Time Machines Exist — They Are Called Photographs
by Guest Author · Peta PixelThe concept of a time machine was first described by H.G. Wells in his book The Time Machine in the year 1895. That was 57 years after Louis Daguerre invented his photographic technique, the daguerreotype.
Boulevard du Temple is the first known photograph of a human. The exposure time for this photograph was determined to be between four and five minutes. Way too long for the people walking on the busy street to be captured in this early photographic process. But one person did hold still, the man in the lower left-hand corner. He was having his shoes shined and held still long enough for the photograph to render him.
This photograph is a wonderful example of the power of photography. It allows us to look back in time and to see things as if we were there. Nobody reading this article today was around 187 years ago. But Daguerre’s photograph allows us to see this scene as if we were standing right beside him while the exposure was made. We can imagine walking down the hill from his perched vantage-point and shaking the hand of the man with the newly shined shoes.
How else can we recall the past? Our memories are very fleeting and become more inaccurate as time passes. Oral history will not suffice because there can be gaps in knowledge and information, and with these gaps, all is lost. The written word offers us a glimpse into the past but somehow falls short. A writer or poet could have been sitting next to Daguerre and his rudimentary box camera and documented this moment in time with paper and pen. Even if that writer was William Shakespeare himself, his words could not deliver the “picture” we need to imagine that day. It seems obvious that this written account of the busy city scene, no matter how eloquently written, would fall short. Only a photographic process can take us there. It allows us to travel back in time.
“A picture is worth a thousand words” is a phrase that has been translated into many languages. It speaks to the power of photography and its ability to convey multiple ideas and concepts in a single still image. A proper photograph can convey meaning and essence more effectively than a mere verbal description.
Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with saying, “A good sketch is better than a long speech”. Napoleon may have made dire mistakes in his life, but this surely was not one of them.
During Lincoln’s inaugural address, he stated, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory… will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature”.
This passage addresses the collective memory of Americans, and what better way to jar our memory and to recall the past than with a photograph? Looking at the Inauguration photograph, you can almost hear the sounds of the crowd, feel the weight of the occasion, and put yourself in that place on this very important day in our country’s history.
Now let’s look at another photograph that would change the world for the better or for the worse. This photograph of the first nuclear test above ground would crystallize in the psyche of mankind the power of this new technology. Less than a month later, on August 6th, 1945, the bombing of Hiroshima would demonstrate this destructive weapon to the world. The Manhattan Project allowed the United States to end World War 2 and bring a period of peace to humanity, but at what cost?
The Japanese government would quickly surrender, and the Cold War would be ushered in. One could ask: if all we had to rely on was a written account, would humanity have taken this threat so seriously? These photographs serve as a stark reminder decades later about the dangers of nuclear weapon proliferation. Children all over the world would practice getting under their desks at school to protect themselves from a potential blast. It was these photographs that would not lie to us about what was in store if we ever used these weapons again.
The next major photographs to capture the imagination of the world were the first photographs taken from the Moon’s surface. An estimated 650 million people worldwide watched the Apollo 11 moon landing on television, making it the most-watched television event in history. Remember, this was at a time when not every household owned a television.
If you remember, Eadweard Muybridge would give us the very first movie ever made in 1878. He used 16 different dry plate cameras to capture photographs in real time and then sequenced them together to bring the world the “motion” picture. Even to this day, all videos consist of multiple frames (photographs) captured in real time. Film is nothing more than sequenced photographs at a specific frame rate.
Our final historical record or photograph is from nearly a quarter of a century ago, but it is in the minds of everyone living today. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center are one of the most significant events in our lifetime. There were many photographs taken on that day. Some showed the towers on fire, and many more showed the aftermath after they fell. One tragic photograph is called “The Falling Man,” and it was taken by Richard Drew for the Associated Press. Photographs taken from afar do not tell the tale of the loss of life as this photo does. It was close-up, it was personal, and we could all imagine the decision that this man made. It lingers as much today as it did over two decades ago. This is the power of photography, this is why photography matters.
In a world where fewer photographs are printed, we may lose a large portion of our present-day history. Digital photographic files (i.e., TIFF or JPG) are very difficult to get 10 years into the future, let alone 100. Fundamental changes in digital file formats will make accessing files in the future difficult. Changes in the hardware that captures and stores our digital photographs will also be significantly different in the future from today. If we lose a large portion of our photographs, we will hinder our ability to see who we were in the past.
It would not be prudent to write an article in 2025 about photography without briefly discussing Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and the wave of fake imagery that is washing over the world. There are, on average, 34 million images made every day with this technology. This imagery has been shown to confuse people in the present day. From deepfakes to online scams, A.I. is showing itself to be a real problem when it comes to our history and our shared reality. Images of animals that do not exist, images of places that do not exist, misinformation about nature and science, and false imagery of celebrities are everywhere.
It is becoming harder to determine what is real and what is an illusion created by A.I. We as humans need to find a way to make sure that reality and the truth are protected, fostered, and coveted. If photographs are a time machine to the past, A.I. imagery is a time machine to nowhere. A visual misrepresentation that will cloud and confuse what was. Is this how we want to be portrayed? A generation of people who fell for the deceit and lies? Is A.I. not just 21st-century snake oil?
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The more you know about the past, the better you are prepared for the future.” If photographs are actually time machines, we need to do all that we can to preserve and covet them for the generations that will follow us. Leaving a road map back in time to understand the people who came before seems like a noble cause. So, the next time you take a photograph that “matters”, take a moment to print it off and write the details on the back. You never know who will be using this photographic record to be informed of the past so that they can make sense of the present day.
About the author: Shane Balkowitsch is a wet plate collodion photographer. He has been practicing for over a decade the historic process given to the world by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. He does not own a digital camera, and analog is all that he knows. He has original plates at 107 museums around the globe, including the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford, and the Royal Photographic Society in the United Kingdom. He is a professor of photography at Bismarck State College and teaches a bespoke course on wet plate collodion photography. He is constantly promoting the merits of analog photography to anyone who listens. His life’s work is “Northern Plains Native Americans: A Modern Wet Plate Perspective,” a journey to capture 1,000 Native Americans in the present day in the historic process from 1851.