From the invention of the camera obscura to the birth of digital photography, this history of photography’s greatest advances focuses on individual artists, works, and moments that decisively shaped the evolution of a genre.
Chronologically arranged, each chapter focuses on a particular work or idea that changed the course of photography. Presented in beautiful spreads and with informative text, the book opens with photography’s genesis in the form of the camera obscura. Centuries later, Daguerre, Niepce, and Talbot invented their own means of capturing light on paper. The book covers groundbreaking genres such as still life, landscape, portraiture, and nudes. Sections on the role of photography in journalism illustrate how the camera’s presence on battlefields, on city streets, and in factories helped inform and reform the modern world. Fashion, animals, Surrealism, and staged portraits are also explored. Perfect for perusing or reading from cover to cover, this book illustrates how photography developed from a concept to a world-changing force — one that attempted to shed light on truth yet can also obscure and alter reality in dazzling ways.
Biography
Florian Heine
Florian Heine is a photographer, art historian, author and publisher. As an author he has written several books about art and photography. Florian Heine was responsible for the script of the TV-series “The first time – How new things came into art”, that is based upon one of his books, and he has even stood in front of the camera as an expert for the arts. As a photographer he works in the fields of art, advertising, and industry. He has written many books for Prestel, for both children and adults, including “13 Art Inventions Children Should Know” and “Photography: Groundbreaking Moments”.
