Photographic aesthetics has been dominated by modernist aesthetics. That displaced the pictorial aesthetic and its post-exposure handwork in favour ofworking with 8 × 10-in. view cameras in order to obtain the largest possible negatives from which to make straightforward contact prints. These modernists limited their subject matter to static things: the still life, the distant or closely viewed landscape, the formal portrait and with Minor White incorporated a poetic, visionary work related in technique to this straight approach.

This ignores the street tradition of snaps:

Gary Sauer-Thompson, on the road, 2007

We are nomadic these days and work in a digital format that places an emphasis is on the post exposure handiwork

Gary Sauer-Thompson, Victor Harbor, 2007

Much of the history of photography has been concerned with affirming the status of photography in fine arts and this has been accomplished by exploring its aesthetics as well as by good photos. Do we care anymore? The internet has enabled us to step outside the walled boundaries of the art institution to the everyday world we inhabit.