The arrival of photography in the 1820s convinced many that painting was dead. The arrival of AI in the 2020s is convincing many that photography is dead. Like painting, it can no longer be relied upon to record reality. 

Photography has been through reality crises before, however. Until 1939, the craft was largely the preserve of film companies and PR firms. Some individuals, like Weegee, an American photo­journalist, broke through these walls, using the pitiless flash on his massive Speed Graphic cameras to capture brutal street scenes. But most photography continued to flow through the studios. Photojournalism was constrained by the primitive state of camera technology. Most photographs were simply staged.

Then two things happened: the war came and the Leica firm began producing very high-quality small cameras with which photos could be taken unnoticed. These developments precipitated the creation of the Magnum Photos cooperative in 1947. It was founded in New York at a meeting attended by, among others, Henri