Photography at 185 and Malcolm Daniel

Photography is 185 years, two months, and 29 days old as of today (Friday). Few technological advances have such clearly demarcated birthdays. A short, elegantly written account of the invention, from the mid-1820s to the fire at the diorama (you can read it in two minutes, if not two shakes of a lamb's tail) is "Daguerre (1787–1851) and the Invention of Photography" by Malcolm Daniel, at the Met site. The Met, on the off chance someone out there doesn't know, is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, one of the world's great museums.

Malcolm Daniel, an expert in 19th century photography, has been Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, since he followed Director Gary Tinterow there from the Met in 2013. He succeeded Anne Wilkes Tucker (ret. 2015), which were pretty big shoes to fill; she founded and built Houston's collection, and in my opinion as well as that of many others she ranks as one of the great American photography curators. Her signature publication was the seminal The Woman's Eye, a modest-looking but highly influential book from 1973. It profiled ten female photographers—Gertrude Käsebier, Frances Benjamin Johnston (no relation), Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Berenice Abbott, Barbara Morgan, Diane Arbus, Alisa Wells, Judy Dater and Bea Nettles—and led the way for women to be let back into the pantheon when photography was being rejiggered in the '70s as a proper subject for scholarship, education, collection, and attention from museums. Alisa Wells (AKA Alisa Andrews, Alice Wells-Witteman, and Alisa Attenberger, d. 1988) is perhaps the only name among those ten that might be unfamiliar to most today.

Forgive the digression. Malcolm Daniel authored a number of short essays at the Met's website. They're all listed and linked at the bottom of the link above. At least some (maybe all?) are part of the massive Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, a collection of more than 1,000 short essays about many different aspects of art history on the Met's website. Malcolm Daniel was a senior curator and a former head of the photography department at the Met before decamping for Houston. He's a good writer for a guy who apparently has not given us many books; the short essays are very good. Sort of the tip of an iceberg for me when it comes to photography commentary from the Met. He has continued the tradition somewhat at MFA Houston.

I confess I don't know how many people follow these good-for-you links when I put them up, but they are oh so much more nourishing than, say, watching YouTube videos of animals being cute, traffic stops, and people falling on icy steps.

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre

The invention of photography was one of the great sensations of the scientific 19th century. It's an interesting subject to learn about, and it's one of those subjects that you can learn at many different degrees of depth; maybe the capsule essay linked above will be the only thing you'll ever know about it, and of course you can go deeper than that, but then deeper than that, and then deeper still. Whole books have been written about it.

I don't know what the best books about it are now. I learned about it in school (with thanks and a nod to Tom Beck—pretty sure I was a PITA to him in our History of Photography class, but I learned a lot), and from general histories, and from Helmut Gernsheim's books and writings. The history I used to recommend for adolescents is The Story of Photography: An Illustrated History by the Italian photographer Giovanni Chiaramonte, with illustrations by Paola Borgonzoni and Giuliana Panzeri. You might think it is long in the tooth, but oh no, for it was written just before digital came in. Any later and it would have been a different subject. Of course it's out of print.

May I just say that The Woman's Eye would make a most excellent candidate for a reissue. Perhaps with an introduction for added value and historical context. Perhaps written by Malcolm Daniel! That would be fitting, as he reportedly worked alongside her when he got to Houston, and he certainly knows the collection she built. I would be first in line.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to what the best books about the invention of photography are these days?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Comments

[Michael Moffa]

Growing up in NYC, we went to the Met for Opera and MOMA for art. Referring to the MOMA as the Met is disconcerting. And Mike I have a question. We are about the same age. I think I have purchased my last camera (Z9). The latest bodies are so competent that the marginal improvements are not worth the money. I wonder how many of your readers think the same.

Michael Moffa

[s.wolters]

Two Félix Nadar books are on my shortlist. His autobiography When I was a Photographer. And a biography by Adam Begley. The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera.

[Ken James]

I have looked for a posting by you for, what now - twenty years, everyday, and if it is green I follow the link. Often they don’t even need to be green. So there is one people. I have been educated.

[Gary]

I for one like the references. You are unique in the blogosphere for your knowledge of the history of photography.

[Chris Bertram]

I'm not sure what to read about it, but anyone interested in the early history of photography should, if in the south of England, try to fit in a visit to Lacock Abbey, home of William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of the calotype.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wiltshire/lacock

[Peter Barnes]

Michael Moffa said above "Growing up in NYC, we went to the Met for Opera and MOMA for art. Referring to the MOMA as the Met is disconcerting" Now I am really disconcerted. I grew up 17,000 kilometres from NYC, but I had thought that 'the Met' referred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Central Park and that MoMA is the glorious Museum of Modern Art, an entirely separate institution?

[John Custodio]

Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry by Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport

[Ilkka]

Don’t know from where that 185 years is calculated but I think it is well established by now that Nicephore Niepce took the first photograph, then Louis Daguerre joined forces with him and developed the idea further to a more practical and detailed process while around the same time Fox Talbot in England developed his own process based on a negative that can be reprinted several times, thus forming the foundation of still enduring film based photography.

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

The book about photography’s origins that will make you doubt the very idea of origins is Geoff Batchen’s classic Burning with Desire (The MIT Press, 1999). It’s fairly dense, but it shows how different practices and aims dovetailed into one another to create what looks from afar like a single birthday. It also helps to understand the conflicting claims to the genealogy by French, British, and other parties.

[Dave Millier]

The Daniel article seems to short change Niepce who is usually credited as the inventor of photographer.

[Stan B.]

As much as I welcome and appreciate all the photo based links, I must admit, given the choice between them and videos of people falling down icy steps, rainy steps, even unaltered steps- there is nothing more life affirming than those gravity induced videos! Mind you, I sincerely do not want anyone to actually get hurt. I've asked myself many times why these particular videos hold such appeal, why they make me laugh so. I honestly don't know, and yes, I do feel (somewhat) guilty about it. There's just something so (pardon the pun) leveling about that particular situation. It happens to everyone regardless of social status, we're completely out of control, it's guaranteed embarrassing, it's life getting back at you in the most trivial of ways- but why is it so damn funny?! And it gets me every time (well, almost). I've stopped trying to analyze it, stopped feeling guilty about it, and just lay back anticipating the sheer joy of... wait for it, hear... it...comes!

So... how would it feel if it happened to me? Well, it has- the most memorable on a snow ladened street in SOHO when I tripped backwards so completely, I actually saw the tips of my boots parallel with the horizon before having the wind knocked outta me when I hit the sidewalk. A car actually stopped and opened their doors just to point and laugh at me- I was mad, humiliated, vengeful- and when they drove off... I just lied on by back and laughed- if only there was a video!

Now, on to the links...

[Gerardo Korn]

I started to read "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935), by Walter Benjamin. Let's see how that works out, but I feel it might be interesting and important.

[ If you come across a passage about a bear print and a plaster cast of a bear print, please let me know, would you? I'm convinced I read that and am convinced it was Walter Benjamin, but I've been looking for that for decades and have never found it again. --Mike]

[Stewart Epstein]

I have had the privilege of reading your posts for nigh on two decades.I frequently follow those links and am enlightened by them.

Warmly,

Stew

[That's great to hear Stew and thank you! --Mike]

[Mark Sampson]

I'll agree that "Capturing the Light" is an excellent book (and a fascinating pair of subjects).
Not quite at the beginnings of photography, but equally excellent, is Rebecca Solnit's "River of Shadows", about Edweard Muybridge and his stop-motion photography (among other things).

[robert e]

I greatly appreciate the nutritional balance on TOP. Thank you!

"The Woman's Eye" sounds like a great book. There's a scan available on Open Library but it would be nice to see a reprint. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5415475M/The_woman%27s_eye.

[Richard Tugwell]

The long-running BBC Radio series "In Our Time" has an episode from 2016 concentrating on the Invention of Photography. I like the format of this kind of thing where you can list to 3 talking heads discussing some topic or other. It is not intended to be a comprehensive survey and concentrates on the early days, but the socio-political observations are interesting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07j699g

I'd also add a callout (again!) to Steve Edward's A Very Short Introduction to Photography which is a slightly different addition to the bookshelf compared with big glossy books, but a good informative read
nonetheless

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Photography-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0192801643

[Adam Isler]

“Burning with Desire” by Geoffrey Batchen is an excellent, seminal book on this subject (at least until the end where it gets a bit post-modernist for my taste with some Foucauldian jiu-jitsu), debating the true date of photography’s birth, as well as what we mean by photography and perhaps even birth.