Publisher's Synopsis
The essays in this elegant volume investigate the early history of the medium when the ambiguities inherent in the photograph were ardently debated. Focusing on the French photographers who worked with paper negatives, especially the key figures Édouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, and Charles Nègre, Real/Ideal explores photography's status as either fine art or industrial product (or both), its repertoire of subject matter, its ideological functions, and even the ever-experimental photographic process itself.