Documentare o costruire? La fotografia scientifica tra oggettività, manipolazione e dinamiche di potere

This essay examines the role of scientific photography between the 19th and 20th centuries as both an epistemic and social device, producing not only images but also categories of knowledge. Drawing on examples from the natural and human sciences, it explores the tensions between objectivity and cultural construction, artistic freedom and technical constraints, documentation and manipulation. Photography emerges as an ambivalent technology: a tool of evidence and classification, yet also a vehicle for gendered, colonial, and disciplinary hierarchies. By analyzing photographic practices, the essay reveals the interactions, power relations, and often invisible actors behind the images, urging a critical reconsideration of how science has shaped its visual imagination. Key words: scientific photography; objectivity; visual practices; colonialism