Flashes of Brilliance The Genius of Early Photography and How It Transformed Art, Science, and History
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Anika Burgess is a photo editor and writer whose work has been published in the New York Times and Atlas Obscura. She lives in New York."[<em>Flashes of Brilliance</em>] is an elegantly written history that speaks to an immutable human desire 'to pursue knowledge, to create something beautiful, to record a moment in time.' It's also a lot of fun, as Burgess makes ample space for the eccentric and adventurous spirits who played a role in the uncertain decades between 1839 and 1910."
- The Washington Post,
"[A] clear and fascinating whistlestop history… Burgess has made an old and arcane subject new and thrilling... Her astounding, frequently funny narrative highlights how people have always gone to outrageous lengths to get the perfect shot. And, no doubt, they always will."
- Christian House - The Times,
Today it’s routine to take photos from an aeroplane window, use a camera under the sea or gaze at an X-ray. But the innovations more than a century ago that made such things possible were incredible and sometimes dangerous, and the innovators often memorable eccentrics. In this absorbing mix of science, art and social history, Anika Burgess describes early aerial photography experiments with balloons, kites and pigeons; reveals how photographers first captured the surface of the moon, the bottom of the sea and the structure of snowflakes; recounts the race to photograph motion and how it led to moving pictures; and delves into photography’s social effects.
Richly illustrated and filled with fascinating tales, Flashes of Brilliance shows how the rise of a new art form transformed culture and our view of the world.