Thinking about what other media,or writing, or music could relate to the practice of photography led me to this,
accessed 24/09/16
"The Fighting Temaraire" painted by JMW Turner in 1839. We see HMS Temaraire, the hero of the battle of Trafalgar, being towed up the Thames for disposal and breaking up. Turner depicts her as a ghost. She is fading away before our eyes, already dead just waiting for burial. But could Turner have known this painting can also be seen as an allegory for the fate that would soon befall documentary painting?
At precisely the same time Turner was painting this masterpiece of naval allegory, Louis Daguerre was taking what was the first photograph believed to include people.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boulevard_du_Temple_by_Daguerre.jpg accessed 24/09/16
"Boulevard de Temple" a Dagguerrotype made in 1838, shows a street scene. Because of the lengthy exposure time needed, none of the traffic shows up. But we do see a man cleaning another mans shoes in the bottom left of the frame.
So what? my point is that within a quarter century of this picture being made, photography was documenting the world. The American Civil War (1861-1865) brought documentary photography truly into it's own.
So turner's painting serves as an allegory for itself to some extent, as documentary painting such as this was gradually fading away, just like HMS Temeraire, to be replaced by something more modern.
