing - Louis Daguerre (1839)
The Earth seen from space (1946)