ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at gifts of the image between agents whose obligations in sentimental and political spheres of communication often shared common patterns. It considers the presentation of documentary reports, other ostentatious forms of communication that the modernization of print media gradually absorbed. The chapter explores what group associations implied for communicating the aims of photography and magnifying the enthusiasm to view and discusses photographs at unprecedented levels of visibility. The enormous success of many photography exhibitions also relied on the intimacy that newspaper journalists helped societies to foster with their public. Ulrich Keller has argued that sustaining the public presence of pictorial photography as both art movement and exhibition function relied on a fundamental paradox: leading pictorialists insisted on hanging their work in special sections separate from other exhibits that betrayed their association with an industry geared to mass consumption.
