Light is fundamental to photography. It illuminates the subject being photographed, and records its image on the film. The word "photography" comes from the Greek and means to draw or to write (graphos) with light (photos). From the 5th century BC to the present, we have been fascinated by images formed by light. Photography was invented when these images were first "fixed" or made permanent in the 19th century. It has changed forever the way we see the world. Drawing With Light looks at light in photography, from early scholars' observations on the behaviour of light, to the digital revolution of the 21st century. Photographs from the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography illustrate technical developments in photography, and its ability to communicate information and ideas about the world around us.