Technique and Vision: A Snapshot of Photography’s Evolution

Photography has not always been as easy as pushing a button to create an image and pushing another to distribute it worldwide. For many years after the effect of sunlight was first fixed on paper around 1839, photography was a slow and cumbersome process that required specialized knowledge, expensive equipment and materials, and multiple steps to capture an image and print it. Not until around 1900 did photographers produce color photographs. 

Only when inexpensive cameras and commercial processing and printing became widely available after World War II did photography become a popular pursuit. During the subsequent seven decades photography has evolved in myriad ways and photographic activity has mushroomed, especially during the digital revolution of the past two decades. Over the years, photography has become accepted as an art form and artists have plumbed the depths of old and new techniques to record the world around them and to express themselves.

Selections from the permanent collection of the Museum will illustrate the development of photography and illuminate the tools and techniques photographers have used to express their artistic visions

Exhibition overview from museum website.