photo of a car wreck in the 1930s or 40s
Toronto. Once photography took off and became simple for everyone to use (roll film and drug store processing) it became a means to record assets and asset losses amongst other purposes.
When automobile accidents became epidemic, Insurance companies demanded proof of loss. Perhaps the photographic print of the damaged vehicle served as this proof (when I was a kid, people said a picture was worth a 1,000 words and no one thought a photo could be faked).
Nowadays, there are assessment centres to determine damages for Insurance companies, leaving stills and videos to families and TV stations.
NB. The title of this post is a riff on the Johnny Cash ballad, “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town“
