The before-and-after trope in photography has long paired images to represent change: whether affirmatively, as in the results of makeovers, social reforms or medical interventions, or negatively, in the destruction of the environment by the impacts of war or natural disasters.

This interdisciplinary multi-authored volume examines the central but almost unspoken position of before-and-after photography found in a wide range of contexts from the 19th century through to the present. Packed with case studies that explore the conceptual implications of these images, the book's rich...

The salted paper print process and the daguerreotype were invented, for all practical purposes, simultaneously. Though using different materials and methods (the salted paper print was patented, while daguerreotype was not) still both achieved the miracle of fixing an image from life within a substrate--in other words, they ushered in the medium of photography.

The uses of each form of photography varied greatly. In Europe the salted paper print was valued for its aesthetic qualities―the massing of light and the softening of detail--while in North America, the salted paper...

How do photographs compel belief and endow knowledge? To understand the impact of photography in a given era, we must study the adjacent forms of visual persuasion with which photographs compete and collaborate. In photography's early days, magic shows, scientific demonstrations, and philosophical games repeatedly put the visual credulity of the modern public to the test in ways that shaped, and were shaped by, the reality claims of photography. These venues invited viewers to judge the reliability of their own visual experiences. Photography resided at the center of a constellation of...