In the beginning...

A new book examines the work of photography legend William Henry Fox Talbot. Amy Davies talks to the author Geoffrey Batchen to find out more

- Geoffrey Batchen

If you know even just a smattering of photographic history, you’ll be aware of William Henry Fox Talbot. Generally regarded as the inventor of photography – in British history at least – Fox Talbot was an interesting character. In this new book, compiled from extensive archive material held at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library, we learn that rather than it being a single act in a moment, photography was in fact a medium that Fox Talbot continued to reinvent throughout his life.

The new book, Inventing Photography, takes a look at Talbot’s work, organising it by themes, rather than chronologically, to get a more holistic overview of his motivations – including the competing Daguerreotype process that came out of France at the same time.

To get a better insight into Fox Talbot’s life and work that went into the book, I asked the author, Geoffrey Batchen, Professor of History of Art at the University of Oxford, to explain more.

AP: This is not your first book about Talbot – what about him do you find so interesting?