ABSTRACT
Photography is ubiquitous as a means of visual communication. But the history of photography as art has focused not so much on photographic com - munication as upon photographs as objects, reified for their aesthetic qualities. It follows that such histories typically focus on pictures, and on the works of specific practitioners. Thus, until recently the story of photography as art tended to be presented as a history of ‘great’, or ‘master’ (sic), photographers. Such accounts not only divorce photography as fine art from the larger history of photography with its ubiquity of practices, but also rarely engage with broader political issues and social contexts.
