Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros2Actualité de la rechercheInternational conference: “Blinde...

Actualité de la recherche

International conference: “Blinded by Light, Just to see: Flashes and Revelations”

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Université Paris Cité, October 17-18, 2024
Lauren Pankin et Ariane Dudych

Entrées d’index

Haut de page

Texte intégral

1This international conference was organized by Éliane de Larminat and Daniel Foliard (Université Paris Cité), Éléonore Challine (Paris I and Société française de photographie), Paul-Louis Roubert (Paris 8 and Société française de photographie), Manuel Charpy (INVisu laboratory, CNRS-INHA) and Flora Triebel (BnF). The conference explored the technical aspects, aesthetic implications, and social contexts of flash to reveal its historical and cultural impacts.

2Sara Dominici (Senior Lecturer, University of Westminster) gave a keynote address that argued for the points of convergence between two moments of flash in late 19th-century photography: the magnesium flash and the flash of the appearance of the latent image in dark room development. Dominici drew upon American textual sources to show that both of these flashes intervened in the ephemerality of the photographic encounter. The magnesium flash dazzled audiences, forming the first part of a spectacle that necessarily concluded the “flashing up” of the developed image, a moment in which mental projections of how the image could look collided with the image’s realization. This flash in the darkroom informed contemporary visual culture as photographers fixed image in matter as much as in memory.

3The first panel, titled “Flash: History and Counter-History,” was moderated by Kate Flint (Professor, University of Southern California), the author of the most comprehensive history of flash, entitled Flash!: Photography, Writing, and Surprising Illumination (Oxford University Press, 2017). Drawing upon post-colonial and feminist approaches, these panels brought to light marginalized, overlooked, or presumed aspects of flash, thus disrupting a simplistic and hegemonic history of photography.

4Nikharika Dinkar (Associate Professor, Boise State University) traced the imperial and industrial histories of flash photography by focusing on its materiality. From pyrotechnic Bengal light to Moule’s photogen, Dinkar argued that the European development of flash photography depended upon colonial trade and power relations that made saltpeter, a chemical compound mined by the lowest castes in India, one of the most abundant and accessible materials in 19th-century England.

5Shannon Perich (Curator, Photographic History Collection, Smithsonian) used museum objects to read flash as an insidious technique of violence inscribed in a larger history of photographic violence. From the searing and blinding intensity of the flash light to the trauma of a flashbulb memory, Perich detailed how flash can inflict physical and psychological harm upon exposed subjects as well as photographers burned by their own explosions. Perich included a list of English words with violent connotations commonly used in photography, leading to a broader audience discussion that questioned how different languages’ vocabularies of photography impact a multiplicity of visual cultures.

6Giulia Paoletti (Assistant Professor, University of Virginia) argued for a decolonial vision of flash that gives precedence to Africa’s pre-colonial and post-colonial histories of writing with light. Paoletti centered on the Senegalese word “xoymet,” which as both verb and noun, refers to a cluster of concepts related to a flash-like optical temporality and fluctuating intensity in which viewers will see, and then not see. From a Saint Louis tradition in which brides borrow and arrange the photographs of friends and family in a brief and dazzling display to the quick dipping of fabric in dye, the many aspects of this “xoymet” flash disrupt Eurocentric histories and Cartesian perspectives on flash photography.

7Laura Wexler (Professor, Yale University) contextualized photographs taken by pioneering feminist photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) of Mammoth Cave. Wexler decentralized the role of the singular photographer by placing Johnston’s photographs in relation to other actors, including her friend and Kodak founder George Eastman (1864-1932), the Cave’s black tour guides formerly enslaved there as miners, and hotel staff. Wexler emphasized the collaborative experience of photographic production, which Johnston used as a gendered performance to highlight the possibilities for women in photography.

8The second panel, titled “The Flash as Commodity: Workers, Inventors, Consumers” and moderated by Carolin Görgen (HDEA, Sorbonne Université), featured papers that engaged with inventions, innovations, uses, and commodification of flash photography, from 19th-century saltpeter mines to ubiquitous contemporary point-and-shoots.

9Monica Bravo (Assistant Professor, Princeton University) used the example of mercury mines in New Almaden, California, to illustrate how mining was central to the use of flash photography in the American West, both as a chemical substance extracted from the mines and as a subject of images. Bravo complicated the picturesque images of Western mining by showing how flash photographs of managers and miners occlude class, ethnic, and power divisions. By examining the photographs of miners that were taken in the context of investigations of voter fraud in a contested election, Bravo demonstrated the possibility of reading against the photographic grain.

10Stéphanie Barbier (PhD, HICSA, Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne) presented the inventions and writings of Dimitri Rebikoff (1921-1997), the French inventor of the electronic flash, or Eclatron. From its invention in 1947, the Eclatron was extensively used in underwater photography in collaboration with divers like Jacques Cousteau. Barbier drew upon Rebikoff’s unique illustrated manuals, which not only displayed the evolution of the technology in subsequent reprints, but also included the inventor’s utopian projects for flash photography. Such designs, including a bumper camera that would automatically snap a flash photo in the event of a car accident, reveal Rebikoff’s accurate prediction that flash photography would become an integral part of daily life by the year 2000.

11Michael Pritchard (Independent Scholar, The Royal Photographic Society) studied the commercial development of flash photography through its use by commercial, amateur, and snapshot photographers throughout the 20th century. While early flash was almost exclusively used by commercial photographers, as flash technology and aesthetics changed over time, amateur photographers and in overwhelming proportions, snapshotters, used a variety of flash products. Pritchard explained how marketing campaigns changed photographic habits. Notably, flash cameras were sold as a means of photographing in winter and of snapshotting friends and family at indoor gatherings. The pairing of flash with color cameras contributed to the technology’s ubiquity since the mid-19th century.

12The first day of the conference concluded with a panel entitled “Powder, Lightings and Smokes,” moderated by Éléonore Challine (HICSA, Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne).

13Denis Bernard (Professor, CEHTA, EHESS) explored the intersection of practices and imaginaries by examining the technologies of flash and their applications in the early 20th century. Bernard discussed the ruptures caused by a new understanding of instantaneity that could fragment movement through space and time. Contrary to the overt use of flash to abruptly alter perception, flash was often subtly integrated through hybrid fixed and flash lighting, along with the strategic placement of reflector screens. Bernard’s paper pinpointed a major concern for flash photography studies: that it is often difficult to know if a photo was taken by flash. Far from an accident, this ambiguity was an aesthetic and technical choice.

14Isabelle Lynch (PhD candidate, University of Pennsylvania) studied the use of magnesium flash in Mammoth Cave, one of the foremost American tourist destinations in the 19th century. Focusing on the mission of Charles Waldack (1829-1882) to photograph the cave in 1866, Lynch proved that such expeditions were dangerous and expensive, requiring significant preparation and resources. Easily thwarted by smoke and the danger of a flammable environment, such photographic missions depended upon a network of people beyond the photographer to succeed, notably black guides who narrativized deep time and helped to illuminate the cave, drawing upon their intimate knowledge of the caves from their time as enslaved miners during the American Civil War. Photographers staged scenes within the caves, turning them into theatrical spaces and creating a sense of wonder and exploration. The resulting photographs aimed to bring the cave’s otherworldly darkness to the public, transforming it into a theatrical spectacle.

15Zsuzsanna Szegedy-Maszák (Curator, Hungarian National Museum) focused on the early photography of Transylvania’s Zichy Cave, particularly the work of Gusztáv Stein (1858–1932). Stein, an amateur photographer and nature enthusiast, used magnesium flash to illuminate the cave’s subterranean depths. To produce images for geological study, Stein worked against the flattening effects of flash by carefully manipulating hand-held light sources. Having been provided with 3D glasses, the audience was able to see how Stein’s hand-held lighting technique was complemented by a stereoscopic format that revealed the relief and depth of the cave’s unique formations. Stein’s photographs were not only visually appealing but also served as valuable scientific documentation.

16The second day of the conference began with a fourth panel entitled “Stage, backstage,” chaired by Paul-Louis Roubert (EPHA, Université Paris 8). Focusing on photographs of dance and theater, this panel interrogated links between performance, representation, movement, and spectatorship.

17Arnaud Rykner (Professor, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) delved into the pioneering work of Paul Boyer (1861-1908), a French photographer who played a fundamental role in developing the use of magnesium flash in theater photography. Before Boyer, photographing performances and the theater itself was challenging or impossible, due not only to poor lighting conditions but also to legal injunctions on explosive in one of the most flammable sites of the 19th century. Drawing upon the writings of photographer and flash practitioner Albert Londe (1858-1917), Rykner argued that the development of flash photography was influenced by the need to protect photographers and actors from the real dangers of burns, smoke inhalation, and eye damage.

18Colette Morel (ATER, Université Grenoble-Alpes) explored the practice of behind-the-scenes photographs of performers’ dressing rooms, a scene that was a staple of the late 19th-century erotic imagination. The visual allure of these intimate dressing rooms incited photographers to surmount the realities of their dark and cramped conditions. Photographers like Achille Lemoine and Louis Delamare used not only the technique of magnesium flash but also their social skills as theater regulars to provide this voyeuristic view. Drawing upon sources including photo-montages and tableaux vivants, Morel showed how the fantasy of the theater was perpetuated and circulated through photography.

19Meghan Angelos (PhD candidate, University of Delaware) argued that the introduction of flash photography had a significant impact on dance photography, allowing photographers to capture the dynamic movement of dancers in a way that was previously impossible. Angelos traced the history of dance photography from early, static poses to dynamic, expressive images. The development of flash technology enabled photographers to freeze motion and capture the nuances of dance. Comparing the photographs of Morgan and Mili, Angelos demonstrated the conjunction of aesthetic vision and technical skill in two different approaches to dance photography, the former using the synchroflash capturing a shape in the flow of time, and the latter using a stroboscopic system to slice motion into composite parts.

20In the next panel, titled “Photogenics and visual experiments” and chaired by Flora Triebel (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), speakers illustrated how lighting and flash techniques are harnessed by photographers to revolutionize ways of seeing.

21Julien Faure-Conorton (Research and scientific promotion for collections, Musée Albert Kahn) explored the use of artificial lighting in the pictorialist movement, which sought to elevate photography to the status of fine art by emulating painting. Conorton studied the works of Constant Puyo (1857-1933), a champion of artificial light techniques in the Paris Photo Club, who pioneered the use of bright light as part of a scene’s narrative, particularly in his sensual scenes of women posed with lamps. While more sporadic in his use of flash, Robert Demachy (1859–1936) used the technique in combination with techniques such as toning to achieve a painterly effect. These pictorialist photographers and others shared their knowledge of artificial lighting and its techniques through articles, exhibitions, and workshops and inspired subsequent generations of photographers.

22Allison Pappas (Independent Historian and Curator of Photography) juxtaposed the photographs of László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) and Harold Edgerton (1903-1990) to expose the dialogue between the two, who met and exchanged prints, and whose works were often in conversation on the walls of museum exhibitions and catalogues. Although Moholy-Nagy created mechanical art while Edgerton produced scientific photography, both photographers sought to extend the range of physiological perception. In the context of contemporary psychological theories such as Gibson’s adaptive nature of perception, the photographers used flash to prepare viewers for modernity by de-naturalizing their regular ways of viewing and conditioning them to new modes of seeing. Aerial photography provided one form of this new vision. As Gibson’s studies in an aviation psychology program revealed insights into an extended capacity for human perception, Moholy-Nagy and Edgerton experimented with aerial photography. Despite their utopian objectives, the works of both photographers to de-naturalize vision were subsequently applied in military uses.

23Cole Robertson (PhD, Royal College of Art) explored the relationship between light, form, and perception, with a focus on the role of flash in shaping the visual field. By comparing composition to the child’s games of cutting, carving, and coloring, Robertson studied how several artists, including Andy Warhol, Garry Winogrand, and Benoît Paillé, have used flash as a structural and tonal element of their art. Flash may be used to cut out figures from their backgrounds, creating a sense of depth and dimensionality. Conversely, flash and other lighting techniques can be used to blend figures into their surroundings, creating a more seamless and ambiguous image. Robertson reminded the audience that although flash is commonly associated with negative emotions such as shock, the use of flash can lead to artistic creation and a joyful photographic encounter.

24Lauren Pankin (PhD Candidate, Université Paris Cité) brought to light early 20th-century ethnographic photographer Charles Géniaux’s use of flash to expose the interiors of Breton farms. In his photographically illustrated book La Vieille France qui s’en va (1903), Géniaux used flash visually and textually to depict the farm interior as an archaeological site that, once unearthed, serves as a portal to a lost past and thus as the authentic soul of the nation. Compared to the idyllic naturalism of similar scenes taken in natural light by contemporaries like Emile Frechon, Géniaux’s flash photographs flatten their human subjects and treat them as vernacular elements within the room. This photographic treatment evokes the arrangement of mannequins in period rooms intended to represent Breton rural life at the Trocadéro ethnographic museum. Despite the originality of Géniaux’s photographs, they incarnate a common bourgeois vision of Brittany as the bastion of a vanishing race, which can account for the adaptation of many of these photographs into postcards for mass circulation.

25Myles Little (Manager, Exhibitions Outreach at Curatorial) exposed Bruce Davidson’s subway series taken in the gritty New York of the 1970s. Little illustrated how Davidson used flash to exaggerate the nightmarish ambiance of graffiti-stained train cars and to represent passengers as dehumanized chattel. Drawing upon Davidson’s writings and interactions with New York survivors, Little argued that the photographer’s works of this period were created with the express intention of drawing parallels to the visual horrors of the Holocaust. Historical trauma is brought forth in Davidson’s use of flash, as the garish colors, strong shadows and uncanny reflections reveal both the intimate and the inhuman lurking in a New York mediatized as a wasteland of rolling blackouts, destitution, and violent crime.

26Yechen Zhao (Assistant Curator, Art Institute of Chicago) examined contemporary Chinese photographers Liu Zheng and Feng Li to challenge the Western-centric history of electrification typically used in analyzing flash photography. He argues that Liu Zheng’s photographs of workers in the 1990s throughout China creates a network of meaning that mirrors the complex dynamics of electrification in the country. Building on this regional and political analytical lens, Zhao analyzed how the visual symbols of the Cultural Revolution are taken up and distorted by Zheng and Li. Specifically, the “red, bright and shiny” cultural aesthetic associated with the period is evoked through the use of flash in already illuminated areas.

27The conference concluded with a panel moderated by Audrey Sands (Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Photographs, National Gallery of Art) that responded to an underlying theme of the conference, namely, the ethics of flash photography. In their individual presentations and subsequent discussions, Zeynep Devrim Gürsel (Associate Professor, Rutgers University), Marvin Heiferman (Writer and curator) and Thy Phu (Professor, University of Toronto) discussed the dual nature of a medium that can both illuminate and exploit, revealing hidden truths but also potentially invading privacy and violating human dignity. Gürsel insisted that an ethics of flash photography must be based upon an expanded temporal understanding of photography that takes into account moments before, during, and after—even many decades or centuries after—the photograph is taken. Phu drew upon photographs of war illuminated by bright flares and rockets to illustrate the fraught relationship between the desire to see and the forces that can make such visibility fleeting, precarious, and even cruel. Heiferman provided an overview of several ethically ambiguous uses of flash, including the reception of Nan Goldin’s photographs as alternately dehumanizing and joyfully intimate. Turning to the contemporary moment, the panelists debated the future of flash, touching upon both its promise, in the case of imaging black holes, as well as its pitfalls, as in the possible deployment of surveillance technology that would allow law enforcement to “see” around corners. While flash photography is traditionally equated with the power to shine light on things otherwise unseeable, the panelists pointed to a future in which flash and flash-adjacent technologies allow us to see without light, thus revolutionizing the relationship between flash, light, and visibility.

Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Lauren Pankin et Ariane Dudych, « International conference: “Blinded by Light, Just to see: Flashes and Revelations” »Transatlantica [En ligne], 2 | 2024, mis en ligne le 01 décembre 2024, consulté le 09 février 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/24264 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/134h1

Haut de page

Auteurs

Lauren Pankin

LARCA/ICT (Université Paris Cité)

Ariane Dudych

LARCA (Université Paris Cité)

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search