One of the features of photography in the nineteenth century that resonates most strikingly with our own time is the complexity and precariousness of photography as a business. In photographys earliest years, as in our own time, converting skill with and passion for the medium into an ongoing moneymaking endeavor proved a challenge. However, events in the mediums early years paved the way for the development of photography as a profession, as something which could be a career. For this assignment, I would like you to cast yourself in the role of a photographer from this era and describe your career as a practitioner of the medium.
Begin with this question: if you were to imagine yourself as a photographer in the nineteenth century, what kind of a photographer would you be, and how would you contrive to earn a living from the medium? Would you open a portrait studio, or join a geological expedition? Would you use your skill with the camera to produce serious scientific documents or to dupe the public with faked pictures of ghosts, fairies, or spirits? Would you take images of faraway wars in hopes of arousing commercial interest back home? Or, would you decide to undertake the most difficult task of all: to convince a skeptical public that this medium could produce works of art that might rival those made by painters or sculptors. However you chose to employ your camera, how would you earn a living from the pictures you produced? How would you create a market for your work or cater to an existing one?
Research the careers of notable photographers of the type that interest you. Use this research to flesh out your own hypothetical, wholly imagined nineteenth-century photographic career.
You can decide to write this paper in a number of ways. It can take the form of a traditional research paper, or you can choose to be more creative in your composition. For example, you might craft your essay as a kind of hypothetical business prospectus, or in the form of a how-to manual, or as an autobiography. Feel free to be creative. I only expect the paper to be thoroughly researched and carefully written.
Chicago/Turabian documentation style, using footnotes.
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