Photography and video-based media have played a major role in our society ever since its invention.  Photography has allowed us to record our culture through visual channels that would’ve never existed otherwise; it gives a basis to our sense of human history and allows us to see some of it as if it is a part of our present.  When we look at a photography, we see it as if we are standing there, as if we were the ones taking it: we don’t see it as just a piece of paper with colors and shapes on it.  Most of our history cannot be visually displayed besides through paintings or illustrations; however with photography, we have a true unbiased view of our more recent past.

Above: John Quincy Adams, first photograph of a US President.

Critical aspects that make photography unique (besides the visual connotation of history) include that it is made with the same mediums our history texts are: paper and ink.  Although not all have survived to modern day, photos have always given a physical display of what our imaginations usually produce.