The making of pictorial images and the preparation of printing plates for reproducing pictorial images remained a handwork process until the invention of photography. A series of inventions through the course of the nineteenth century swept the reproduction of images into the machine age. Photography and graphic communications have been closely linked with the first experiments to capture an image of nature with a camera. This subject follows these beginnings to the present through an examination of techniques, styles and contents of particular movements, international photographers, culminating with Australian photographers and their journeys.