Welcome to the Smithsonian Photography Initiative. With this website and other innovative programs to come, we hope to open new doors for you — both to the Smithsonian's extraordinary collections of photographs and to an understanding of the integral roles photographs play in our lives.

Photography and the Smithsonian were born within a decade of each other in the mid — 19th century. The fledgling Smithsonian was quick to adopt the camera to advance its mission, cataloging plant and animal species and documenting the grandeur of the American landscape and its original inhabitants. Photography brought the faraway near and made visible the previously invisible.   More detail...