The daguerreotype and the rhetoric of photographic technology

Journal/Book: J Bus Tech Commun. 1998; 12: 2455 Teller Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Sage Publications Inc. 413-436.

Abstract: Although many excellent histories of photography and its invention exist,few focus on the rhetoric employed in debates over scientific priority and the romantic construct of nature as the active agent in photographic processes. This article surveys the range and complexity of rhetorical claims made for the first practical photographic process, daguerreotypy It presents a rereading of the standard and romanticized history of the invention, defines the daguerreotype as a made object and cultural artifact with its own supratextual rhetoric, and presents examples from the discourse of 1839-1860 that show how daguerreotypes were argued to be simultaneously equal to, superior to, and inferior to natural human perceptions and representations.

Note: Article Wickliff GA, Univ N Carolina, Charlotte,NC 28223 USA

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