Early War Photographs 50 Years of War Photographs from the Nineteenth Century

Boston, MA: New York Graphic Society. Near Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 1974. 1st Edition; 1st Printing. Hardcover. 0821206303 . B&W Illustrations; This book is in Near Fine condition and has a Near Fine dust jacket. The book and its contents are in clean, bright condition. The text pages are clean and bright. The dust jacket is crisp and clean. "With the invention of photography in the 1830s, the possibility of capturing the events of war to enhance public awareness was first explored. Although ideally photographers would have liked to accurately record the rapid action of combat, the technical insufficiency of early photographic equipment in recording movement made this impossible. The daguerreotype, an early form of photography that generated a single image using a silver-coated copper plate, took a very long time for the image to develop and could not be processed immediately. Since early photographers were not able to create images of moving subjects, they recorded more sedentary aspects of war, such as fortifications, soldiers, and land before and after battle along with the re-creation of action scenes. Similar to battle photography, portrait images of soldiers were also often staged. In order to produce a photograph, the subject had to be perfectly still for a matter of minutes, so they were posed to be comfortable and minimize movement. " (from Wikipedia) .