Principles of description :
The cataloguing principles used have been specially established to describe the history and stigmaof positive photographic prints, not the images as referenced by their negative numbers.
When an old photographic print leaves a library or an attic, or a simple documentary record entersa collection or a museum; the way we look at it changes at the same time, this is what we seek todescribe. The description accompanying a photograph signifies and transforms its meaning.
Each of our descriptions begins with an author's name, thus emphasizing the artistic nature of photography.
A bas-relief collodion photographed by Bayard is a Bayard, the portrait of Cartier-Bresson
by Beaumont Newhall is a Beaumont Newhall.
Since the advent of photography, world history can be seen as more synchronous; the prosperousperiods of nations correspond to the golden ages of photography, the wars and revolutions coincidewith the technological and sociological changes of the medium
