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Twilight of the Photographic Negative
hotography: the word has been tossed around
as a general term since it was first coined by John
Herschel in the 1830s. But it was also used to describe
a very specific process in the nineteenth century. It
came to mean the making of a negative, or a positive
print from a negative. The negative is a unique object, a
physical artifact derived from the event it documents.
Negatives have been the basis of nearly every
photographic image made in our own time. But
teetering on the precipice of
extinction, it has been phased
out as the natural evolution of
one technology gradually, but
completely overtakes another.
The transition doesn���t happen
overnight. It���s a messy affair filled
with denial, anger, depression; and
like stages of grief, it can go beyond
acceptance to expectation.
Observing the 175th anniversary
of the invention of the photogenic
drawing negative by Wm. Henry Fox Talbot is
bittersweet as we collectively watch the unraveling of
what was so familiar. Like all change however, new
technology is both unsettling and full of promise. Digital
photography is different. It doesn���t require a negative
HYLAND
