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Life

Review: Darwin's Camera by Phillip Prodger

By Ewen Callaway

24 June 2009

Gallery: Darwin’s camera: How photography met evolution

FEW scientific fields have escaped the influence of Charles Darwin, from anthropology and geology to zoology and, of course, evolutionary biology. Now we ought to add photography to the list, argues Phillip Prodger, a curator at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, in his revealing new book.

Darwin’s influence on art is surprising; most of his published works included few images, and he showed little aptitude for art. On the Origin of Species contains just one illustration, a “tree of life” with all the composition of a stick figure. Indeed, the…

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