Customer Reviews

The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot

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4 star:		(1)
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Larry Schaaf has put together an absolute benchmark of a book. To all of you who sat in the "college survey of art history," saw the 2" by 2" Fox Talbot image "The Soliloquy of the Broom" and wondered what the fuss was about; see this book. To all of you photographers who secretly wonder if photography is really art; see this book. One hundred images are reproduced with (no kidding) breathtaking quality and nuance. Each image is accompanied by a very readable account of how the image was produced and enough descriptive detail about the original image to satisfy an archeologist.

If you are a photo researcher or archivist; read Schaaf's notes on "The photographic artifact as historical map" (p. 22). It is clear, it is complete, it is definitive. I wish all histories and text books could read like this.

This book is a very large weighty tome, measuring 28cm x 32cm x 4cm. It has 21 pages of text discussing Fox Talbot's work and the photographic process. The remaining few hundred pages are devoted to high quality plates of 100 of his images and a page of text detailing the background to each of these images. Sometimes this text uses rather flowery arty language and certainly not in the style of the dry highly scientifically orientated writings of Talbot at the time. Plus there's no detailed 'Talbot life story' as such, but then much of that is available on the web, e.g. www.foxtalbot.arts.gla.ac.uk. However on the web there are precious few of his photographs on view because of the very high copyright charges for reproduction, hence the attraction of this book.

My only disappointment is that only one solar microscope image is shown - a slice of horse chestnut (I am a microscopist by trade), the remaining 'scientific' images being termed `contact prints' of things like leaves and flowers (e.g. Vines, Honeysuckle, pine needles, orchids) - although I am advised by Talbot authorities that these were most probably taken using the solar microscope as well. Many images are people-less and static e.g. Lacock Abbey windows, lace, breakfast table, Library books, articles of glass, Milliner's Window, Hungerford bridge, The Royal Pavilion, Trinity Church and various woodland scenes. There are about 15 plates with people who stayed still long enough to be recorded in the image, such as: the footman, a group taking tea, the ladder, his daughter, Lady Feilding reclining, Charles Porter drinking tea. These photographs are nothing like as impressive as late Victorian photo images, such as city and dockland scenes, but they are fascinating from a historical perspective. These Talbot images date from 1835 to 1845, and naturally some show serious fading (they don't appear to be retouched at all - a good thing). Also included is a painted B&W silhouette portrait of Talbot as a boy [age 7] that contrasts very well with his later photographic images.

In fact Englishmen Thomas Wedgewood took the first photographs before 1802, but unfortunately couldn't devise a way to fix the image, so the photographs slowly faded from view after they were taken and are now lost (but some of Wedgewood's images may have survived to the 1860's). Although Frenchman Daguerre published first in 1839 with his mercury photographic process, Fox Talbot developed the modern 'negative' process, so that many prints could be taken from one image. So a very interesting book of the art (and science) of the father of modern photography, but perhaps it can be rather expensive (reflecting its high quality production). Three stars for value, four stars for content.

It is incredible. I am viewing people so far back in time that I am enchanted. I am viewing a fashionable Paris Blvd in the 1940's and am in a position to compare Zola's naturalism in my mind to the truth.

I am thrilled with my purchase.