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Inventing Nadar
A History of Photographic Firsts
Series: Sign, Storage, Transmission
Brief Description
Félix Nadar took the first aerial photograph in 1858, so the story goes. The evidence, Emily Doucet notes, is mixed. In Inventing Nadar, Doucet analyses the historical and material production of the nineteenth-century Parisian photographer’s famous and numerous photographic firsts. Focusing on these oft-labelled groundbreaking elements...
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See moreTracking the nineteenth-century photographer Félix Nadar's many claims to technical priority, Inventing Nadar examines the photographic first as a cultural and material process that has shaped the history of photography.
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Description
Félix Nadar took the first aerial photograph in 1858, so the story goes. The evidence, Emily Doucet notes, is mixed.
In Inventing Nadar, Doucet analyses the historical and material production of the nineteenth-century Parisian photographer’s famous and numerous photographic firsts. Focusing on these oft-labelled groundbreaking elements of his career, she deconstructs Nadar’s legacy as a prime protagonist in the history of photography by interrogating the media techniques used to construct his invention narratives.
Doucet highlights this highly mediated process as one that canonised novel applications of photography as discrete techniques with single authors and inventors. Looking to this process of mediation through the institutions and individuals that shaped Nadar’s archives, Doucet unpacks assumptions of Nadar as a master of early photography and shows how the medium is enmeshed in larger histories of media, science, and technology.
The result is both a new account of Nadar’s place in photographic history and a critical study of how stories of innovation take shape.
Series: Sign, Storage, Transmission
View all-
Inventing Nadar
Félix Nadar took the first aerial photograph in 1858, so the story goes. The evidence, Emily Doucet notes, is mixed. In Inventing Nadar, Doucet analyzes the historical and material production of the nineteenth-century Parisian photographer’s famous and numerous photographic firsts. Focusing on these oft-labeled groundbreaking elements of his career, she deconstructs Nadar’s legacy as a prime protagonist in the history...Hardback$34900Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
Inventing Nadar
Félix Nadar took the first aerial photograph in 1858, so the story goes. The evidence, Emily Doucet notes, is mixed. In Inventing Nadar, Doucet analyses the historical and material production of the nineteenth-century Parisian photographer’s famous and numerous photographic firsts. Focusing on these oft-labelled groundbreaking elements of his career, she deconstructs Nadar’s legacy as a prime protagonist in the history...Paperback$10100Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781478038634
Publisher: Duke University Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 21 April 2026
Country: United States
Imprint: Duke University Press
Illustration: 45 illustrations
Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 445g
Pages: 238
About the Author
Emily Doucet is a historian of photography and visual culture. She publishes widely in both scholarly and popular venues.
Also by Emily Doucet
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Inventing Nadar
Félix Nadar took the first aerial photograph in 1858, so the story goes. The evidence, Emily Doucet notes, is mixed. In Inventing Nadar, Doucet analyzes the historical and material production of the nineteenth-century Parisian photographer’s famous and numerous photographic firsts. Focusing on these oft-labeled groundbreaking elements of his career, she deconstructs Nadar’s legacy as a prime protagonist in the history...Hardback$34900Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks
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