substance of those beings that we grasp in words, then Joyce 
may well have meant that the photo was a new creation from 
nothing (ab-nihil ), or even a reduction of creation to a 
photographic negative. If there is, indeed, a terrible nihilism in 
the photo and a substitution of shadows for substance, then 
we are surely not the worse for knowing it. The technology of 
the photo is an extension of our own being and can be 
withdrawn from circulation like any other technology if we 
decide that it is virulent. But amputation of such extensions  of 
our physical being calls for as much knowledge and skill as are 
prerequisite to any other physical amputation.

     If the phonetic alphabet was a technical means of 
severing  the spoken word from its aspects of sound and 
gesture, the photograph and its development in the movie 
restored  gesture to the human technology of recording