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[Published Nescio, 2010 Amsterdam] Limited edition of only 500 copies. From Hans Rooseboom, curator of photography at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, comes a finely researched, self-published monograph, "What's Wrong with Daguerre?" This 35-page treatise explores the historical record, familiarly noting that when Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre introduced his daguerreotype process in 1839, he was regarded as photography's principal inventor, but that it wasn't long before other innovators--notably Joseph- Nicéphore Niépce, William Henry Fox Talbot and Hippolyte Bayard--were viewed as rivals, sparking the "priority debate" about who was the rightful father of photography.With ample citations and clear comparative analysis, Rooseboom argues compellingly that Daguerre's problem (that is, the devaluation of his role and his process) has often been a matter of bias or nationalism on the part of photo-historians and others who, for example, view the daguerreotype as an instrument of commercialism and the calotype of Fox Talbot as a purer expression of photographic art.

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