er is not simply at the mercy of the photographic process; but instead uses photographed objects, along with the camera apparatus, in accordance with a skilled understanding of the photographic process, to create photo-images that have those particular visual properties. In this way a photograph can fulfil the intentions of a photographer as much as a painting can fulfil the intentions of a painter. Reluctance to accept that skilled photographers create pictures rather than just images is associated with the idea that it would be possible for a qualitatively indistinguishable image to come into existence by accident. Perhaps a Polaroid camera falling from a window ledge could produce an image that has all the same visual properties as an image that has been intentionally produced by a skilled DAWN M. PHILLIPS 19 photographer. In response, I offer a straightforward point. The two images may be qualitatively identical as visual images, but they are not identical as pictures. The accidental Polaroid is an image, but not a picture. The Polaroid produced intentionally by a skilled photographer is a picture as well as an image.25 Currie claimed that an accident in a paint shop does not produce a picture of Chartres Cathedral. This is true even if the spillage creates a visual image which is qualitatively identical to a painted picture. The production history of the image matters, rather than just the visual appearance. This is also true of photographs. In an accidental case, no human intentions are involved in the production of the image. In the skilled case, human intentions are involved – a skilled photographer deliberately causes light from photographed objects to be recorded onto a photo-sensitive surface in order to create the desired final image. This is analogous to a painter who deliberately applies brush-strokes to create the desired final image. In both cases the final image is a picture when it fulfils the intentions of a skilled practitioner. We underestimate photography if we assume that a photograph wou