Since its invention over 161 years ago photography's ability to fix a moment in time has been a source of fascination. A large part of our attraction to photographic images can be explained by the fact that those fixed moments are the stuff of experience and memory: our lives. Of course, photography is used for many other purposes. From the snapshot to the police 'mug shot'; from satellite images to the glossy fashion spread, photographs are everywhere - a dominant feature in the environment of competing images that we inhabit.

In this topic you will find hundreds of images by 19th and 20th century New Zealand photographers - professionals, amateurs, artists, children - who have gone out into the world wide-eyed with curiosity. Their work will give you a good idea of what photography has been about in New Zealand over the last 150 years.