Photography's Impact

Photography's impact on every facet of the world as a whole is undeniable. The world of fine art trucked along in a mostly single tracked manner for tens of thousands of years. Aside from the occasional exception, most art and painting in particular was focused on creating a realistic depiction of the world as well as the people within it. Fine art was the best method available with which to record history and communicate that history visually until the invention of photography. Unlike most artistic disciplines, which required anywhere from hours to years to create, photography gave man the ability to truly capture moments in time with an accuracy and speed that simply could not be rivaled by other methods. Many artists found their training and skills suddenly rendered obsolete by this new invention. Therefore, art began the most stunning and rapid transformation in its long history. Artists were suddenly able to, or forced to, explore new avenues with greater flexibility and unrestrained creativity. What I am sure many artist of the time considered a curse, may have turned out to be the greatest gift ever.

The arts of illustration and graphic design have been greatly enhanced, or at the very least impacted, by photography as well. Just like other facets of fine art, early graphic design and illustration methods relied heavily on the creativity and imagination of the artist. This made true to life depictions very difficult to pull off. However, with the aid of photography, artists no longer had to rely on models or their memories when creating their works. The artist could now work from a photographic reference when creating woodcuts or etchings to print from. Furthermore, technologies like chromolithography continued to push the envelope of what illustrators and graphic designs could produce and in what mediums that the works could be produced in.