Carol Armstrong - A Scene In A Library

the text speaks about Talbots desire to show us the real world things, but then also to tell us about what the photographs, and what photography itself could represent - in talking about Talbots' mothers bonnets - p94. he uses the title to do this, this is an early example of how photography relates to text, often photography needs text to contextualise it

i didnt realise how much of an effect his mother and women around him in his life had an effect on him. i guess i was imagining a victorian inventor, the classic image, strong and masculine and unweilding and unfriendly, prone to rivalry and jealousy, this image i think was further embedded in my head by his rivalry with the other inventors of the time all concurrently trying to work on photography and release its invention to the public first

"Moreover, it shifts attention away from the feminine associations and scenic qualities of library photographs such as that depicting his sister Horatia's harp next to the library's real shelves, which directly implies the intersection between feminine accomplishments and the masculine retreat of the library." "Instead, it limits itself to a strict focus on the contents of the librray and the gentlemanly learning that they index" p94

"In this regard, it is telling that the most feminine and fanciful photographs that Talbot made were excluded from The Pencil of Nature's gentleman-scientist's purview, leaving the hint of romance to a bit of lace here and a verbal suggestion there, so that they become traces to follow, a trail of fragments to piece together, clues to pursue" p94

This quote is a key for me to understand all great photography, the first master of photography was weaving into his work just a hint of something other than the scientist orientated photographs his audience primarily was. All great photography that followed has had some measure of this, it tells the real world thing, the plain thing in-front of the camera, but then it has layers beneath it, to be discovered with scrutiny.
They key word 'traces', as photography is a trace of the world, the photographs have traces of something more than the ordinary. The are the beginning of story-telling, narrative, imagination and fiction in photography.


Articles of glass - "These items have a kind of dram in the unanswered questions they pose regarding their relation to one another and their reasons for being there. Moreover, the light and shadow that fall on therm through the open window seem as much at issue, as much a part of the photograph's air of suspense, as the objects are in their incomplete visibility." p93

Talking about talbots photographs of his books in the library 'books in disarray'- "Intervening in the ordered world of the library, collection-catalogue and inventory, then, is the fanciful principle of artistic composition" p96
he is ordering the world, but also creating something new of the world. the picture is about looking but not about reading, for the books are shown, are not legible, so one can imagine reading, but not read at all themselves as the books are illegible - again its about this idea of imagination and storytelling.
"whereas, in A Scene in a Library, looking leads to reading - the optical scanning of its visual contents causes that imperceptible cognitive switch to the linguistic scrutiny of the spines to see which are legible and what they index and then to the imagining of what lies between the covers, which we mostly cannot see, of the books whose bindings we can see" p96
maybe t counter what i said this quote says how the picture inspires imagination, but i would argue, because so much is already handed to you, you already know what the books are, you dont need to wonder what sort of books are in his library, what he has been reading, maybe if you dont know the books you can wonder what sort of text is in them, but i think you can do so much more in the other picture of 'books in disarray'


"in sum i would argue that talbot chose  a scene in a library rather than all the other photographs that were available to him, because he wanted to emphasise the bookishness of the book in which he placed it" p96
here we have another stroke of genuis, it is the photobook, a book that refernces being a book, like the great photbooks - a book of photographs, a book with photographs in it

lol i just got it - photography comes from nature - that is why one must photograph nature. photography was born from draftsmans tools, a tool that they would use to draw with, to then use this new tool to draw nature, like a pencil is tool, the natural light is a tool, the paper is a tool, the subject must be of nature too, to be pencilled onto the paper. in some way the chemicals come from nature, as all are mare of atoms, made in the dying of a star billions of years ago. to photograph anything we are really always photographing the past, not the present