History of Photography — Module 05: Photography, Science, and the Myth of Objectivity

In the nineteenth century, photography revolutionized science and social science by providing an empirical tool for documentation and discovery. Accepted as an objective recorder of truth, the camera allowed researchers to document medical achievements, geographic expanses, and ethnographic studies. However, this perceived objectivity frequently masked deep biases, cultural prejudices, and deliberate manipulations. Photographers like Thomas Barnardo and Jean-Martin Charcot staged their subjects to elicit specific emotional reactions or reinforce scientific falsehoods. Ultimately, photography expanded human knowledge while simultaneously codifying Western imperialism and prejudice, proving to be both a faithful mirror and a deceptive mask.

Photography as an Exploratory and Scientific Tool

  • Pre-photography: Prior to the camera, scientists and explorers relied on subjective paintings, drawings, and written travel accounts.

  • Geographic and Astronomical Documentation: Photography allowed researchers to "fix their finds". Pierre-Cesar Jules Janssen invented the "revolver camera," an early panoramic lens system used to sequentially record the transit of Venus. James Nasmyth constructed and photographed detailed plaster models of the moon to circumvent the limitations of telescopic photography.

  • Topographical Surveys: The U.S. Bureau of Ethnology was established to document Western terrain and the cultures of Native Americans before they "disappeared".

Documenting the Inner Life and Psychology

  • Guillaume Benjamin Duchenne de Boulogne: Applied electric currents to patients' facial muscles to systematically document dramatic emotional states in his 1862 book, Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine.

  • Charles Darwin: Relied on heavily edited medical photographs, commissioned theatrical poses, and infant portraits to prove that physical signs of emotion were universally shared across all species and cultures.

  • Jean-Martin Charcot: Documented psychiatric patients with hysteria at the La Salpêtrière hospital. Though he insisted his camera was a strict documentary tool, his subjects assumed highly theatrical, exaggerated poses.

Urban Poverty and Social Science

  • Henry Mayhew and Richard Beard: Commissioned daguerreotypes of the urban poor to create engravings for the seminal 1851 sociological survey, London Labour and the London Poor.

  • John Thomson: Collaborated on Street Life in London, dedicating his work to strict, objective, and unembellished documentary realism without a political agenda.

  • Thomas Barnardo: Contrasting with Thomson, Barnardo intentionally exaggerated poverty by posing children in torn clothes, creating highly manipulated "before-and-after" images to advertise his charities.

  • W. W. Hooper: Documented extreme human suffering to raise relief funds during the Madras famine.

Ethnography, Imperialism, and Bias

  • Anthropometric Systems: To standardize ethnographic comparison, Thomas Henry Huxley and John Lamprey mandated photographing nude subjects in front of portable silk-thread grids.

  • Orientalism: Western photographers commercially exploited non-Western subjects (particularly Middle Eastern and Asian women) by using specific costumes, props, and odalisque tropes to portray them as exotic, sexually passive, and timeless.

  • "Dying Cultures": Photography reinforced the prejudicial belief that indigenous populations lacked the strength to survive Western expansion, as seen in the 1866 "The Last of the Tasmanians" exhibition.

Photography in Daily Life and Systems

  • Photographic Intimacy: Writer Oliver Wendell Holmes envisioned a precursor to social media, where people formed deep connections entirely through the exchange of carefully staged self-portraits.

  • Legal and Organizational Systems: Law enforcement utilized photographic affidavits as courtroom evidence and proposed national identity cards to systematically organize visual data and prevent crime.

That tension between apparent objectivity and deliberate craft is still at the center of professional portrait photography. scottparkerphoto.com/headshots

Module 06:
Pictorialism and the Fine Art vs. Mass Media Divide