Photography and Video

Photography and video constitute a burgeoning leisure activity with a wealth of associated consumables; a source of images that can represent, reproduce, and persuade; and a means of perceiving the world. As such, the production and consumption of photographic and video images is a fundamental aspect of consumer culture. Use of photography and video is also increasingly common in research methods designed to investigate everyday life.

Although the theory of concentrating light through a small hole to project an image had existed for centuries, French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created the first chemically fixed photographic images in the 1820s. Following Niépce's experiments, the men credited as the inventors of photography proper, Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot, independently developed more effective methods for creating lasting photographic ...