Developing Fluid: Precision, Vagueness and Gustave Le Gray’s Photographic Beachscapes

In 1856, Gustave Le Gray’s photographs were included in the fourth annual exhibition of the Photographic Society in London. They caused an immediate sensation. La Revue photographique observed: ‘This time, Le Gray has gone beyond the limits of what could be achieved’. Taking as a starting point Philip Hamerton’s famous claim that photography ‘is not capable of giving two truths at once’, this chapter investigates Le Gray’s repeated depiction of sea and sky in order to suggest a coastal photography that was technically and thematically at home with limits, thresholds and margins.