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A01=Anika Burgess
art history
Author_Anika Burgess
camera
Category=AGA
Category=AJ
Category=NHTB
Category=PDX
early photography
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
historic photos
history of film
invention of photography
photo collections
photographer gift
photography criticism
science of photography
Product details
- ISBN 9781324051107
- Weight: 589g
- Dimensions: 160 x 236mm
- Publication Date: 08 Jul 2025
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Today it’s routine to take photos from an aeroplane window, use a camera under the sea or gaze at an X-ray. But the innovations more than a century ago that made such things possible were incredible and sometimes dangerous, and the innovators often memorable eccentrics. In this absorbing mix of science, art and social history, Anika Burgess describes early aerial photography experiments with balloons, kites and pigeons; reveals how photographers first captured the surface of the moon, the bottom of the sea and the structure of snowflakes; recounts the race to photograph motion and how it led to moving pictures; and delves into photography’s social effects.
Richly illustrated and filled with fascinating tales, Flashes of Brilliance shows how the rise of a new art form transformed culture and our view of the world.
Anika Burgess is a photo editor and writer whose work has been published in the New York Times and Atlas Obscura. She lives in New York.
