Bloomsbury A History of Light: The Idea of Photography

When was photography invented? In 1826 with the first permanent photograph? If we depart from the technologically oriented accounts and consider photography as a philosophical discourse an alternative history appears, one which examines the human impulse to reconstruct the photogogic or the evoking of light. The significance of the photagogic throughout the history of ideas is explored via the Platonic Dialogues, Iamblichus theurgic writings, and Marsilio Ficinos texts. This alternative history is not a replacement of other narratives of photographic history but rather offers a way of rethinking photographys ontological instability.