Seeing Photographically: Reading Rejlander’s “Apology”

Abstract

The subject of this essay is a little known text by the photographer Oscar G. Rejlander (1813–1875) titled “An Apology for Art-Photography” published in 1863. The article argues that the “Apology” renders visible a mode of seeing that Celia Lury terms “seeing photographically.” “Seeing photographically” is the means or medium through which Rejlander came to see and fashion his self as a photographer. A reading of Freud’s “R is my Uncle” dream from The Interpretation of Dreams provides an analogical and analytical lever with which to open and expand Lury’s insight into the optics of seeing photographically. The article concludes with a reading of Rejlander’s Two Ways of Life of 1856. It argues that this photograph can be read as what I call, following W.J.T. Mitchell, a metaphotograph of the nineteenth-century photographer imaged as a divided figure emerging against the culturally contested backdrop of early photography.

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Notes on contributors

Jonathan Fardy

Jonathan Fardy, PhD, is an Instructor at the Ontario College of Art and Design University.