In an 1828 letter to his partner, Nicephore Niepce, Louis Daguerre wrote, "I am burning with desire to see your experiments from nature." In this book, Geoffrey Batchen analyzes the desire to photograph as it emerged within the philosophical and scientific milieus that preceded the actual invention [...]

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77) was born in Dorset, England in 1800 and, as expected of a person of his social class, gained an excellent education at Harrow and Cambridge. A talented mathematician, classicist, linguist, scientist and botanist, his invention of the 'calotype' arose out of his uns[...]

I Repetition och skillnad tar sig fotografihistorikern Geoffrey Batchen an frågan om fotografins historieskrivning utifrån reproduktionens figur. Trots mediets inneboende potential för reproducerbarhet och spridning, har just denna aspekt inte blivit föremål för någon mer omfattande uppmärks[...]

Deceptive in the ease of their creation, diminutive size, and sheer abundance, snapshots are often thought of as the mostinnocent type of photography. But snapshots are complex and willful picturespremeditated, fussed over, and oftenpredetermined. The postures we adopt, the gestures we pantomime, th[...]