History of photography study guide part 2
The mid-1960s and early-1970s became the “golden-age” of Street Photography when the likes of the Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander allowed their own sassy personalities to impinge on the images of their subjects. Photographer Joel Meyerowitz completed this new dynamic by raising the status of colour, hitherto thought of as somewhat artless and vulgar, to a new level of credibility.
Possibly the most important street photographer of all, the Swiss-American Robert Frank, raised the status of the snapshot to art and his influence was to enthuse the next generation of American photographers.
Typically, a is used to the light reflected or emitted from objects into a real image on the light-sensitive surface inside a during a timed . With an electronic image sensor, this produces an at each , which is and stored in a for subsequent display or processing. The result with is an invisible , which is later chemically into a visible image, either or , depending on the purpose of the photographic material and the method of . A negative image on film is traditionally used to photographically create a positive image on a paper base, known as a , either by using an or by .
The history of photography in other countries
Photography is the , application, and practice of creating by recording , either electronically by means of an , or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as . It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing (e.g., ), and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, and , recreational purposes, hobby, and . A person who captures or takes photographs is called a .
Some of the key approaches of modern photography are unique to the medium whilst others align with wider art movements such as Dada and surrealism.
The cyanotype was one of the earliest photographic processes and with its rich, blue color, remains one of the most beautiful. Invented in 1842 by the amazingly prolific Sir John Herschel, the easy-to-produce cyanotype lives on today in the darkrooms of many photographers and artists.
Although modern photography does not start until the beginning of the 20th century, earlier photographic innovations provide a technological and contextual framework for later developments and are important in understanding the stylistic changes of the period.
Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine
In 1727 the German professor of anatomy Johann Heinrich Schulze proved that the darkening of salts, a phenomenon known since the 16th century and possibly earlier, was caused by light and not heat. He demonstrated the fact by using sunlight to record words on the salts, but he made no attempt to preserve the images permanently. His discovery, in combination with the camera obscura, provided the basic technology necessary for photography. It was not until the early 19th century, however, that photography actually came into being.
History of photography timeline. Photo by: 'Sean Ensch'.
In 1826/27, using a camera obscura fitted with a pewter plate, Niépce produced the first successful photograph from nature, a view of the courtyard of his country estate, Gras, from an upper of the house. The exposure time was about eight hours, during which the moved from east to west so that it appears to shine on both sides of the building.
History (The) of Photography, from 1839 to the Present Day"
These first to be photographed enter the viewing space unfamed or, rather, uncaptioned. Newspapers, then, were still items of luxury, which one seldom bought but rather looked at in cafes. The photographic procedure had not yet become a tool of theirs; the fewest possible people even saw their names in print. The human face had a silence about it in which its glance rested. In short, all possibilities of this portrait art rested upon the fact that the connection between actuality and photo had not yet been entered upon. Many images by Hill were taken at the Edinburgh cemetery of Greyfriars. Nothing is more representative of this early period: it is as if the models were at home in this cemetery. And the cemetery, according to one picture that Hill made, is itself like an interior, a delineated, constricted space where gravestones lean on dividing walls and rise out of the grass floor—gravestones hollowed out like fireplaces showing in their hearts the strokes of letters instead of tongues of flame.
Welcome to the History of Photography Podcast 2.0!
But this place could never have achieved its great effect had not its selection been for technical reasons. The lower sensitivity to light of the early plates made necessary a long period of exposure in the open. This, on the other hand, made it desirable to station the model as well as possible in a place where nothing stood in the way of quiet exposure. “The synthesis of expression which was achieved through the long immobility of the model,” Orlik says of the early photographs, “is the chief reason besides their simplicity why these photographs, like well drawn or painted likenesses, exercise a more penetrating, longer-lasting effect on the observer than photographs taken more recently.” The procedure itself caused the models to live, not out of the instant, but into it; during the long exposure they grew, as it were, into the image.
Essay on The History of Photography
Photography, however, with its time lapses, enlargements, etc. makes such knowledge possible. Through these methods one first learns of this optical unconscious, just as one learns of the drives of the unconscious through psychoanalysis. Concern with structure, cell forms, the improvement of medicine through these techniques: the camera is ultimately more closely related to these than to the moody landscape or the soulful portrait. At the same time, however, photography opens up in this material the physiognomic aspects of the world of images, which reside in the smallest details, clear and yet hidden enough to have found shelter in daydreams. Now, however, large and formulatable as they have grown, they are able to establish the difference between technology and magic as a thoroughly historical variable. Thus Blossfeldt,2 with his astonishing photographs of plants, brought out the forms of ancient columns in horsetails, the bishop’s staff in a bunch of flowers, totem poles in chestnut and acorn sprouts enlarged ten times, gothic tracery in teasel.