Throughout its early history, photography's authenticity was contested and challenged: how true a representation of reality can a photograph provide? Does the reproduction of a photograph affect its value as authentic or not? From a Photograph examines these questions in the light of the early scientific periodical press, exploring how the perceived veracity of a photograph, its use as scientific evidence and the technologies developed for printing it were intimately connected.Before photomechanical printing processes became widely used in the 1890s, scientific periodicals were unable to reproduce photographs and instead included these photographic images as engravings, with the label ‘from a photograph’. Consequently, every image was mediated by a human interlocutor, introducing the potential for error and misinterpretation. Rather than ‘reading’ photographs in the context of where or how they were taken, this book emphasises the importance of understanding how photographs are reproduced. It explores and compares the value of photography as authentic proof in both popular and scientific publications during this period of significant technological developments and a growing readership. Three case studies investigate different uses of photography in print: using pigeons to transport microphotographs during the Franco-Prussian War; the debate surrounding the development of instantaneous photography; and finally the photographs taken of the Transit of Venus in 1874, unseen by the human eye but captured on camera and made accessible to the public through the periodical.Addressing a largely overlooked area of photographic history, From a Photograph makes an important contribution to this interdisciplinary research and will be of interest to historians of photography, print culture and science.

Photography shows us how to look at things from different perspectives, to reflect, to communicate and to express ourselves in a way that goes beyond words. The creative and introspective qualities of this accessible arts medium make it an ideal tool for use in therapeutic contexts. In this book, Claire Craig explores how professionals working with groups can use photography to promote self-exploration and positive change. She explains how the technique works, who it can help, and how to set up and run a group. Each chapter revolves around a key self-development theme, such as communication, reflection, relationship-building and self-esteem, and contains activities which are suitable for all ages and abilities. For each activity, requirements are clearly specified, and both a warm-up and extension activity offered. Along the way, examples of photographs taken by participants in response to particular themes, and the explanations which accompany them, are provided as inspiration. This practical guide can be used in group work across a broad range of contexts, including in schools, colleges, youth groups, community settings, residential care, in-patient and day hospitals. It will be of interest to occupational therapists, arts therapists, social workers, teachers and any other practitioners interested in ways of promoting personal development through creative means.

The Victorian era heralded an age of transformation in which momentous changes in the field of natural history coincided with the rise of new visual technologies. Concurrently, different parts of the British Empire began to more actively claim their right to being acknowledged as indispensable contributors to knowledge and the progress of empire. This book addresses the complex relationship between natural history and photography from the 1850s to the 1880s in Britain and its colonies: Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, India. Coinciding with the rise of the modern museum, photography’s arrival was timely, and it rapidly became an essential technology for recording and publicising rare objects and valuable collections. Also during this period, the medium assumed a more significant role in the professional practices and reputations of naturalists than has been previously recognized, and it figured increasingly within the expanding specialized networks that were central to the production and dissemination of new knowledge. In an interrogation that ranges from the first forays into museum photography and early attempts to document collecting expeditions to the importance of traditional and photographic portraiture for the recognition of scientific discoveries, this book not only recasts the parameters of what we actually identify as natural history photography in the Victorian era but also how we understand the very structure of empire in relation to this genre at that time.

Design is the single most important factor in creating a successful photograph. The ability to see the potential for a strong picture and then organize the graphic elements into an effective, compelling composition has always been one of the key skills in making photographs. Digital photography has brought a new, exciting aspect to design - first because the instant feedback from a digital camera allows immediate appraisal and improvement; and second because image-editing tools make it possible to alter and enhance the design after the shutter has been pressed. This has had a profound effect on the way digital photographers take pictures. Now published in sixteen languages, The Photographer's Eye continues to speak to photographers everywhere. Reaching 100,000 copies in print in the US alone, and 300,000+ worldwide, it shows how anyone can develop the ability to see and shoot great digital photographs. The book explores all the traditional approaches to composition and design, but crucially, it also addresses the new digital technique of shooting in the knowledge that a picture will later be edited, manipulated, or montaged to result in a final image that may be very different from the one seen in the viewfinder.

This book grapples with fundamental questions about the evolving nature of pictorial representation, and the role photography has played in this ongoing process. These issues are explored through a close analysis of key themes that underpin the photography practice of Canadian artist Jeff Wall and through examining important works that have defined his oeuvre. Wall’s strategic revival of ‘the picture’ has had a resounding influence on the development of contemporary art photography, by expanding the conceptual and technical frameworks of the medium and introducing a self-reflexive criticality. Naomi Merritt brings a new and original contribution to the scholarship on one of the most significant figures to have shaped the course of contemporary art photography since the 1970s and shines a light on the multilayered connections between photography and art. This book will be of interest to scholars in the history of photography, art and visual culture, and contemporary art history.

Through an engagement with the philosophies of Proust's contemporaries, Félix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, and Georg Simmel, Suzanne Guerlac presents an original reading of Remembrance of Things Past (A la recherche du temps perdu). Challenging traditional interpretations, she argues that Proust's magnum opus is not a melancholic text, but one that records the dynamic time of change and the complex vitality of the real. Situating Proust's novel within a modernism of money, and broadening the exploration through references to cultural events and visual technologies (commercial photography, photojournalism, pornography, the regulation of prostitution, the Panama Scandal, and the Dreyfus Affair), this study reveals that Proust's subject is not the esthetic recuperation of loss but rather the adventure of living in time, on both the individual and the social level, at a concrete historical moment.