critical and contextual
Camera Obscura
camera obscura /noun
1.a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object on to a screen inside, a forerunner of the modern camera.
1.a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object on to a screen inside, a forerunner of the modern camera.
The interest of wanting to take a photograph came from the desire to record a moment in time. The basic idea of a photograph is to freeze a moment in time. The first method of creating a photograph was created by Alhazen and it was called the 'camera obscura'.
A camera obscura is a dark room or box with a hole on the wall which allowed the image outside to be projected upside down in the room or box. |
In the Renaissance lots of artists used the camera obscura to their advantage to draw fine details and to draw perspective. however, this method still needed a a skilled artist to paint the projected image.
In 1834, Henry Fox Talbot created something called the Calotype process, this consisted in paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt solution. Talbot created positive images by contact printing onto another sheet of paper. This method would require a very long exposure which did not make it ideal for portraits as it would require for the person being photographed to stay very still for prolonged periods of time to avoid camera shake. However, the long exposure would not be a problem if a landscape had been photographed.
Louis Daguerre was both a chemist and an artist that worked at the same time as Tablot. Louis Daguerre made tbe daguerreotype in 1939. Each daguerreotype is a unique immage on a silver copper plate. This process would be carried out by producing direct positives on a silver coated copper plate. In contrast to photographic paper, the daguerreotype is not felicble and rather heavy. The daguerreotype is accurate, with sharp detail. The negative process allowed for multiple copies of the same image to be developed.
There were still two main problems of photography: one being that the photographer needed a whole dark room at the location of photo, the other being that to get a good photo you would have to stay still for up to two minutes. George Eastman developed dry plate photography. He creates the Eastman Kodak camera which contained a roll of celluloid negatives, it was smaller and cheaper than all the rest of the market which led to its popularity.
Daguerre won the battle of the most popular type of photography because the government made it freely available to the public.
The proce of owning a photlgraph rapidly dropped over tht next 60 years, allowing more people to own photographs.
In 1834, Henry Fox Talbot created something called the Calotype process, this consisted in paper soaked in silver chloride and fixed with a salt solution. Talbot created positive images by contact printing onto another sheet of paper. This method would require a very long exposure which did not make it ideal for portraits as it would require for the person being photographed to stay very still for prolonged periods of time to avoid camera shake. However, the long exposure would not be a problem if a landscape had been photographed.
Louis Daguerre was both a chemist and an artist that worked at the same time as Tablot. Louis Daguerre made tbe daguerreotype in 1939. Each daguerreotype is a unique immage on a silver copper plate. This process would be carried out by producing direct positives on a silver coated copper plate. In contrast to photographic paper, the daguerreotype is not felicble and rather heavy. The daguerreotype is accurate, with sharp detail. The negative process allowed for multiple copies of the same image to be developed.
There were still two main problems of photography: one being that the photographer needed a whole dark room at the location of photo, the other being that to get a good photo you would have to stay still for up to two minutes. George Eastman developed dry plate photography. He creates the Eastman Kodak camera which contained a roll of celluloid negatives, it was smaller and cheaper than all the rest of the market which led to its popularity.
Daguerre won the battle of the most popular type of photography because the government made it freely available to the public.
The proce of owning a photlgraph rapidly dropped over tht next 60 years, allowing more people to own photographs.
Pictoralism
Pictoralism is the name given to the artistic movement that started in the 1870s. Pictorialism is an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter and composition rather than the documentation of reality. The camera is seen more as a tool that, like a paintbrush was used to make a painting. The Pictioralists were concerned with beauty rather than facts. They wanted to capture emotion. Photographers wanted their work to be seen as a piece of art rather than just a scientific representation of the world. They tried to capture mood and atmosphere (similar to impressionists). It's a style in which the photographer has somehow manipulated what would otherwise be a straightforward photograph . This movement started in the late 19th century through the 20th century.
Photo Secession
Photo secession begins in New York in 1902. This started when people did not agree that photography was an art form so they decided to edit the image manually so that more skill would be required to make an image. This was a mechanical form of capturing images. Photographers manipulated the negatives and prints to approximate the effects of drawings and oil paintings. This was a manual form of distorting the image and editing reality.
Straight Photography
Straight photography emphasizes and engages the cameras own technical capability to produce images sharp in focus and rich in detail. The term refers to hptographs that are not manipulated in digital process. The maximisation of the graphic structure of the camera image is used instad of edits. The emphasis was on the frame of the Photo and the art depended on the eye of the photographer.
F/64
Group f/64 was a group founded by seven 20th-century in the San Francisco Bay Area. It started with photographers who promoted the sharp detailed, purist photography. They wanted to promote a new modernist aesthetic that was based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects. The name of the group refers to the smallest possible aperture of a large format camera, which gives very good resolution and depth of field.
Modernism
Modernism is a style more focused on more formal elements such as lines, form and space. As this style developed, it became more abstract. As this style became more popular, artists started to experiment with a range of different media. These artists used anything from objects, buildings, dust and even shadows. In this form of photography the camera was used as a tool. This style conflicted with the more popular, Pictorialist style that had dominated the medium for over 50 years. The art of photography was rejecting the artistic manipulations, soft focus, and painterly quality of Pictorialism and praising the straightforward, unadulterated images of modern life.
Constructivists
Artists started to share their thoughts, hopes and fears, of the modern world through photomontages as a way of constructing realities to reflect utopian and dystopian society.
Podsadecki, 'City Mill of Life', 1929
Kazimierz Podsadecki was a polish visual artist and painter born in Zabierzów, near Kraków in 1904. He was interested in photomontage and experimental films. He was born in Zabierzów near Kraków in 1904.
His photomontages were considered examples of 'catastrophism', which was a popular trend in the culture of the 1920s and 1930s.
His work illustrated his views towards the progress and the development of technology, but above all the subject of war, often depicted as an apocalyptic vision of the future.
His photomontages were considered examples of 'catastrophism', which was a popular trend in the culture of the 1920s and 1930s.
His work illustrated his views towards the progress and the development of technology, but above all the subject of war, often depicted as an apocalyptic vision of the future.
The City In Photography
Photography of the city began in the late 18th century to the early 19th century. Before this, it was not possible to capture moving people due to the only methods of photography would have required people to stay very still for prolonged periods of time.
However, this was starting to change. The change happened in Paris in the early 1860s by the photographer Charles Marville who documented the city's transformation from medieval archiecture to modern metropolis. As technology advanced, it gave the possibility to capture what a real city looked like, not just the buildings, but now the people as well. This opened a much wider category of photography known as 'street photography'.
City photography is very unique as it is almost impossible to find the exact same scenario twice.
However, this was starting to change. The change happened in Paris in the early 1860s by the photographer Charles Marville who documented the city's transformation from medieval archiecture to modern metropolis. As technology advanced, it gave the possibility to capture what a real city looked like, not just the buildings, but now the people as well. This opened a much wider category of photography known as 'street photography'.
City photography is very unique as it is almost impossible to find the exact same scenario twice.
This is a photo of the Nelson's Column in 1843 by Henry Fox Talbot. This picture represents the early photography of the city. In this photo, the city has been represented by its 'central icons' rather than the people. Street photography captures the city's habitants, the chaos and clutter, however, this was not possible to document at the time.
'In the Daguerre and Tablots early citys crapes keep the city at a distance and in the most part the city remains invisible and anonymous' -Fortismere Weebly. |
Poverty
Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis was born May 3, 1849 in Ribe, Denmark. American newspaper reporter and photographer.
Jacob Riis migrated in to the USA with $40. Like the hundreds of thousands of other immigrants who fled to New York in pursuit of a better life, Riis was forced to live in one of the city’s notoriously cramped and disease-ridden tenements until he was employed as a newspaper reporter.
In his job, he was faced with documenting the life he knew all too well, he used his writing as a means to expose the poverty of immigrants. Eventually, he decided to teach himself photography as a way of more accurately portraying the poverty.
Jacob Riis was born May 3, 1849 in Ribe, Denmark. American newspaper reporter and photographer.
Jacob Riis migrated in to the USA with $40. Like the hundreds of thousands of other immigrants who fled to New York in pursuit of a better life, Riis was forced to live in one of the city’s notoriously cramped and disease-ridden tenements until he was employed as a newspaper reporter.
In his job, he was faced with documenting the life he knew all too well, he used his writing as a means to expose the poverty of immigrants. Eventually, he decided to teach himself photography as a way of more accurately portraying the poverty.