Photography: The effects of media In 1840, Edgar Allan Poe wrote about the invention that first brought us photography: the Daguerréotype. He was very excited about the possibilities that were opening up thanks to this new technology: The instrument itself must undoubtedly be regarded as the most important, and perhaps the most extraordinary triumph of modern science. The results of the invention cannot, even remotely, be seen—but all experience, in matters of philosophical discovery, teaches us that, in such discovery, it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate most largely. It is a theorem almost demonstrated, that the consequences of any new scientific invention will, at the present day exceed, by very much, the wildest expectations of the most imaginative. In this blog, I will share ideas about the influence of photography as a technology by exploring the four effects of media as described by Marshall McLuhan (in Laws of Media ): enhancement, obsolescence, reversal and...