Inquiring into the origins of photography as a simultaneous product and producer of modernity, the study aims at offering a decentred perspective gathered from two cities which, during the moment in question, could be considered peripheral to the great capitalist metropolises. Building on a critical exploration of the opus of two mid-nineteenth century photographers – Edmond Fierlants from Antwerp, and Militão Augusto de Azevedo from São Paulo – the study aims to provide a theoretical and methodological dialogue between the field of visual culture and philosophy, especially through a Benjaminian materialist perspective. The current research focuses on the nexus between photography, modernity, and the city.
The chapter concludes with the topic of death caused by the actions of paparazzo, as is portrayed in works by Leif Davidsen, Allan Russell, and Robert M. I describe how the photographer is portrayed in literature as the one who gets under the control of his or her apparatus and acts as a functionary of the machine that feeds on human images. I argue that the fictitious photographer plays the role of a trickster-psychopomp, as the click of the camera’s aperture often accompanies a dying person to the outer world. Such words as “trigger,” “aim,” and “shoot” are used by Ernest William Hornung, Victor Sawdon Pritchett, Margaret Atwood, and Anthony Horowitz to emphasize the danger of being photographed.
Special attention is given in this chapter to the linguistic analogy between a camera and a gun.
The photographer is often portrayed in literary fiction as the one who witnesses, records, or even causes death. The article presents various ways in which the character of the photographer has been linked to death in literature.
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