History of Photography

• Boulevard du Temple
• Daguerre - 1838
• -took less exposure time
• -of scene static and not moving
• -Daguerreotype - photographed places in the city - first camera
• -Anyone able to use a daguerreotype - artistic talent?
• - Time of the Daguerreotype craze

• Pictures from "The Pencil of Nature
• Talbot - 1844

• -calotype
• -paper photography

-camera obscura

• Woman, Seated, Holding Daguerreotype
• Anonymous - 1850

• -collodion - allowing exposure time from being half and hour to 2-3 seconds - new horizons for photography
• -Prices then dropped - weeks wages then brought it down to about a days wages - more affordable option
• -exposure time being reduced - photography of people

- Carte de Visite - people looking more modern and natural as themselves - photographs taken of themselves in their Sunday best, possibly with photographs of family to incorporate them all, pose with them as a family photograph

• Dead Communards of Paris
• Anonymous -1871

• -photographs were able to capture in images the stuff in society that no one wanted to talk about
• -civil war, full scale of destruction of people being killed, hard to understand how bad it was till images came along

-photograph has proof and power to project what is actually happening - evidence

• Lady of Shalott
• Henry Peach Robinson -1861

• -connecting the photograph to poetry
• -Photography developed mostly in England, as opposed to France
• -quality of realism
• -Set up photography in a provocative way
• -Critics realized that they were looking at a picture not a photograph

• Paris from a Balloon
• Nadar - 1868

• -series of photographs taken from a balloon
• -First documented person to take aerial photographs
• -Nadar promoted the impressionists
• -Nadar opened up studio for impressionists
• -His work inspired impressionists
• -Impressionists would use the cut off frame like photographers...radical movement...influence of photography

• Onion Field
• George Davison - 1890

• -impressionistic photography
• -influenced photographic style - attempting to take photography to another place, adding stylized element, a picture that is mediated through and impressionistic view
• -first influenced by natural/natural photography
• -no outline, softened edges, effect of painted surface, playing with content- manipulated in process of development
• -object of controversy in photographic style
• -linked ring - created an association of Bristish photographers that promoted the first photographic style - pictorialism
• - classified as highest form of art that photography is capable of
• -first movement of photographic art

• Self-Portrait with Brush and Palette, Paris
• Edward Steichen - 1903

• - member of the linked ring
• -played around with layering affect with negative
• -by the time, could have been mistaken for a painting
• -used painterly effect to create works
• LINKED RING - more modern, avant gard in the Americas
• -broke away from traditional art making

• The Steerage
• Alfred Stieglitz - 1907

• -picture that stands out/alone
• -showing the modern
• -immigration - what's more modern than that
• -technology of people moving
• -the city developing
• -sharply focused photographs not retouched, in black and white, not manipulated
• -photography gives us a flat image

• Radio Tower Berlin
• Laszlo Moholy-Nagy - 1928

• -"new vision"
• -main focus on photography
• -could catch whole world that the eye could not
• -photographers that would make you see the world differently
• -birds eye view, abstract picture
• -elaborate machines, casting light on them to create elaborate shadows in different ways to trick the eye
• -camera's ability to capture it

• Cabbage Leaf
• Edward Weston - 1931

• -focused on form
• -how two images can resemble one image

• Articles of China
• Henry Fox Talbot - 1844

• -allen sekhula brought this image too
• -photographing what he owned
• -insurance claims
• -statement providing legal evidence of possession of objects
• -photography provides actual evidence, tells us something about the real world
• -documentary photographs
• -subject behind the camera has an equally important role to play

• Front and Profile Views of a Malayan Male
• J.H. Lamprey - 1868-69

• -grid in the background
• -system to photograph scientifically
• -studied, and tried to draw conclusion
• -early anthropology

• used studies to justify stereotypes
• -social darwinism
• -study people based on appearance

Germany people began to measure noses- Scientific Racism in WW1 WW2

• Characterizing people with how they looked what their type was
• -Racial nature of photography
• -Highly subjective
• -Stereotypes are not scientific

• How the other half lives
• Jacob Riis - 1888

• -describes a kind of label
• -you are bringing attention to the problem but also creating a stereotype
• -Growing passion fatigue-so used to same images therefore no longer compassion - stop being looked at - becomes a kind of image to look at

• Mechanic Working on Steam Pump
• Lewis Hine - 1920

• -Formal and visual quality of something
• -Aesthetics of an image
• -beautiful shapes
• -modern
• -mans body moves into the shapes
• -not thinking of social reform, or how he has to go home and feed his children
• -not compelling on compassion
• -aesthetic image

• Prostitute
• Eugene Atget - 1920

• -prostitute seen as a modern figure and of the social climb
• -who says what it is after the fact
• -simply makes documents
• -street photographer

• Migrant Mother
• Dorothea Lange -1936

• -"the Mother"
• -the picture children of depression
• -looking away from children, looks tired and fatigue - though pensive and determined
• -husband and family
• -image becomes a universal image of suffering
• -personal story becomes used as a universal problem
• -image now seen everywhere

• The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptions
• Martha Rosler -1974-75

• -Looking at other photographs and challenged the sentimentalism/ compassionate looked
• -created photographs that talked about the inadequacy of photographs
• -Talked about how neither told you about the reality of the Bowery
• -Art photography
• -Absense of people was more powerful than their presence
• -By seeing a picture of something - you think you understand - but you don't

• Flag Raising on Iwo Jima
• Joe Rosenthal - 1945

• -photograph shows entire story on one picture
• -Stand in for the story for the history - stands in
• -important- used on stamps, important
• -entirely posed image
• -propaganda photograph

• Iraqi Soldeir
• Ken Jarecke -1991

• -image never leaked
• -expression at the moment
• -american attack
• -remains of Iraqi soldier with last expression on his face
• -picture was removed from wire, never shown in North America

Tension between objectivity and subjectivity in documentary photography