Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre may be the official father of photography, but William Henry Fox Talbot, Cambridge graduate, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and amateur archeologist, is the true father of modern photography. In 1840, Talbot invented the positive-negative process that permits endless reproductions, the same technique still used today. Traces of Light magnificently reproduces hundreds of his early photographic work, images that capture the shapes of fleeting, mysterious, everyday things such as flowers, leaves, feathers, and most especially lace. Also included are scholarly essays that explore Talbot's growth as an artist, his technical achievements, his near obsession with lace, and his relevance to the contemporary state of things.