: Early photographs in the 1830s and 1840s were notoriously unstable and would often fade into a uniform monochrome when exposed to the very light required to see them.
Albers uses several artistic examples to highlight how visibility is often conditional: The Night Albums: Visibility and the Ephemeral ...
Contrary to the traditional view of photography as the "art of fixing a shadow" for eternity, Albers argues that —the quality of being fleeting or short-lived—is actually a foundational condition of the medium. : Early photographs in the 1830s and 1840s