“Curiouser and curiouser.”

–          Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1864

In addition to his curiously odd writings, Lewis Carroll, the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodson, was also a successful wet-plate collodion photographer who shared the 19^th century’s taste for the sensuous and the fantastic.  The discovery and development of photography corresponded with the rise of the Romantic age, an expressive reaction to the rationalization of science and the hard edge of industry. Evocations of wonder and awe and the wild spirit of nature were intended to break free of the confines of rational thought. Romanticism heralded the value of myths and folklore and the untamed imagination of medieval thought. That which cannot be proved should still be possible.

While in its earliest development, photography was the purview of chemists and opticians, the camera was considered in popular culture more akin to a magic box. Illusions made material through some alchemical spell that few could understand. To the romantics, illusion was a phenomenon that proved that not all was as it seems; that the artful was not necessarily artificial.  Photography was but the latest iteration of a series of 19^th century optical gadgets from magic lanterns to dioramas, zoetropes, phenakistoscopes and phantasmagorias that sought to allow an audience to marvel at an image. The “miracle” of photography was not only in its science but had more to do with its power to astonish. Then, as now, the popular imagination was keen to be amazed.

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© Barry Dumka/BCREATIVE CONSULTING