ABSTRACT
In the 1880s, photomechanical printing processes were developed that allowed photographs to be reproduced in the press without the intermediary of an engraver. These methods meant the photograph’s grayscale could be accurately reproduced, and this chapter examines a case study of this technology’s use – a photographic interview with the scientist Eugène Chevreul, published in Le Journal illustré on 5 September 1886 which developed a unique strategy: a carefully orchestrated combination of photography and words, with the latter appearing as a direct transcription of the scientist’s words as obtained during the interview process. “For the first time,” Nadar said, “the reader is going to be the spectator, as if he were actually present.” An analysis of the interview reveals not only Nadar’s illustrative methods, but also the venture’s experimental character. But although photography was already playing a decisive role in journalism at the time, neither photographers, printers, nor even readers would accept it as a valid journalistic approach until the late nineteenth century. Nadar’s reportage also reveals the adjustments that were necessary to the effective communication of news through photographs.
