The first photographic camera was developed by French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce around 1816, with his breakthrough in 1826–1827.  He created the oldest surviving photograph, known as View from the Window at Le Gras, using a process called heliography (“sun drawing”).  Niépce modified a camera obscura (a dark box with a lens or pinhole that projects an inverted image) by placing a polished pewter plate coated with light-sensitive bitumen of Judea inside it. He exposed it for several hours (possibly up to days) from an upper window of his estate in Le Gras, France, capturing a view of the courtyard, buildings, and rooftops.