The Evolution of Photography With a Chronological Record of Discoveries, Inventions, Etc., Contributions to Photographic Literature, and Personal Reminescences Extending — Edition Insights

A Voice Between Cataloguer and Raconteur

Werge's prose alternates between two distinct registers. In the chronological sections, he compresses discoveries into terse entries: names, dates, inventions. But when he shifts to reminiscence, the sentences lengthen and become anecdotal. A striking example occurs in his description of descending the Longue Sault Rapids on the St. Lawrence River. He compares the boat's motion to riding a spavined horse down a hill, then relates a fellow passenger's story of a Highlander who, seasick on the Firth of Forth, shouted at the helmsman to stop tickling the beast's tail. This digression—complete with dialogue and dialect—is far from the language of a technical manual. It reveals Werge as a storyteller who values humour and sensory detail, even when the subject is ostensibly travel, not photography.

Pace as a Structural Device

The book's pace mirrors its content. The chronological record moves in quick, factual steps—each entry a discrete unit. But the reminiscence sections slow the reader down, expanding into descriptive passages that linger on scenes and sensations. In the rapids episode, Werge builds tension through repetition: the river-men straining their eyes, the cry of 'There they are,' the gradual approach. He then halts the action to analyse the sensation, rejecting simple comparisons (sea-sickness, a ship's roll) in favour of the spavined horse. This deliberate change of pace—from rapid listing to patient observation—enacts the very evolution he describes: photography, too, alternated between sudden breakthroughs and long periods of refinement.

Recurring Motifs: Light, Water, and the Unphotographed

Throughout the excerpts, Werge returns to images of light and water, often in contexts where photography is absent. On the raft drifting down the St. Lawrence, he notes the clean clothes drying in the sun and breeze, the 'many-coloured garments' giving the raft a gay appearance 'as if it were decked with the flags of all nations.' Yet he immediately regrets he could not 'catch their shadows' or stop for an hour's work with the camera. This lament—a photographer's reflex—recurs in the preface, where he mentions Niépce's early pictures once at the British Museum but now lost. The motif of the unphotographed moment, the missed or vanished image, subtly underscores the book's theme: photography's evolution is also a history of what was not preserved.

Readers will find that Werge's hybrid approach rewards attention to his shifts in tone and tempo. The chronological tables serve as a skeleton, but the flesh of the book lies in its digressions—the jokes, the landscapes, the regrets. Treat the reminiscences not as mere colour but as evidence of how one early photographer understood his medium's place in a world still learning to see through the lens.

Some books sit with you like a patient friend, and Werge’s old photographs felt that way—each page a quiet witness to time passing. It reminded me of how homes hold their own histories, room by room. I found myself thinking of Woodward's Country Homes — A Closer Reading, where walls seem to breathe the same gentle stillness. Neither rushes; both simply let you stay awhile.