Introduction: The beginnings of photography; a replacement for portrait/landscape painting; the lead into the development of Modern/Contemporary Art surpassing painting in its ability to represent reality. Did photography release painting from the need  to be realistic.

Photography: History; examples of reality; artistic development; values; the digital challenge. Photography is a mix of art and technology. From cheaply manufactured daguerreotype portraits beginning in the 1830’s, to photographic publications and Kodak cameras, 19th and 20th century photography truly became the mass medium it is today. Photography also had a significant impact on art, since it was understood to be the gold standard of optical realism.

Modern/Contemporary Painting: Background; moving away from reality; new ways to respond to and represent the changing world; examples; growing values. Artists began to critically examine and explore the premises of art and artistic media. The term modernism refers to artists’ self-consciously breaking with the past and their search for new forms of expression. Contemporary Art is the work living artists do today to express our contemporary world – the world of now.

Comparison between Painting and Photography: The painter and the photographer both use techniques to enhance their style: different ways of interpreting the subject. Photography is usually representational, while painting has impressionistic possibilities or can be entirely abstract. Paintings aren’t constrained to portray what things actually look like; they can interpret scenes, emotions, or feelings as they desire. The differences between Painting and Photography?

What Does the Future of Art Look Like: Billions of photographs; AI able to reproduce effective art that will be accepted? Success for the masses, while the originals will be much coveted by collectors/museums/galleries. This may only increase the prices but will they increase the opportunity to have a meaningful, celebrated artist hanging in your home?