 While his photography was extremely important to crafting an image of a new African colony, it was just that, an image.Instead of depicting the reality of the colony, Washington's portraits present and highlight an idealized vision of the colony with highly constructed false representations.As Shawn Michelle Smith points out in his journal article, "Augustus Washington Looks to Liberia", Washington's portraits "project a nation yet to come" and serve to double the vision of his work 
After many years of producing such daguerreotypes, Augustus Washington began to realize the social hierarchies at play in Liberia and the length of their dependence on the African Natives for everything from food to supplies.