Strangeness Photoproduction on Nucleons and Nuclei

I review the current status of kaon electromagnetic production from nucleons and nuclei. With the new data from SAPHIR and Jlab, the elementary production processes, γ+N → K+Λ(Σ), provide critical input to resolving the missing resonance problem. In contrast to other hypernuclear excitation mechanisms, hypernuclear photoproduction allows mapping out the Λ momentum distribution in the hypernucleus, thus providing dynamical information in addition to our knowledge derived from excitation spectra.