lol no. Photographs can easily be faked, especially with modern technology. Defer to those who have applied the scientific method, who have done solid research, and even do those things yourself to cross-reference; you should really know scientific literacy by now.

“Guy who does actual literal magic” is never real. “Guy who alone violently killed numerous women in London 1888-1891” (AKA Jack the Ripper), as a counterexample, is plausible but (as far as I know) has yet to be proven or disproven by historical evidence or other scientific means as to if it was one killer or multiple killers. “Guy whom historians generally agree did XYZ and had such and such characteristics based on their study of historical evidence and use of the scientific method” is virtually guaranteed to be real within a level of approximation (as in, even if we don’t know John Doe’s middle name was Jack, John Jack Doe still existed but only slightly different from how we know him).

taken to it’s logical conclusion - leads us to believe virtually nobody existed prior to that advent of photography.

That has the logical weight of Last Thursdayism or The Truman Show Delusion. Like technically it’s possible, but there are way more assumptions being made about what it obscured than there are assumptions being made about what is observed.