Authenticity Of Photo Graphs: The fundamental belief in the authenticity of photo graphs of photographs explains why photographs of people no longer living and of vanished architecture are so melancholy. Neither words nor the most detailed painting can evoke a moment of vanished time as powerfully and as completely as a good photograph.
On his return to England Thomson photographed in a similar spirit the London poor. Thirty-six of his photographs were published in Street Life in London (1877), with a detailed sociological text by Adolphe Smith. The reproductions were by the woodburytype process (Chapter 14), which gave them a fidelity matching that of the original photographs: they are charged with a sense of authenticity of photo graphs that gives them great impact.
Giovanni Verga, the Italian realist writer, also photographed; his pictures of the Sicilian towns and people he wrote about carry the same conviction and sympathy as his strong, earthy novels and short stories.
The painter Edgar Degas was much interested in photography. He made drawings from Muybridge's photographs of horses and became an ardent photographer; in 1895 he ordered plates by the dozen, which he processed himself. Unfortunately only a few of his photographs are known. They are mostly interiors, taken by artificial light.
|
|
Photography
