Statement of aims
In setting up
this site it has been my objective to locate the discovery
of the negative-positive photographic process within a
broad cultural, artistic, scientific and social context.
HJP Arnold, in his 1977 biography, gave a comprehensive and
authorative account of the life and work of WHF Talbot and
the nature and scope of his contribution across a broad
range of disciples. Amelunxen, Buckland, Smith and
especially Schaaf have, in general, focused concentrated on
his photographic activities and links between 1833 and
1860; the latter specifically through a detailed analysis
of his relationship with Sir John FW Herschel from 1830 and
1840. Amelunxen, on the other hand, successfully attempted
to explore, in depth, the nature and range of
Talbot’s European cultural links and the
philosophical base upon which he predicated his seminal
discovery; whilst Smith explored his relationship with the
Scottish and Italian savants
.
Accordingly I
have predicated my approach upon the hypothesis that the
most important influences on any one individual at any
given point in time, more than their immediate
contemporaries and peers, is the deep and complex resource
of the immediate cultural past and an individual‘s
ability to access and draw upon the broadest and most
comprehensive range of ideas, concepts across a range of
divergent cultural domains.
I feel that no useful purpose would be served by setting
the central focus of this site purely on Talbot's seminal
contribution as the discover and inventor of the
positive/negative photographic process alone. To this end
it is our intention to follow two separate lines enquiry:
A targeted focus: the analysis of texts and documents
relating to aspects of photographic vision and the
evolution of photography and photographic vision
Upon visual literacy: the perception, comprehension and use
images and modes of thought in relation to how we think and
learn in terms of images
It
is my intention to progressively expand and enlarge this
site so that it will be both a study resource and point of
reference for the study of photography and the photographic
image.
I have taken WHF Talbot as our primary point of reference,
born out of our perceived need to better and more fully
comprehend the nature and extent of the paradigmatic shift
engendered by now near universal dominance within the field
of the reprographic arts of digital imaging processes.
We are now within threshold of an era where there will no
longer be, to all intents and purposes, any form of system
independent origination. What, in effect we are witnessing
is the demise of the photographic negative as a physical
entity and as the primary storage for visual data. The
implication of which, for the future, is difficult or
impossible to predict