Photography both records and demonstrates the importance of people, places, events, and
circumstances. It enables outsiders to see problem issues or glimpses of socio-economic
lifestyles that they may not have otherwise seen. Photography enables us to observe people and
events and document social problems. This can be invaluable to growth for individuals as well
as for humanity.
Some of the earliest users of photography used it as a means of documenting social ills as a way of informing the upper classes of society about the needs of the poor - in 1866 Thomas Annan(1829-1887) was commissioned to record alleys and dismal slums for the Glasgow Improvement Trust and these were published in the Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow (1878). Also in Scotland Archibald Burns was commissioned by Edinburgh's City Improvement Trust to photograph the buildings of the closes of the old town prior to their demolition in 1871. (Luminous Lint)
