Sketching

• Sketching is the practice of producing physical images by applying a substance that leaves visual traces onto a medium. These substances can vary greatly, from sharp scratching instruments such as sticks to charcoals or inks to specialized lead pencils. A sketch is a quick outline that is not intended to be the finished image. Sketches generally are done quickly in an improvised fashion, and they often are used to create outlines or to test ideas for more detailed drawings.
  
  

Drawing

• Drawing is very closely related to sketching, but it is much more detailed and fully formed than the rough outlines of a sketch. Drawings can be highly sophisticated art forms of great merit and worth, or simple extensions of basic sketches. Drawings are generally considered to be of just one shade or color, although shading techniques can produce highly nuanced visual effects. The most common and best known instruments and mediums of drawings are the application of a lead pencil onto paper or board. However, as with sketching, many instruments and almost any surface can be used for drawings.
  
  

Photography

• Compared to sketching and drawing, photography is a relatively new way for people to record images and express themselves artistically. It also is a quite different from sketching and drawing in that the creator of a photograph is more passive in the recording process. An image is recorded onto a radiation-sensitive medium, such as photographic film, by being exposed to radiation -- in effect, light. Photography can range from simple images to highly sophisticated and detailed images. Photographs can be altered and manipulated to produce various effects and new forms of artistic expression.
  
  

Uses

• Sketching, drawing and photography are all means of recording visual expressions and of creating and expressing artistic visualizations. Each form has merits and uses for which it is more suited than the others. For example, a sketch can be done quickly using instruments as crude as a finger etching outlines into earth. This makes it more accessible and flexible than photography, which even at its most basic level requires some manufactured equipment and knowledge of use. However, photography has advantages over drawings and sketches. For example, photography through telescopes can produce images of objects in deep space to a level of detail and accuracy that a drawing never could.