An Infinite Number of Leaflike Skins

How Nadar captured Paris from above, below, and within

The new technology made Honore Balzac nervous. He told his friends that photography was robbing its subjects of their life force:

According to Balzac's theory, all physical bodies are made up entirely of layers of ghostlike images, an infinite number of leaflike skins laid one on top of the other. Since Balzac believed man was incapable of making somethi…