In August 1835, the British scientist and inventor Henry Fox Talbot took what may be the first photographic image on a negative, of a gothic window at his home Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire.  Little did he know what an industry he would create as photography developed, with companies such as Kodak rising and falling and a photographic camera or two now being an essential part of the mobile phone to take the ubiquitous selfies.

Photography moved from being a medium for recording news, family events, landscapes, cities and battle zones into an art form, as the current exhibition at Tate Modern explores, going through different phases with artists experimenting with the textures of objects, buildings and natural forms (generally in black and white), parallel work to their paintings and sculptures, then starting to play with the chemistry and the effects of light and shade without even using a camera, to the point where the photographic process itself is as important to the artists as canvas and oil paint.

The exhibition covers a century of parallel and complimentary streams of painting, sculpture and photography, including geometric works created by the shadows and silhouettes of architecture, finally moving into the world of video and moving images – surely the subject of a future exhibition with the same theme, but related to video.