By John Hogg and Derek Abdinor for The Times
Capturing the Light by Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport:
As someone who learnt photography towards the end of the analogue era I feel, somewhat romantically perhaps, that the advancement of technology and the entrenchment of the digital age has sucked the soul from image creation.
Capturing The Light has rekindled my fascination with the alchemy and the magic of the silver halide process.
Authors Roger Watson, a world authority on photography’s early history, and Helen Rappaport, a historian specialising in the 19th century, tell the story of the birth of photography. This fascinating tale articulates the genius and rivalry of the two men at the centre of its discovery.
Many had managed in various ways to capture an image, but the problem was fixing it permanently. Two men managed this independently and without any knowledge of one another. The more widely acknowledged is Frenchman Louis Daguerre, a flamboyant artist and entrepreneur who, in a letter to a friend, wrote: “I have captured the light and arrested its flight. The sun itself shall draw my pictures.” The daguerreotype was announced to the world in 1839.
In contrast, across the channel, an amateur scientist, Henry Fox Talbot, quietly worked at solving the problem of fixing the image. His was the calotype. Talbot appears to have found a solution before Daguerre but the Frenchman beat him to making the announcement, resulting in the ongoing debate as to who got there first.
A discussion on the arguments of photography is woven into this tale, like whether it is an art or a science. We are reminded photography is a democratic art, available to all – the camera has become what the Morning Post observed to be “as indispensable as the bicycle”. – John Hogg
Vengeance by Benjamin Black:
A mysterious death at sea kicks off the latest instalment of Benjamin Black’s series set in 1950s Ireland. That setting successfully invokes ceaseless cold rain and gritty kitchen-sink realism, but essentially the book is a neat skin graft from a country house murder mystery.
There are rich curmudgeons, widows, wills and gin. Too many characters are of similar habits and are held under house arrest while the plot does its best to prevent any urgent resolution.
Still, pack it in your holiday bag as Black’s measured pace allows you to savour some of the best literary crime fiction from this Booker prize-winning author. – Derek Abdinor
Book details
- Capturing the Light by Roger Watson, Helen Rappaport
EAN: 9780230768864
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- Vengeance by Benjamin Black
EAN: 9780330545822
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