July 22, 1999
LIBRARY/PHOTOGRAPHY THEN AND NOW
Imaging: From Daguerreotypes to Satellites
By TOM VANDERBILT
ne of technology's recurring effects is to offer new ways of seeing. In the 18th century, travelers used a mirror called a ""Claude glass"" to enhance the painterly aspects of what they saw as ideal landscapes. The stereoscope, invented in 1832 by the British scientist Charles Wheatstone, was an attempt to convey three-dimensional imagery using two lenses.
In the early 20th century, air travel led to aerial panoramas, used by military planners in World War I to map battlegrounds. Perhaps the most revelatory image of all was the first photographs of our planet from space. There was the Earth, truly seen, for the first time, as a single object.
Given that the Internet is becoming the dominant medium through which we ""see"" the world, it seems appropriate that it should also prove to be a storehouse for any number of previous and current technologies for seeing the world.
We cannot only view reproductions of stereographic images or turn-of-the-century panoramas; we can tap into one of the myriad satellites now orbiting Earth to get a personalized, localized version of a photo from space.
Geographically, the world is no smaller than before, but through the Internet -- the latest trompe l'oeil technological apparatus -- we make it seem so.
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Irving Underhill
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An early-20th-century view of the Brooklyn Bridge, from a collection that can be seen on the Library of Congress's American Memory Web site.
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Sometimes a computer image does not suffice, however, and there are qualities of texture and tactility that only printed photographs can offer. Fortunately for that, there are a number of sites that not only store a variety of photographs taken throughout the history of the medium but also allow the viewer to order reproductions.
Tom Vanderbilt is the author of The Sneaker Book: Anatomy of an Industry and an Icon.""