The idea that at some point photography’s place in society was still up in the air is kind of funny to me. In 2022, photographs emerge as a byproduct of living. Digital cameras are ubiquitous to the point where we often take photographs and record videos on an impulse because we simply can. So to read a section where photography is discussed as a diverse set of physical and chemical processes for scientific application speaks to an understanding of the practice that just feels alien to me. It’s one where the technology is diverse but the medium’s language isn’t, and the agency of the photographer is closer to the agency of an MRI technician.
In some sense, I found all of the techniques mentioned in the reading interesting because the applications of scientific imaging approaches seem novel to me, and I’d probably enjoy exploring ways to process/warp the physical materials involved. But in another sense, none of them interest me, because I’m not too interested in physical media that’s not easily accessible.