Daguerre, Talbot, and the crucible of drawing

Article Abstract:

Both William Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre presented photography to the world in 1839 as a new type of drawing, independently of each other and using different processes. Neither man's photos resembled drawing so much as drawing shared the practice of linear perspective with the photographs. Also, drawing had become so widespread that it was formulaic in the 19th century, with mechanical aids often used. Both Daguerre and Talbot had practiced drawing, and saw photography as a new mechanical tool for it.

Drawing, Daguerreotype, Daguerreotypes

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Decoding the cipher of reality: Fox Talbot in his time

Article Abstract:

William Henry Fox Talbot invented photography because he could not draw very well, and so the field took an artistic turn from the beginning. Talbot was an amateur scientist and scholar, and many of his early photographs were of objects from nature that were collected in his book 'The Pencil of Nature.' His broad interests next led him to make picture books of locations from Walter Scott's books, and finally 'Annals of the Artists in Spain.'

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Talbot today: changing views of a complex figure

Article Abstract:

William Henry Fox Talbot has been well-studied since he was an inventor of photography, but he appears more complex as more is discovered about him. For example, he tried to combine his separate intellectual interests into new creations, such as using botanical objects in his photography experiments. Other ideas may have been latent photographic images and secret writing, or philology and the words photogenia and protogenia.

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