The first English-language volume about Hippolyte Bayard, one of the inventors of photography who helped transform the burgeoning medium into an art form. Hippolyte Bayard (1801–1887) is often characterized as an underdog in the early history of photography. From the outset, his contribution to the invention of the medium was eclipsed by others such as Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851) and William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877). However, Bayard had an undeniable role in the birth of photography and its subsequent evolution into a form of art. He was a pioneer in artistic style, innovator in terms of practice, and teacher of the next generation of photographers. Alongside an exploration of Bayard’s decades-long career and lasting impact, this volume presents—for the first time in print—some of the earliest photographs in existence. An album containing nearly 200 images, 145 of those by or attributed to Bayard, is among the Getty Museum’s rarest and most treasured photographic holdings. Few prints have ever been seen in person due to the extreme light sensitivity of Bayard’s experimental processes, making this an essential reference for scholars and enthusiasts of the very beginning of photography. This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from April 9 to July 7, 2024.

Hippolyte Bayard (1801–1887) is often characterized as an underdog in the early history of photography. From the outset, his contribution to the invention of the medium was eclipsed by others such as Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851) and William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877). However, Bayard had an undeniable role in the birth of photography and its subsequent evolution into a form of art. He was a pioneer in artistic style, innovator in terms of practice, and teacher of the next generation of photographers. Alongside an exploration of Bayard’s decades-long career and lasting impact, this volume presents—for the first time in print—some of the earliest photographs in existence. An album containing nearly 200 images, 145 of those by or attributed to Bayard, is among the Getty Museum’s rarest and most treasured photographic holdings. Few prints have ever been seen in person due to the extreme light sensitivity of Bayard’s experimental processes, making this an essential reference for scholars and enthusiasts of the very beginning of photography

The sensual curve of the shoulder, the disturbing line of a scar, the magnetic pull of a lashed eye -- since the birth of photography, images of the human body have attracted, disturbed, fascinated, and obsessed us. The body has been scrutinized by medical and anatomical photographers; it has been celebrated by photographers of sport and dance; it has inspired a long tradition of photographing the nude; and it has been depicted in phantasmagoric terms. In this rich, involving archive of over 360 duotone and color images culled from worldwide collections, renowned photo curator William A. Ewing has compiled the most comprehensive and arresting visual survey ever published of the human form. From nineteenth-century erotica to the politicized images of the 1990s, The Body offers an exciting, elegantly packaged, provocative record of the camera's infatuation with the human figure.

This volume is a complete revision of the 1996 third edition, shares the ever-changing breadth of photographic topics with a special emphasis on digital imaging and contemporary issues. Produced by an international team of photographic and imaging experts with collaboration from the George Eastman House (the world's oldest photography museum), this fourth edition contains essays and photographic reproductions sharing information where photography and imaging serve a primary role, ranging from the atomic to the cosmic.

In an 1828 letter to his partner, Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre wrote, "I am burning with desire to see your experiments from nature." In this book, Geoffrey Batchen analyzes the desire to photograph as it emerged within the philosophical and scientific milieus that preceded the actual invention of photography. Recent accounts of photography's identity tend to divide between the postmodern view that all identity is determined by context and a formalist effort to define the fundamental characteristics of photography as a medium. Batchen critiques both approaches by way of a detailed discussion of photography's conception in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He examines the output of the various nominees for "first photographer," then incorporates this information into a mode of historical criticism informed by the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The result is a way of thinking about photography that persuasively accords with the medium's undeniable conceptual, political, and historical complexity.

This book explores a range of experimental self-portraits made in France between 1840 and 1870, including remarkable images by Hippolyte Bayard, Nadar, Duchenne de Boulogne, and Countess de Castiglione. Adapting photography for different social purposes, each of these pioneers showcased their own body as a living artifact and iconic attraction. Jillian Lerner considers performative portraits that exhibit uncanny transformations of identity and embodiment. She highlights the tactical importance of photographic demonstrations, promotions, conversations, and the mongrel forms of montage, painted photographs, and captioned specimens. The author shows how photographic practices are mobilized in diverse cultural contexts and enmeshed with the histories of art, science, publicity, urban spectacle, and private life in nineteenth-century France. Tracing calculated and creative approaches to a new medium, this research also contributes to an archaeology of the present. It furnishes a prehistory of the "selfie" and offers historical perspectives on the forces that reshape human perception and social experience. This interdisciplinary study will appeal to readers interested in the history of photography, art, visual culture, and media studies.

For the general public and specialists alike, the Hellenistic period (323–31 BC) and its diverse artistic legacy remain underexplored and not well understood. Yet it was a time when artists throughout the Mediterranean developed new forms, dynamic compositions, and graphic realism to meet new expressive goals, particularly in the realm of portraiture. Rare survivors from antiquity, large bronze statues are today often displayed in isolation, decontextualized as masterpieces of ancient art. Power and Pathos gathers together significant examples of bronze sculpture in order to highlight their varying styles, techniques, contexts, functions, and histories. As the first comprehensive volume on large-scale Hellenistic bronze statuary, this book includes groundbreaking archaeological, art-historical, and scientific essays offering new approaches to understanding ancient production and correctly identifying these remarkable pieces. Designed to become the standard reference for decades to come, the book emphasizes the unique role of bronze both as a medium of prestige and artistic innovation and as a material exceptionally suited for reproduction. Power and Pathos is published on the occasion of an exhibition on view at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from March 14 to June 21, 2015; at the J. Paul Getty Museum from July 20 through November 1, 2015; and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from December 6, 2015, through March 20, 2016.

The invention of railway transportation coincided with the invention of photography & together these innovations changed our preception of time, space & of our place in the world. Anne Lyden presents over 100 photographs with railway themes, showing how these technologies complimented each other over time.

This book has been an opportunity for Erwitt to revisit the photographs he made in his early career and to uncover meaning upon second glance which was not apparent when the image was originally taken. The master of visual one-liners--bold statement images replete with humour, irony and acknowledged absurdity--the photographs selected for this book are quieter, more subtle and suggest Erwitt's increasing confidence in his own eye. By selecting these photographs he has begun to both examine and challenge how his younger self saw the world.