Daguerreotype with Jerry Spagnoli 2025

Jerry Spagnoli On The Daguerreotype

(excerpt from: Photography Beyond Technique. edited by Tim Persinger, Focal Press 2014)

When photography was first introduced in 1839, it was hailed as a great tool for science. It was thought that at last there was a reliable, neutral reporter on everything under the sun. e possibility that it was a medium for art came later. Photography’s rst talent was thought to be its objectivity, its ability to present the facts. The photographic image, was considered free from the intervention of the artist. It was thought to be empirical and reliable. Created automatically, by a machine, it was free of the inevitable distortions found in the work of the human hand (and mind).

What I’ve found since I saw my first daguerreotype is that the content of the work I’ve produced can increasingly be found within the materials and methods I utilize and the medium’s relationship to the world. It’s at that point where the functional metaphors of the work are operating. The subjects of my images are straight-forward documents, but are nuanced to a greater or lesser extent by the medium’s own ways of perceiving the world.

Photography, for me, is a mechanical demonstration of consciousness, with all its limitations and richness. It is this historical reputation for objective reporting that I use as a starting point when considering how to approach a project, and which photographic technology to employ. I think that it is perfectly obvious that objectivity is a condition which is impossible to achieve. We are the products of innumerable impressions. Our schooling shapes us. Our talents and de cits turn us in particular directions. Even our senses have been demonstrated by science to be limited severely when it comes to conveying all of the various stimuli that bombard us throughout the day. Even with all of those points well understood, we all persist in believing that we have a grasp on the objective truth of our situation. our relationship with the world can best be described as fuid.

Our knowledge and understanding of the situations that we encounter is constantly shining and changing as new information is received and as our appreciation of the complexities of particular circumstances develops. At some point you may reach the conclusion that the only thing you can know for sure is that you can’t know anything for sure. In this world of flux and uncertainty stands photography, freezing moments, and allowing us to examine the information contained in a fragment of time from a particular point of view.