Science Museum's new show details 200 years of photographic history

With photography now a ubiquitous medium gifted to everyone for the price of a smartphone, it’s easy to forget that it was once the preserve of only a select few pioneers, whose experiments with light-sensitive chemicals and simple mechanical structures gave birth to something we all take for granted today. But a new show at The Science Museum’s Media Space seeks to remind us of the pioneering endeavours of modern photography’s forebears.

Drawn by Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection is an exhibition of over 200 images from the archives of the world’s oldest surviving photographic society, looking back into almost two centuries of the medium’s history. Alongside pioneers like Roger Fenton, William Henry Fox Talbot and Julia Margaret Cameron are images by modern legends like Don McCullin, Terry O’Neill and Martin Parr.

Drawn by Light runs at The Science Museum’s Media Space_ until March 1 when it will relocate to the National Media Museum in Bradford until June 21.