The enduring image
In the commercial battle between digital and analogue photography, physics eventually prevailed. Here, Mike Ware reveals how chemistry shaped the history of photographic images
For 150 years, the science of chemistry and the art of photography have been entangled in a close relationship. A partnership that, according to a 1858 edition of the literary magazine Athenaeum, was not entirely equal: ’The artists go on boldly and are not afraid to be chemists; the chemists gain courage and long to be artists.’