Since at least the announcement of the Daguerreotype in 1839 by the medium's original self-promoter Louis Daguerre, the medium of photography has been a cultural and technological phenomenon in a modern world. Photography is and always has been a powerful force in people's lives, and never more so than today. Images are tied to culture, are in our DNA, and have become inseparable from politics, economics, and social issues. Photography comes to us in 2009 with a rich and complex history, and photographic images are born into a world that gives them context and meaning. Images have become the ultimate mass media, crossing language barriers and being transmitted to the furthest corners of the planet in fractions of a second.