Photographs: What they are, what they do

Photographers take photographs to remember a holiday, to record the growth of their children, to express themselves creatively, to record their view of the world or to change our perception of the world. Photographs can function as repositories for personal memories, as historic documents, as political propaganda, as surveillance tools, as pornography, as works of art. We think of photographs as fact, but they can also be fiction, metaphor or poetry. They are of the here and now, but they are also immensely potent time capsules. They can be downright utilitarian or they can be the stuff of dreams. (Badger, 2007, p. 7)