Talbot and the picturesque view: Henry, Caroline and Constance

Abstract

Any photograph of an actual scene obviously operates with the given properties of that scene, but, like any other representation, it also constructs an image upon the basis of overt and covert choices. Indeed, the very choice of a scene for the act of photography already involves clear predispositions towards subjects in general. A familiar and even vulgar predisposition lies behind the phenomenon of what we scathingly call ‘picture-postcard views’ which rely upon clichéd photographic subjects snapped from a stock viewpoint. Ken Josephson (figure 1) makes wittily ironic play upon the clichés and debased ‘realisms’ involved in such images. In origin, however, such clichés certainly did not arise within the province of the vulgar. Rather, in the era which saw the invention of photography, the ability to discern and represent picturesque topography was the sign of a cultivated person.