The advent of collectors, museums, and academics in the field of photography led to a decline in the relevance of photography clubs. Photography's elevation to fine art and the increased focus on digital avenues altered its community and practice.
- As collectors, museums, and academics took over the care and management of photography, the relevance of photography clubs diminished.
- These entities reshaped the landscape of photography, propelling it towards high art and academic study, whereas photography clubs were more informal assemblies of photography enthusiasts.
- Meanwhile, photography itself continued to evolve with innovations and societal changes, such as the emergence of digital photography making everyone a photographer to some extent and the prolific use of images on the internet.
- Moreover, as photography became recognized as a fine art and began to be collected like major canvases, the artistic community started to see it both as a reflection of the natural world and as an expression of the artist's mind and hand.
- By contrast, the amateur and social aspects of photography clubs, which had been crucial to the medium's development and popularization throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, became increasingly overshadowed by the formalization of photography within institutional settings like museums and universities.