Editing Francis Galton (section)

===Composite photography===
Galton also devised a technique called "[[composite portrait]]ure" (produced by superimposing multiple photographic portraits of individuals' faces registered on their eyes) to create an average face (see [[averageness]]). In the 1990s, a hundred years after his discovery, much psychological research has examined the [[Physical attractiveness|attractiveness]] of these faces, an aspect that Galton had remarked on in his original lecture. Others, including [[Sigmund Freud]] in his work on dreams, picked up Galton's suggestion that these composites might represent a useful metaphor for an [[Ideal type]] or a [[concept]] of a "[[natural kind]]" (see [[Eleanor Rosch]])—such as Jewish men, criminals, patients with tuberculosis, etc.—onto the same photographic plate, thereby yielding a blended whole, or "composite", that he hoped could generalise the facial appearance of his subject into an "average" or "central type".{{sfn|Galton|1883|p=}}{{sfn|Galton|1878|pp=132–142}} (See also entry ''Modern physiognomy'' under [[Physiognomy]]).

This work began in the 1880s while the Jewish scholar [[Joseph Jacobs]] studied anthropology and statistics with Francis Galton. Jacobs asked Galton to create a composite photograph of a Jewish type.{{sfn|Novak|2008|p=100}} One of Jacobs' first publications that used Galton's composite imagery was "The Jewish Type, and Galton's Composite Photographs", ''Photographic News'', 29, (24 April 1885): 268–269.

Galton hoped his technique would aid medical diagnosis, and even criminology through the identification of typical criminal faces. However, his technique did not prove useful and fell into disuse, although after much work on it including by photographers [[Lewis Hine]] and [[John L. Lovell]] and [[Arthur Batut]].