Professor Michelle Henning, Chair in Photography and Media in the Department of Communication and Media, is the author of a new book exploring the intertwined worlds of photography, Empire, weather, race, and climate.
Focussing on chemical photography in the interwar period, “A Dirty History of Photography: Chemistry, Fog and Empire” addresses how photographic practice was linked to British imperial ideas about weather, climate and racial superiority; photography’s dependence on coal; how the polluted atmosphere (fog) came to represent particular ideas about imperial London, and how at the same time, photographic materials had a sensitivity to atmospheric change and contamination that went beyond the sensitivities assigned to them by the industry.
Dependent on the extractive practices of fossil-fuelled industrial capitalism, chemical photography’s emulsions and films were highly sensitive to polluted atmospheres, and photographic companies had to work hard to control this sensitivity.
In her book, Michelle exposes the ways photography shaped how we see and understand the atmosphere while leaving its toxic residues in the air, soil, and water.
Discover ‘A Dirty History of Photography’ in Michelle’s own words
Following the publication of ‘A Dirty History of Photography’, Michelle has been out and about promoting the book and sharing her insights.
Coming up on 28 April 2026 is a book launch event at The Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, where Michelle will be in conversation with Sarah James, Professor of Visual Culture at Manchester School of Art. The event starts at 6pm and you can register your place here.
She also recently published an article in The Conversation, ‘How romanticised images of London fog shaped the way we see polluted air’, in which she explains the genesis of the book, and how the infamous London fogs left their mark of the photographic practices of the day.
Michelle was the guest of Miranda Melcher on the New Books Network, a recording of the show can be listened to here: