Interrogating the Photograph as Object by Roger Watson and Grant Romer

Roger Watson is currently curator of the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock in the UK. He has previously been the Assistant Director of Museum Studies at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. and has consulted for the Science Museum and the Guildhall Library, London and for Christie's Auction House in New York and London. In 1997, he discovered the first photographs made in Canada, which were also the first views of Niagara Falls. He is coauthor of Capturing the Light, a comparative biography of Talbot and Daguerre, and a Daguerreian Society member since 1991. Romer is recognized as a world authority on early photography, particularly the history, practice, and conservation of the daguerreotype. He has written and lectured extensively on many other aspects of photographic history. In 1976, he joined the staff of the George Eastman House, becoming its Conservator of Photography in 1989. He served as curator for many exhibitions while at Eastman House, most notably, "Young America: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes." The Daguerreian Society awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. He has also advised many of the world’s most important institutional photographic collections. In 2014, Romer and Ariadna Cervera Xicotencatl founded the Academy of Archaic Imaging, dedicated to exploring the history of the application of technology to depicting visual experience. Presented on June 13, 2020.