Photography and Its Origins, published by Focal Press, reflects on the recently renewed interest on photography's beginnings, and includes speculation and examination of the first photographs recorded, proclamations of photography's death in the digital age, and reconsideration of who and what invented the photographic medium. Edited by Tanya Sheehan and Andres Zervigon, this book re-frames photographic history under critical and historiographical terms, and challenges the commonly accepted notions of how we've come to accept photographic history as we know it. The publication comprises 16 original essays, along with 32 color images, and showcases prominent and emerging voices in the field of photographic studies. Serving as a valuable resource to students and scholars of art history, visual and media studies, and the history of science and technology, the texts in this book cut across disciplines and methodologies in order to shed new light on old questions concerning photography's history.
Part I: Rethinking First Photograph(er)s
- 1. A Sensational Story: Helmut Gernsheim and "The World's First Photograph" - Jessica S. McDonald
- 2. What's Wrong with Daguerre? - Hans Rooseboom
- 3. Omphaloskeptical? On Daguerre, Smoke Drawing, Finger Painting, and Photography - Stephen C. Pinson
- 4. The Past through the Looking Glass - Dan Estabrook
Part II: Multiplying Beginnings
- 5. Origins without End - Geoffrey Batchen
- 6. Notes towards New Accounts of Photography's Invention - Douglas R. Nickel
- 7. Against Photographic Exceptionalism - Stephen Bann
- 8. Sacred Stories: Photography's Indigenous Origins - Heather Shannon
- 9. Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us: Frederick Douglass's Reflections on Daguerreotypy and Racial Difference - Marcy J. Dinius
Part III: Writing (Trans)National Histories
- 10. "An American Sun Shines Brighter," or, Photography Was (Not) Invented in the United States - François Brunet
- 11. The Bertoloni Album: Rethinking Photography's National Identity - Beth Saunders
- 12. Photography and Its Chinese Origins - Yi Gu
- 13. Looking into the Past and Present: The Origins of Photography in Africa - Jürg Schneider
Part IV: Tracing Scientific Origins
- 14. Self-Reflections: The Nature of Sir Humphry Davy's Photographic "Failures" - Jordan Bear
- 15. Natural/Mechanical: Keywords in the Conception of Early Photography - Laura Saltz
- 16. A Note on the Science of Photography: Reconsidering the Invention Story - Kelley Wilder
Selected bibliography