A Prescient Observation From The Dawn Of Photography

View of the Boulevard du Temple, 1838, generally accepted as the first photograph to include people.

More than 150 years ago, in 1859, when the photographic process was still in its infancy, author and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an article in The Atlantic Monthly called “The Stereoscope and The Stereograph”. In this article, which considered the impact of photography on society, Holmes predicted:

“Every conceivable object of Nature and Art will soon scale off its surface for us. Men will hunt all curious, beautiful, grand objects, as they hunt the cattle in South America, for their skins and leave the carcasses as of little worth.”

Sadly, Holmes’ insight couldn’t be more true today. As the exchange of images grows through ecommerce and social media platforms, the physical world around us, including the Earth itself, continues to fall into neglect and disrepair.

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