Writing a dirty history of photography: An interview with Michelle Henning

This interview was conducted by Andrew Fisher and Simon Constantine in the spring of 2026 and focuses on Henning’s recent book A Dirty History of Photography (University of Chicago Press, 2026), which rethinks the history of photography in terms of the development of the chemical industries and mineral extraction, early twentieth-century material from the Ilford company archives, the poetics of atmosphere and intertwined economic and colonial impact of coal tar extraction. Henning constructs a constellatory historical investigation into how these intertwined factors combine to inform our understanding of the ongoing environmental impact of chemical-based photographies. The interview focuses, in particular, on the methodological approach and the theoretical framing of these timely critical concerns.