Monday, 6 August 2012

After William Henry Fox Talbot's 'The Open Door' (1844)



Consider this
Something of a mystery;
I've just been invited
To teach photo-history.

The invite was really
Terribly formal.
Polite: a far cry
From the cursory normal.

But, it's just for a day,
And, they're happy to pay
To hear what it is
That I might have to say

On Roland Barthes.

Mais, oui. C'est vrai.

My own place of work
Would like to conjecture
If I'd care to give
A theory guest-lecture.

Of course, I declined.
It no longer seems right.
To remove
The dark-cloth;
Come into the light.

To move
From the dark-room
Into the sun. Forget
Camera Lucida
It's over. I'm done.

Heliotherapy failed;
The shadows are cast.
While in pursuit of
The punctum,
I got lost in the past.


Images from:  Sale, C (1959) The Specialist, London: Putnam & Co Ltd


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