The fundamental purpose of photography isn’t to amuse or arouse or edify or entertain or distract or even document, surpassingly good as it can be at all those tasks. No, the fundamental purpose of photography is to defeat time. Nothing does it better: An image you are looking at now shows you something that happened then . It’s a two-dimensional wonder.
Obviously, it’s a photographer’s favorite machine. What has historically been the second favorite isn’t as obvious. That would be an automobile. Why photographers favor it has to do with two defining aspects of the medium.
A camera can be many things: an app, a tool, a plaything, a convenience, a recording device, even a means to an artistic end. Before it’s anything else, though, it’s a machine.
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Three dimensions is a different story. What the camera isn’t all that good at is defeating space. Yes, using the right lenses can help — and if the camera is on a spy satellite that can help a lot. But as regards the space-time continuum, photography situates itself pretty much entirely on the time side.
Paul Graham,
Have camera, will travel
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