Upon hearing of the invention of photography in the mid nineteenth century, the painter Paul Delaroche is quoted as saying ‘from this day, painting is dead’. He was wrong. Freed from its shackles of representation, this art form diversified and flourished to become the thing of great and manifold beauties it is today.

A couple of decades or so ago, with the appearance of consumer-level digital imaging equipment, similar moribund proclamations were being made about traditional, or analogue, photography. People couldn’t give away their 35mm SLRs and darkroom equipment quickly enough in a move equally rash (as hindsight has shown) as that of those shunning record players and vinyl when CDs began their domination.