High-energy photon collisions at the LHC – dream or reality?

We discuss the potential of high-energy photon collisions at the LHC for improving our understanding of QCD and studying the physics beyond the Standard Model. After reviewing briefly the legacy of past photoproduction experiments at LEP and HERA, we examine the gold-plated channels proposed for a photon collider at the ILC for their potential in a hadron collider environment. We stress that initial-state photon interactions have indeed been observed at RHIC and at the Tevatron. Three promising channels at the LHC are then presented in some detail: vector-meson production, measurements of possibly anomalous electroweak gauge-boson or top-quark couplings, and slepton production.