"Given its ambitious and groundbreaking scope, Burning with Desire is bound to become the touchstone for any further consideration of the topic of photography's invention." -- Douglas R. Nickel, Assistant Curator of Photography, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 
In an 1828 letter to his partner, Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre wrote, "I am burning with desire to see your experiments from nature." In this book, Geoffrey Batchen analyzes the desire to photograph as it emerged within the philosophical and scientific milieus that preceded the actual invention of photography. Recent accounts of photography's identity tend to divide between the postmodern view that all identity is determined by context and a formalist effort to define the fundamental characteristics of photography as a medium. Batchen critiques both approaches by way of a detailed discussion of photography's conception in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In this refiguring of the traditional story of photography's origins, Batchen examines the output of the various nominees for "first photographer," then incorporates this information into a mode of historical criticism informed by the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The result is a way of thinking about photography that persuasively accords with the medium's undeniable conceptual, political, and historical complexity.

Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography

Arts & Photography

Batchen, Geoffrey

Photography & Video

MIT Press]

In Each Wild Idea, Geoffrey Batchen explores a wide range of photographic subjects, from the timing of the medium's invention to the various implications of cyberculture. Along the way, he reflects on contemporary art photography, the role of the vernacular in photography's history, and the Australianness of Australian photography. The essays all focus on a consideration of specific photographs—from a humble combination of baby photos and bronzed booties to a masterwork by Alfred Stieglitz. Although Batchen views each photograph within the context of broader social and political forces, he also engages its own distinctive formal attributes. In short, he sees photography as something that is simultaneously material and cultural. In an effort to evoke the lived experience of history, he frequently relies on sheer description as the mode of analysis, insisting that we look right at—rather than beyond—the photograph being discussed. A constant theme throughout the book is the question of photography's past, present, and future identity.

Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History

Mit Pr

In an 1828 letter to his partner, Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre wrote, "I am burning with desire to see your experiments from nature." In this book, Geoffrey Batchen analyzes the desire to photograph as it emerged within the philosophical and scientific milieus that preceded the actual invention of photography. Recent accounts of photography's identity tend to divide between the postmodern view that all identity is determined by context and a formalist effort to define the fundamental characteristics of photography as a medium. Batchen critiques both approaches by way of a detailed discussion of photography's conception in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He examines the output of the various nominees for "first photographer," then incorporates this information into a mode of historical criticism informed by the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The result is a way of thinking about photography that persuasively accords with the medium's undeniable conceptual, political, and historical complexity.

The MIT Press

Essays on photography and the medium's history and evolving identity.
In Each Wild Idea, Geoffrey Batchen explores a wide range of photographic subjects, from the timing of the medium's invention to the various implications of cyberculture. Along the way, he reflects on contemporary art photography, the role of the vernacular in photography's history, and the Australianness of Australian photography. The essays all focus on a consideration of specific photographs―from a humble combination of baby photos and bronzed booties to a masterwork by Alfred Stieglitz. Although Batchen views each photograph within the context of broader social and political forces, he also engages its own distinctive formal attributes. In short, he sees photography as something that is simultaneously material and cultural. In an effort to evoke the lived experience of history, he frequently relies on sheer description as the mode of analysis, insisting that we look right at―rather than beyond―the photograph being discussed. A constant theme throughout the book is the question of photography's past, present, and future identity.

Fashion

Negative/Positive: A History of Photography

As its title suggests, Negative/Positive begins with the negative, a foundational element of analog photography that is nonetheless usually ignored, and uses this to tell a representative, rather than comprehensive, history of the medium. 
The fact that a photograph is split between negative and positive manifestations means that its identity is always simultaneously divided and multiplied. The interaction of these two components was often spread out over time and space and could involve more than one person, giving photography the capacity to produce multiple copies of a given image and for that image to have many different looks, sizes and makers. This book traces these complications for canonical images by such figures as William Henry Fox Talbot, Kusakabe Kimbei, Dorothea Lange, Man Ray, Seydou Keïta, Richard Avedon, and Andreas Gursky. But it also considers a number of related issues crucial to any understanding of photography, from the business practices of professional photographers to the repetition of pose and setting that is so central to certain familiar photographic genres. Ranging from the daguerreotype to the digital image, the end result is a kind of little history of photography, partial and episodic, but no less significant a rendition of the photographic experience for being so. 
This book represents a summation of Batchen’s work to date, making it be essential reading for students and scholars of photography and for all those interested in the history of the medium

Routledge

William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77) is widely considered to be the father of modern photography, having developed the process by which photographic images could be reproduced. However, he has yet to be sufficiently appreciated as a photographer in his own right. Over the course of his photographic career, he has made more than 5,000 images that include fascinating pictures of his home, Lacock Abbey, portraits of family and friends, and still lifes of botanical specimens, cloth, and household objects. A key intellectual figure of the nineteenth century in science, mathematics, astronomy, politics, and archaeology, Talbot is arguably the most important figure in the invention of photography. His practice established many of the medium's most familiar genres. Talbot was devoted to the advancement of photography, publishing the first photographically illustrated book, The Pencil of Nature (1844-46), which revealed the potential of the medium to a wider audience. This new monograph features many of Talbot's best-known landscapes made around Lacock Abbey and some of the first negatives ever made. It also includes lesser-known and previously unpublished work that reveals the extraordinarily diverse scope of his work. His photographs reflect and embody the social and cultural issues of the time, but they are also fascinating, often beautiful images that are still as engaging today as they were nearly 200 years ago.

William Henry Fox Talbot

History

Phaidon Press

A significant and extensive book on a major new body of work by the American artist Taryn Simon. Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, I–XVIII was produced over a four-year period (2008–2011), during which Simon travelled the world researching and recording bloodlines and their related stories. In each of the eighteen "chapters" that make up the work, the external forces of territory, power, circumstance, or religion collide with the internal forces of psychological and physical inheritance. Her subjects feuding families in Brazil, victims of genocide in Bosnia, the first woman to hijack an aircraft, and the living dead in India. Her collection is at once cohesive and arbitrary, mapping the relationships among chance, blood, and other components of fate. This volume accompanies the exhibitions at Tate Modern, London (May 2011), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (September 2011), and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (May–September 2012).

Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, I-XVIII

Bhabha, Homi

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Gagosian / Rizzoli

Metamorphoses: Photography in the Electronic Age presents a compelling selection of the finest images produced through the integration of computers and photography, art and technology. The emerging field of digital imaging is already changing the world we live in and the way we look at pictures. In its examination of how some of today's leading artists create, alter, layer, and enhance photographs using the latest techniques, Metamorphoses: Photography in the Electronic Age depicts a medium in transition, offering a startling look at the present and potential future impact of new technologies on photography. Essays focus on such topics as montage, digital museums, virtual reality (including an e-mail interview with Brenda Laurel), and "photographic truth." A feature on Nash Editions, established by musician and artist Graham Nash, unveils the work of some of today's most innovative artists using the Iris ink-jet printing system. Featuring works by Barbara Kasten, Peter Campus, David Byrne, Pedro Meyer, and many others, Metamorphoses: Photography in the Electronic Age asks readers to rethink the role of photography in modern life.

Metamorphoses: Photography in the Electronic Age (APERTURE)

Aperture

An engaging and provocative account of photography's first commercial applications in England and their global implications. This book addresses a persistent gap in the study of photography's history, moving beyond an appreciation of single breakthrough works to consider the photographic image's newfound reproducibility and capacity for circulation through newsprint and other media in the nineteenth century.

Apparitions: Photography and Dissemination

Power Publications, Sydney

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Batchen, Geoffrey. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Batchen, Geoffrey

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Batchen, Geoffrey. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography

Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History

Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography

Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History

Negative/Positive: A History of Photography

Negative/Positive: A History of Photography

William Henry Fox Talbot

Taryn Simon: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, I-XVIII

Metamorphoses: Photography in the Electronic Age (APERTURE)

Apparitions: Photography and Dissemination