Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital

Since its invention in the 1830s, photography has radically transformed the way we document and interpret the world.

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Today, photographs are created and consumed at a rapid pace, but in its early years photography was a time-consuming and challenging process.
See highlights from the V&A’s extraordinarily broad photography collection, including a range of processes, from early daguerreotypes to contemporary digital images.
Explore the history of photography through the lens of collecting, showing photographs collected by individuals and institutions, and learn more about how photographers collect and categorise their surroundings.