CAMERA ART IN THE POSTMODERN ERA


Photography is now firmly established as an art medium. A growing number of schools offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine arts with an emphasis on photography.

Major museums throughout the world have extensive photographic collections, and special museums also exist, such as the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, N.Y., the International Center of Photography in New York City, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, California, and the Museum of Photography in Riverside, California.

Original photographic prints are sold to collectors by galleries, and photographs (as well as pieces of photographic equipment) of historical interest come up for sale regularly at auctions. Critical essays on photography and histories of its development, as well as books reproducing the work of leading photographers, are published in great numbers each year. Periodicals devoted to photography as an art (as opposed to instructional magazines for the hobbyist or professional) publish studies of the aesthetics of photography.

Most recently, the internet also has been embraced by many photography amateurs, artists, and institutions as a useful channel to present photographic work old and new, and spread information about it quickly to a worldwide audience.