In his cartoon La Daguerreotypomanie (1839), Théodore Maurisset
shows how the industrialization of photography and its mass
availability transformed people’s lives in Paris. The camera has
turned the city into a spectacle that is simultaneously being
captured by it. Maurisset’s image suggests that from then on
“life will never be the same.” The engravers are hanging from
the gallows—they might as well—and their tools, inks, pens and
paper, are thrown on the ground on the front right side of the
picture. The train in the back is carrying cameras in place of
its cars, horses are loaded with them, people are schlepping
them on carts and everywhere itinerant photographers have set up
their tripods. There is a group of people dancing around a large
smoking camera. Businesses have all put cameras on their
rooftops, balloons are flying over the city taking photographs,
and loads of cameras are being shipped overseas. The city is has
become a set that is posing for the cameras, everything and
everyone is waiting to b