“Die Erotische Daguerreotypie” – Rainer Wick

Recently I acquired a book from Antiquariaat Stille which is called: Die Erotische Daguerreotypie. I’m normally not specifically interested in that sort of photography (I consider artistic nude one of the most overrated forms of photography E.V.E.R.) but that aside I thought this could be of interest seeing that it’s about genuine daguerreotypes dating from that era of photography and thus providing an interesting insight in the history of sexuality, even more so the depicting of sexuality, and ideal of beauty. An ideal that has underwent quite some changes. Raw naked beauty looked a lot more healthy those days 🙂

If you want to see what this book is about go out and find it. It’s interesting, also the prologue. I am willing to share with you however two images (the book gets a lot more explicit than this but I don’t find this blog the proper place to share them). A couple of things that stood out to me are that the desire of more than one female is of all times, or so it seems. Masturbation is too. Of course, of course you say, but we always think that we invented the ‘cool’ stuff but people were also real people in the 1800’s and, at least for me, when looking at these old stiff portraits of people from the dawn of photography, I tend to forget that at times. Keepers of Light has a wonderful piece about the language of photography which this does remind me of. Read it, it’s a must! And to think that in the Netherlands the sexual revolution took place no earlier than the sixties…I find that striking and funny. Also, think about the technical issues when making photos like these. As for the rest; let your own imagination take you places 🙂

P.s. I expect a lot more spam now after this post haha 🙂