Long before photography ever existed, we used paint as a means of capturing the world around us. William Shakespeare; Jane Austin; Robert Burns. Thanks to the delicate brushstrokes of highly-skilled artists, we have a good idea of how these historical figures looked- almost as good, in fact, as if there had been an official photographer on hand to instruct The Bard, The Author and The Playwright to smile for the camera.

 
That the paintings created by the Old Masters should look so lifelike and, well,photographic is because that was their essential purpose: to accurately capture and preserve faces for the benefit of future generations.

 
Since the advent of the first daguerrotype camera in 1836, photography has evolved steadily thanks to numerous technological advancements. Image quality has improved exponentially, colours have become brighter and pictures more lifelike. Once it became clear that brush and canvas could never replicate the realism of photography, the two disciplines headed in opposing directions. Throughout the twentieth century, art has become more abstract, retreating from the larger-than-life hyper-realism offered by DSLR cameras.

 
Photographers were once held in the same regard as other creative types, and were seen as skilled professionals whose artistry was to be admired. Nowadays however, the respect accorded to such photographers has diminished somewhat. Thanks to the rise of social media and smartphone technology, everyone now fancies themselves as a photographer – even if their oeuvre leaves a lot to be desired. If you don’t have your own Flickr or Tumblr photo blog, you’re no one

 
Millions of Britons won’t leave home without first packing an eight mega-pixel camera into their pocket – and yet many of them aren’t even aware of the image processing power at their fingertips. So long as they can send TwitPics of drunken shenanigans from the pub, they’re happy. Most smartphones are essentially now given away for free, bundled in with mobile phone contracts. As such, it’s now possible to walk into a shop and emerge- without having parted with so much as a penny – with a smartphone equipped with a digital camera that would have cost £1,000 a decade ago.

 
Such cameras even have rudimentary image processing software built in, enabling the user to perform colour correction, remove red-eye and to add filtering and other preset effects.Everyone is now a budding photographer; a vlogger; a diarist, just waiting on a natural disaster, car crash or cute animal worthy of doing justice to the high-tech camera that’s nestling in their shirt pocket.

 
The digital camera roll-out to every member of the smartphone generation cannot be considered a bad thing. Nevertheless, this unanticipated byproduct of mobile evolution has had another unanticipated consequence: photography has become devalued. The merits of a camera, to the average layperson, are now measured solely in the millions of pixels they have to their name. Photographic terms such as frame rate, ISO and white balance are just white noise to the average consumer. Who cares what sort of lens their smartphone camera carries, so long as it’s packing more pixels-per-pound than its predecessor?

 
The truth is, most mobile users can’t tell the difference between a 5MP and an 8MP photograph. And yet as smartphones become ever smarter, so do the cameras that are bolted on to them. Ironically, this improvement in hand-held technology has revolutionised the way in which we view images, to the extent where many of us now browse the web and view our snaps on palm-sized devices. Who needs 8MP when you’re staring at a 200 x 200 50k JPEG?

 
In spite of the proliferation of camera-equipped devices, prodigious photographers are unlikely to find themselves out of work any time soon. They’re also unlikely to be trading their DSLRs for camera phones either. Admittedly, there are times when it’s expedient to reach for the most compact camera you can get your hands on. One notable example of this was the London riots, in which agency photographers were understandably reticent to wield professional cameras with two-grand lenses attached for fear of having them swiped along with all the flatscreen televisions that were getting spirited away.

 
Fascinating as such ‘guerilla’ photography is, I’m unlikely to be swapping my camera for an iPhone any time soon. Much of my work involves creating stock photos for image galleries. This necessitates the creation of ‘alternate realities’; capturing the subject in front of a green screen before dropping them into a 3D environment I painstakingly create during post-production. The sort of virtual worlds I assemble are unlike any the average snapper is likely to encounter on the way home from the pub – even if they do have their camera phone primed and at the ready.

 
I daresay that Shakespeare, Austin et al would perform a double-take if they could witness the technology we use today to preserve our memories for posterity. They would certainly be flabbergasted by the power of the digital camera and the smartphone. I suspect,however, they’d have little trouble appreciating the difference between a ‘fauxtographic’ smartphone snap and a professionally-composed image.

 
The medium might change, but the impact of an iconic image remains the same: good art will always be good art, whether it materialises on a sprawling canvas or a pocket-sized touchscreen. Ultimately, we’re all just products of the generation that spawned us. You choose your profession, you pick your toolset and then you get to work. If the resultant product is any good, who knows – perhaps they’ll still be savouring it a century from now,long after the technology used to create it has been rendered obsolete.