“It would be impossible to assess the contribution that photography has made to human civilization or to know what effects it will have in the future. It is a process that has touched all our lives, be it at the Saturday movie matinee, or through the pleasure of a candid snapshot that acts as a reminder of some special moment, or as knowledge recorded for future generations in the pictures of the planetary space probes. It seems unlikely that either Nièpce, Daguerre or Talbot would have understood just how significant their first rudimentary images were and certainly they would not have thought that in 150 years time, photographs would be telling us something about the make-up of things as exotic and different as Halley’s Comet, the eye of a cricket and the insulin molecule.” ― Bede Morris

— Images: illusion and reality by Bede Morris, Arthur J. Birch