John Adams Whipple, The Moon, August 6, 1851, daguerreotype, 3 1/2 x 2 3/4 inches.There was a small cluster of these little framed moons at SFMOMA when I visited yesterday, along with some of the first photographs taken through a microscope (of mites, fleas, spiders, and such). What I like about these two sets of photographs (the miniature and the gigantic) is their physical proximity in size. Though the subjects and settings are obviously different - one group is shown in petri dishes, the other in outer space - the photographic paper (or silver coated copper plate) they are printed on doesn't exceed 4 or 5 square inches. This is a size that is easy to hold, and a fitting one, considering the fact that human beings are responsible for these particular breaches in scale.
The exhibition was called Brought To Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840 - 1900.
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