During the early years after the in

During the early years after the invention of photography, the expertise needed to create images required a sophisticated set of technical skills: the preparation of the chemical emulsions that were often prepared in the field and applied to glass plates, tin plates or paper, the use of complicated heavy and bulky equipment, and detailed knowledge regarding times of exposure, light conditions, and so on. It is interesting that in the book edited by Allan Trachtenberg, the essays of the “pioneers” of photography including Niepce, Daguerre, and Fox Talbot all are notable for their scientific explanations of which chemicals in what proportions work best to reach the goal of creating technically superior photographs. Photography, at the time, was a scientific development, or, as Edgar Allan Poe argued (in his essay reprinted in the Trachtenberg collection): photography was “the most important and perhaps the most extraordinary triumph of modern science” (37).