Capturing the Light Quotes

“The wish to capture evanescent reflections, is not only impossible, as has been shown by thorough German Investigation, but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no man-made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God should have abandoned His eternal principles, and allowed a Frenchman in Paris to give to the world an invention of the Devil”
― Helen Rappaport, Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry

“On 6 January 1839 the Gazette de France made the momentous announcement of Louis Daguerre’s discovery of a photographic process,”
― Helen Rappaport, Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry

“In truth”
― Roger Watson, Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry

“this quotation can in fact be traced to an 1874 book – Les merveilles de la photographie – by the French chemist Gaston Tissandier. Whether myth or hyperbole, the statement certainly encapsulates both the sense of wonder and the professional and creative anxieties expressed by many in the artistic community when they saw a photograph for the first time. Certainly the first broadside in the whole artistic debate over photography’s potential ascendancy over”
― Roger Watson, Capturing the Light: A Story of Genius, Rivalry and the Birth of Photography

“photographers at the time often rubbed their fingers with solid lumps of cyanide to remove silver nitrate stains.”
― Helen Rappaport, Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, a True Story of Genius and Rivalry