Ever since its invention in 1839 the technology of photography and the attitudes towards the medium by its practitioners have changed radically This may partly be attributed to photography gradually moving into what might be termed mythic time  its initial role as a nineteenthcentury recordkeeper has now moved beyond the human scale and photographic images once immediate and close to photographer and subject alike have now passed out of living memory The passage of time has transformed the photograph from a memory aid into an historical document one which often reveals as much if not more about the individuals and society which produced the image as it does about its subject