PHOTOGRAPHS
Talbot, William Henry Fox
England (1800 - 1877)
Bridge of Sighs, St. John's College, Cambridge
c. 1843 - 1845
Salted paper print from calotype paper negative
6 1/2 x 8 1/16 in. (16.5 x 20.5 cm) image size; 6 7/8 x 8 7/16 in. (17.5 x 21.5 cm) sheet size
Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, gift of Joseph and Elaine Monsen and The Boeing Company
FA 97.171
Keywords: Architecture (bridge); Cityscape; Travel photography: Europe, Britain, Cambridge

Born in England, William Henry Fox Talbot traveled widely, sat as a Member of Parliament, and was also an inventor. Among his many achievements, Fox Talbot invented the polarizing microscope, determined a method for measuring the distance between fixed stars, worked on the design of a linear motor, pioneered photo-engraving and, perhaps most important of all, invented the negative/positive process--the invention from which all photography now stems. Yet Fox Talbot was not only an inventor, but a thoughtful photographer whose aesthetically creative work has often been overshadowed by his technical discoveries. Fox Talbot's photographic subject matter is wide-ranging; however, the majority of his work was in the areas of portraiture and still life. He loved to photograph simple domestic items or things he would encounter on walks, for example St. John's Bridge, Cambridge. Like many early photographers, Fox Talbot was convinced that photography recorded an objective reality. -- Label copy for After Art: Rethinking 150 Years of Photography, December 4, 1994 to March 26,1995.

Between 1834 and 1850, William Henry Fox Talbot devised the first photographic process involving a negative, which was the basis for modern photographic technologies. Although he is noted for this technical innovation, he also had explicit artistic motivations for making photographs. Dissatisfied with his own ability to draw his preferred subjects—architectural forms and landscapes, Talbot set out to modify existing optical aids available to the draftsman by employing light-sensitive chemicals to fix the images produced. The devotion of Talbot and other early photographic innovators to pictorial conventions in painting led to the invention and popularization of the rectangular images, in one-point perspective.-- Label copy for The Photographic Impulse: Selections from the Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection, July 12 to November 10, 2002.