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Saturday 23 November 2013

Capturing the light, a book about the beginning of photograph as we know it.

This is an excellent read if you are interested in the birth of photography. Written by Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport. It takes you back in time to the years after the French revolution where a flamboyant Louis Daguerre is making his name as a scenery painter and showman. While in the English countryside a young shy gentleman amateur scientist by the name of Henry Fox Talbot plays with the idea of being able to fix a scene on paper using chemicals among other things.

The book is written like an historical thriller as the two gentlemen race to discover the holy grail of chemicals that will allow the light drawings to be  developed and fixed so that all can enjoy their own images, but who gets there first and crowned the inventor of photography?


For me this was a page turner even though I have studied both men in some detail at collage. While I was reading this book I felt that I was being introduced to both men for the first time. This was nothing like the dry text books from my collage days; it is easy to read although in the beginning it has a bit of a quirky writing style but once you get the hang of it the book flies by so don't be put off, otherwise you will miss out!