The invention of photography was heralded in 1839 in Paris with the debut of the daguerrotype - a unique photograph produced on a silver-covered copper plate. Praised for its veracity, accuracy and its astonishingly sharp detail, the daguerrotype captured the collective imagination. Over the next half-century, photography developed rapidly, progressing from a cottage industry to a semi-industrialized business, with the phenomenal growth of portrait studios marking the medium's popular success. Photography also came to be widely used for documentary purposes such as topographical surveys, scientific investigations, and reporting, while other users championed it as an artistic practice. With the advent of the print on paper, photographic images became truly multiple and, through new methods of printing and distribution, were soon spread around the world. Through a wide range of visual material and an informative text, this study by conservator Quentin Bajac covers these developments and many others, technical and creative, in the remarkable early years of photography.
- ISBN10 0500301115
- ISBN13 9780500301111
- Publish Date 7 October 2002 (first published 1 October 2002)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 11 March 2017
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Thames & Hudson Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 160
- Language English