As anybody having even briefly studied the history of photography will know by now, the mechanical technology of producing still images as a discursive, cognitive, and epistemological field is probably more contradictory than even the fields of painting and sculpture have ever been.

Pretty much.

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “Allan Sekula, or What Is Photography?,” Grey Room (April 1, 2014): 119, https://doi.org/10.1162/GREY_a_00139.