The eerily vast amount of space on the front of your fridge.

Imagine a world without photography. There would be no pictures illustrating ideas in our books, planning travel destinations would be difficult, don't even mention retakes, you would have an eerily vast amount of space on the front of your fridge, and forget about driver license photos. I am so glad that we don't say, "I am going to get my school painting done. I will be back in a few hours." Scary thought, huh? Well lucky for us, we live in a place where photography is praised and very common. However, just like any art form, it was perfected and mastered.

Photography was not always like it was today. Pictures were often blurry, posed people without great meaning. Photography first had to develop (no pun intended) as an art. In the beginning, photography was thought as a mechanical process rather than a creative process. Thus began the determination to use the camera to produce wonderful things. Because the camera was cheap and popular, many people became fascinated with the idea of presenting all aspects of life to anyone who would look. This came about when a dry plate came along. Photography was now convenient, more mobile, and less difficult. This event led new photographers to experiment with their cameras. No longer was the camera just a mechanical device, the photographer had to think. Through his images, the world was shown in many various ways and things that were viewed as less important were given new life. The photographers learned from each other and their artistic vision grew. Photography evolved from depicting the truth, to embedding symbolism, to showing a story, manipulating the size, cropping and rotating, freezing time and motion.

The most amazing thing that I learned from this reading was that although photography has changed over the years. We still use many of these techniques. We learn from other photographers and by experimenting. Once the building blocks of photography were formed, it kept growing until it became a pyramid. I find it fascinating that photographers had to prove  themselves worthy as artist. Thinking back to a couple weeks ago, in class we saw a daguerreotype photo. In that class I found myself thinking about how different photography is now. After reading this article, I now believe that photography has just changed because of  creativity and versatility. It was not just mechanical advancements that created changes. Also, society's outlook on photography has changed. Overall, I cannot wait to see what the future holds for photography. What new technology or artistic idea will effect photography next?

On a side note......
Currently, my curiosity is getting the best of me and I decided to do some of my own investigating. I really want to see the trends of photography over the years. The link below relates to much of the things we have learned in class already.  My favorites were the first color picture and the first picture of the sun. http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/image-collection/