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which especially in real-time we fail to fathom. Aftermaths devolve, resolving into
an identity that cannot be identified, yet remains intact in the image. Rendered easily conquered, fenced, grazed, extracted, codified, then suburbanized. It happened
by dint of sheer bad luck, unstoppable hiker enthusiasm following a National
Geographic magazine story on the North Cascades in August 1949 (Vol. 96, No. 2),
and it has happened thousands of other times, everywhere.
Man created in God’s image: a paradox plaguing technical process, spiritual
reckoning, the many fallacies of memory, prediction, and exploitation. All the
antique photographs, nameless, placeless, studio arrangements, or random capture
of motion-in-motion. The history of photography is one more dramatic prelude,
another “starting point,” as Aristotle described the metaphysical impulse, in
Fig. 27.1 “The Valley, from Eagle Peak, Yosemite,” Underwood & Underwood 1902, The
Wonders of the Yosemite Valley, and of California, Boston and New York, 1872. (Private Collection)
27 The Metaphysics of Photography
which especially in real-time we fail to fathom. Aftermaths devolve, resolving into
an identity that cannot be identified, yet remains intact in the image. Rendered easily conquered, fenced, grazed, extracted, codified, then suburbanized. It happened
by dint of sheer bad luck, unstoppable hiker enthusiasm following a National
Geographic magazine story on the North Cascades in August 1949 (Vol. 96, No. 2),
and it has happened thousands of other times, everywhere.
Man created in God’s image: a paradox plaguing technical process, spiritual
reckoning, the many fallacies of memory, prediction, and exploitation. All the
antique photographs, nameless, placeless, studio arrangements, or random capture
of motion-in-motion. The history of photography is one more dramatic prelude,
another “starting point,” as Aristotle described the metaphysical impulse, in
Fig. 27.1 “The Valley, from Eagle Peak, Yosemite,” Underwood & Underwood 1902, The
Wonders of the Yosemite Valley, and of California, Boston and New York, 1872. (Private Collection)
27 The Metaphysics of Photography