Main entry:

Henning, Michelle, author. aut http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut

Title & Author:

A dirty history of photography : chemistry, fog, and empire / Michelle Henning.

Publication:

Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press, 2025.
©2025

Description:

342 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The creature -- Archive -- Photosensitivity -- A daughter of coal -- High street chemist -- The Meuse Valley fog -- The terror and the beauty -- Trouble with fog -- How to photograph fog -- The pathetic fallacy -- Breathing the light -- Bodies in flight -- Night photography -- Worldings -- Photography in the tropics -- Into the air -- Pyrrhic victories -- War is beautiful -- Abolishing the aura -- The coal tar complex -- The chemists' war -- Out of thin air -- Overexposed -- Hotwells -- Encapsulation -- Keeping out the fog -- Pockets of exception -- Regulation and exposure -- Year without a summer -- The gall -- The latent image -- Chrysalids -- Memory traces -- Bad air -- Kidnap girl mystery -- The black triangle.

Summary:

"An environmental history of chemical photography through the lens of its deep connections to empire and industry. Dependent on the extractive practices of fossil-fueled industrial capitalism, chemical photography's emulsions and films were highly sensitive to polluted atmospheres, and photographic companies had to work hard to control this sensitivity. Drawing on histories of empire, coal, and chemistry and from the archives of British photographic manufacturer Ilford Limited, Michelle Henning exposes the ways photography shaped how we see and understand the atmosphere while leaving its toxic residues in the air, soil, and water. Structured as thirty-six short chapters and with over seventy illustrations, this innovative book begins in interwar London, follows the supply of Ilford products to photographers on the West African coast, and considers photography as a military technology linked to the development of chemical warfare. Combining close readings of photographs with discussions of low-light, tropical, and aerial photography, Henning examines the extraction and development of photographic materials, their role in the current environmental crisis, and how they have shaped experiences of time and the environment."-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9780226840673 hardcover
0226840670 hardcover
electronic book
9780226840680

Subject:

Photographic chemicals industry Technological innovations.
Photographic chemicals industry Environmental aspects.
Photographic industry Technological innovations.
Photographic chemicals Environmental aspects.
Photographie Industrie Innovations.
Produits chimiques photographiques Aspect de l'environnement.
Produits chimiques photographiques Industrie Innovations.
Produits chimiques photographiques Industrie Aspect de l'environnement.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economics / General.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 325684
Call No.: 325684
Copy: 1
Status: Available