When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
washingtonpost.com
When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
1–10 of 42 posts
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#2Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#3This reminds me so much of present-day generative AI criticisms.
> “These innovations were sometimes misguided, occasionally obsessive, periodically dangerous, and perpetually fascinating,” [Burgess writes]
> Susan Sontag once called [them] “the clever, the wealthy, and the obsessed.”
> “were exposed to toxic mercury and iodine vapors every time they made an image,” Burgess writes
> flash powder advertised as “the most powerful light under the sun” was the cause of multiple fatal explosions in Philadelphia
Expensive, wasteful, "tech bros".
Yet we wouldn't do without photos, would we?
The technology turned out to be more good than bad:
> As photographs became more accessible — and more commercialized — they introduced “notions about celebrity culture, self-imaging, authenticity, ownership, and representation that are deeply resonant today.”
> Charles Dickens that described the appeal of the fad in surprisingly recognizable terms, marveling at the excitement of “distributing yourself among your friends, and letting them see you in your favorite attitude, and with your favorite expression. And then you get into those wonderful books which everybody possesses, and strangers see you there in good society, and ask who that very striking-looking person is?”
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#4This reminds me so much of present-day generative AI criticisms. > “These innovations were sometimes misguided, occasionally obsessive, periodically dangerous, and perpetually fascinating,” [Burgess writes] > Susan Sontag once called [them] “the clever, the wealthy, and the obsessed.” > “were exposed to toxic mercury and iodine vapors every time they made an image,” Burgess writes > flash powder advertised as “the mo…
I'd say the good from photography, aside from more options for creativity, is documentation. Journalism without photography would be of lower value. Photos are highly impactful in education, both formal and informal, to get visuals of the world beyond your immediate reach. Documentation of history, in particular local and family history, is far more powerful since photography came along.
I'd say the commercialization of it and the follow-on effects you mentioned are the bad, not the good.
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#5[dead]
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#6> This meant toting hundreds of pounds of equipment — including volatile chemicals, a darkroom tent and fragile glass plates — to wherever they hoped to snap a scene.
I am something of a "photography genealogist" for the family. My father's half-aunt lived to be 103, never had children, and left behind a suitcase stuffed with photos — going back to a tintype of her mother from the 1880's. I was lucky the suitcase was eventually handed over to me.
That started my obsession with collecting all the family photos I could find. And starting with that suitcase, I scanned every photo and embarked on cleaning up and adjusting levels (etc.) for every interesting photo in the lot.
Sometimes a few lines of text on the back or border gave me the date or subject of the photo. Often there was nothing though. Nonetheless, I was slowly able to recognize people in the photos, associate a name to them (from also doing traditional genealogy with Ancestry.com). Stories emerged in some cases (my great grandmother's big road-trip vacation in 1925 after the divorce from her unfaithful husband, the mysterious young woman in the Denver photos that I was eventually able to trace to a teen daughter who died in Mexico, Missouri while away at music school, etc.)
And as I was able to figure out the photos, order them, I got to also see the progress of photography and cameras. The tintype and early collodion photos were all in a studio setting (perhaps a single photography studio in Kansas City in 1880? She was only a young girl, her father a farmer — he must have been putting on airs to have a studio photograph taken of his young daughter).
And then the Kodak Brownie (I assume) makes the scene by 1920 or so for the family and photos start to appear taken in the field, on the farm — no longer in studios. The quality though suffers immensely.
Better Kodaks (or similar) come into the family by the 30's and candid, amatuer photography now rivals the quality of the earlier studio photos. Somewhat.
Suddenly in the 1950's square color photos appear in the collection and the quality is actually some of the worst of all the family photos. So sad that we traded fast lenses and film for color. I am not sure the quality ever quite caught up again to the better B&W until we get to modern digital.
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#7This reminds me so much of present-day generative AI criticisms. > “These innovations were sometimes misguided, occasionally obsessive, periodically dangerous, and perpetually fascinating,” [Burgess writes] > Susan Sontag once called [them] “the clever, the wealthy, and the obsessed.” > “were exposed to toxic mercury and iodine vapors every time they made an image,” Burgess writes > flash powder advertised as “the mo…
I don't follow the analogy? Are you just comparing two technologies that have had criticisms at their infancy?
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#8The discourse around photography and art reminds me exactly of the discourse around AI and art too:
https://medium.com/@aaronhertzmann/how-photography-became-an...
In some cases pieces I've read on AI and art contain phrases or paragraphs that are almost word for word identical to photography and art discourse. There were moral panics around photography too, especially its obvious use in pornography. There was of course pornographic drawing and painting before (we've found it in ancient Egyptian structures!) but photography took it to a new level.
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#9This reminds me so much of present-day generative AI criticisms. > “These innovations were sometimes misguided, occasionally obsessive, periodically dangerous, and perpetually fascinating,” [Burgess writes] > Susan Sontag once called [them] “the clever, the wealthy, and the obsessed.” > “were exposed to toxic mercury and iodine vapors every time they made an image,” Burgess writes > flash powder advertised as “the mo…
> This reminds me so much of present-day generative AI criticisms.
I don't think that is a coincidence, it is precisely what the article wants you to think:
In “Flashes of Brilliance,” Anika Burgess takes us back to the 19th century to showcase the artists and innovators who developed the revolutionary technology.
By tying the invention to "artists", the whole piece is framed as having the endorsement of artists. The whole article is there to frame criticism of new technology as misguided, while cleverly not mentioning "AI".
Normally I wouldn't be that suspicious, but the book and the article came out in 2025.
Now, how about an article on the miracles of DDT technology, which was the best insecticide in the world?
Re: When photography was born, fascination, obsession, and danger followed
#10This reminds me so much of present-day generative AI criticisms. > “These innovations were sometimes misguided, occasionally obsessive, periodically dangerous, and perpetually fascinating,” [Burgess writes] > Susan Sontag once called [them] “the clever, the wealthy, and the obsessed.” > “were exposed to toxic mercury and iodine vapors every time they made an image,” Burgess writes > flash powder advertised as “the mo…
I'd say the good from photography, aside from more options for creativity, is documentation. Journalism without photography would be of lower value. Photos are highly impactful in education, both formal and informal, to get visuals of the world beyond your immediate reach. Documentation of history, in particular local and family history, is far more powerful since photography came along. I'd say the commercialization…
I'm thinking of women's fashions in the U.S. — perhaps spurred on by depictions of the latest Parisian-wear from Godey's Lady's Book up to the 1890's. Then the starlets of a young Hollywood I suppose kicked off the flapper craze of the 1920's in the U.S.?
An illustration of a fashionable Parisian though was probably adequate — a photograph not required. Photography perhaps made the latest fashion trends ubiquitous?
That aside, I treasure photography for giving me a glimpse into the ordinary lives of my ordinary family going back three and four generations. Having captured the arc of an entire life from childhood, to graduation from "Normal" school, marriage, motherhood… And finally the sadder photos where they are old, comforted now by their adult daughter until the last photo in the series: their headstone.
I am thankful for all of that. I have found having the full span of a life captured in photographs to be sublime … sobering, grounding.