
Negative/Positive
A History of Photography
Geoffrey Batchen(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 22. December 2020
Book
Hardback
266 pages
978-0-367-40584-7 (ISBN)
Description
As its title suggests, Negative/Positive begins with the negative, a foundational element of analog photography that is nonetheless usually ignored, and uses this to tell a representative, rather than comprehensive, history of the medium.
The fact that a photograph is split between negative and positive manifestations means that its identity is always simultaneously divided and multiplied. The interaction of these two components was often spread out over time and space and could involve more than one person, giving photography the capacity to produce multiple copies of a given image and for that image to have many different looks, sizes and makers. This book traces these complications for canonical images by such figures as William Henry Fox Talbot, Kusakabe Kimbei, Dorothea Lange, Man Ray, Seydou Keita, Richard Avedon, and Andreas Gursky. But it also considers a number of related issues crucial to any understanding of photography, from the business practices of professional photographers to the repetition of pose and setting that is so central to certain familiar photographic genres. Ranging from the daguerreotype to the digital image, the end result is a kind of little history of photography, partial and episodic, but no less significant a rendition of the photographic experience for being so.
This book represents a summation of Batchen's work to date, making it be essential reading for students and scholars of photography and for all those interested in the history of the medium
The fact that a photograph is split between negative and positive manifestations means that its identity is always simultaneously divided and multiplied. The interaction of these two components was often spread out over time and space and could involve more than one person, giving photography the capacity to produce multiple copies of a given image and for that image to have many different looks, sizes and makers. This book traces these complications for canonical images by such figures as William Henry Fox Talbot, Kusakabe Kimbei, Dorothea Lange, Man Ray, Seydou Keita, Richard Avedon, and Andreas Gursky. But it also considers a number of related issues crucial to any understanding of photography, from the business practices of professional photographers to the repetition of pose and setting that is so central to certain familiar photographic genres. Ranging from the daguerreotype to the digital image, the end result is a kind of little history of photography, partial and episodic, but no less significant a rendition of the photographic experience for being so.
This book represents a summation of Batchen's work to date, making it be essential reading for students and scholars of photography and for all those interested in the history of the medium
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
94 farbige Abbildungen, 94 Farbfotos bzw. farbige Rasterbilder
94 Halftones, color; 94 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
690 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-367-40584-7 (9780367405847)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
12/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
€51.00
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
12/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
€53.99
Available for download

E-Book
12/2020
1st Edition
Routledge
€53.99
Available for download
Person
Geoffrey Batchen is Professor of History of Art at the University of Oxford. His books include Burning with Desire: The conception of photography (1997), Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History (2001), Emanations: The art of the cameraless photograph (2016), and Apparitions: Photography and Dissemination (2018).
Content
1. Negatives and Positives ; 2. Inventing Negatives ; 3. Photographic Drawings ; 4. More of the Same ; 5. Control Methods ; 6. Created Worlds ; 7. Hiding in Plain Sight ; 8. The Cult of the Negative ; 9. Electricity Made Visible ; 10. Authorship and Ownership ; 11. Refashioning a Past ; 12. Return of the Repressed ; 13. Proper Names ; 14. Does Size Matter? ; 15. Ordering Things ; 16. Poses and Settings ; 17. Hidden Mothers ; 18. Collecting Things ; 19. Still Life ; 20. Repetition and Difference ; 21. Negative/Positive.