1995•History of PhotographyRequires access
Discourses on photography in mid-Victorian Britain
Jens Jäger
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Abstract
What is photography? This question has been hotly debated ever since the birth of photography in the early Victorian period. Discussions have focused on the question whether photography is an art form or not. Authors of general histories of photography have tended to write histories of a long series of technological breakthroughs or of eminent photographers. Cultural, social and economic aspects of photography have yet to be thoroughly researched.1 ‘There have been too many “rounded” views too soon’,2 as A. V. Simcock argued in an essay review on several books published on the occasion of the 150th anniversary in 1989 of the invention of photography.