In praise of the lesser- known photographer

The London-based dealer Michael Hoppen has been collecting photographs documenting crime scenes, zoological specimens and scientific explorations for more than a decade. “I saw a wonderful show about eugenics, The Beautiful and the Damned, curated by Roger Hargreaves at the National Portrait Gallery many years ago,” he says. “I suddenly realised there was an area of photography that I hadn’t really considered before and it was science. When a photographer is documenting a crime scene or a science project, the compositional side of images, aesthetic considerations, all of that gets turned on its head. That is interesting.”