Fashion photography

Fashion photography has sometimes been called ephemeral, commercial, and frivolous, and its importance has been called into question.

Photography has produced some of the most creative, interesting and socially revealing documents, conventions, aspirations, and taste of the time.

Photography reflects women's image of themselves, including their dreams and desires, self-image, values sexuality, and interests.

The earliest fashion photographs were made, probably in the 1850s and 1860s, to document fashion for Parisian fashion houses. Reproduction in fashion journals occurred much later, between 1881, with the invention of the halftone printing process by Frederic Eugene Ives, and 1886.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, distinctions between fashion photography, portraiture, and theater photography were often blurred.

The idea of using professional models was initially considered shocking.

Fashion photographs were strikingly similar to society portraits.

The Fashion photography, whether published in Vogue, Dozed and Confused, or Sleaze Nation, will continue to reflect the society and the times in which it was made.