Photography: From Daguerre to Digital

Photography: From Daguerre to Digital

The Reality of Photography: How much of what we see in a photograph is real? Are photographs truthful? Have you had a bad picture taken. Do they truly look like the photo or has the camera distorted their appearance in some way? Do they pose for pictures or act naturally?

Edwin Land developed Polaroid instant camera said: At its best, photography can be and extra sense, or a reservoir for the senses. Even when you don t press the trigger, the exercise of focusing through a camera can make you better remember thereafter a person or a moment. When we had flowers in this office recently to use as test objects, it was a great experience to take pictures of them. I learned to know each rose. I now know more about roses and leaves, and that enriched my life. Photography can teach people to look, to feel, to remember in a way that they didn t know they could.

Cameras before Photography Photography literally means Light Wri:ng; popular ar:s:c media today that u:lizes a camera to capture images. How do Cameras work? Light bounces off the object and travels in a straight line. Light reflected from an object can project an image of that object onto a surface under controlled circumstances. Image of the Castle in Prague being projected onto a wall using a camera obscura.

Camera Obscura During the Renaissance a chamber (camera in Italian) was invented that allowed light to enter in a straight line. The world outside was reflected in the chamber, but upside down. Ar:sts inside the chamber would trace the reflected view onto paper, crea:ng the forerunner to the photograph. These dark rooms helped ar:sts perfect perspec:ve and chiaroscuro. Evolution of Camera Obscura, Predecessor of the Modern Camera: Seventeenth-century portable camera obscura.

Evolution of Camera Obscura, Predecessor of the Modern Camera: Seventeenth nineteenth-century table model camera obscura.

The Modern Camera A light :ght box with an opening to admit light, a lens to focus the light, and a light sensi:ve surface to receive and chemically CAPTURE the image created by the light. The first captured image created by a camera was by Joseph N. Niepces ca 1826.

Louis Jacques Mande Daugerre First inventor to capture a clear photographic image. Captured the images on a copper plate coated with silver iodide. The plate is the photograph, thus a posi:ve image. Called the daguerreotype. 10 20 minute exposure :me made it commercially viable. Because exposure :mes were so long photography could only record sta:onary objects. So moving people did not become part of the image. This is the first photograph to have a human being it. The man ge`ng his shoes shinned was s:ll just long enough to be captured. Le Boulevard du Temple, 1839. Figure 7.3

William Fox Talbot Created photographs by capturing the image in reverse on a plate called a nega:ve. The nega:ve could be used to create mul:ple copies on posi:ve images on photographic paper. Called the calotype. This system beat out the Daguerreotype, which was no longer used aaer 1865. Early calotype taken by Talbot showing photographers at work, 1853.

Photojournalism Once photographs could be reproduced in newspaper, the field of photojournalism born. Due to the mechanical nature of crea:ng a photograph, some mistakenly believe that a photograph is highly objec:ve, without opinion or point of view. The image must be framed and captured; reality is manipulated to suit the photographer s aims. Not mere illustra:ons; oaen:mes these photographs become iconic, shaping our collec:ve memory of an event. Images taken after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gult Coast in 2005.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, 1936. US government realized power of images early; the Farm Securi:es Administra:on of the Dept of Agriculture subsidized photographers to document the crisis of the Dust Bowl and Depression. Lange took several images of this mother. The good photograph is not the object, the consequences of the photograph are the objects. So that no one would say, how did you do it, where did you find it, but they would say that such things could be. Dorothea Lange

Ansel Adams Known for his photographs of the American West, nature, and the environment. Believed the best photographs needed to contain a variety of values from white to black. Photographer as ar:st and technician. Used his photographs to increase public awareness of the need for conserva:on of the natural environment. Ansel Adams, The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942. See also Figure 7.10

Photography and Art Freed ar:sts from crea:ng mime:c images. Early photos taken as ar:s:c images imitated the subjects and poses seen in pain:ngs. Soa focus used to give an ar:s:c touch. However, since these early images are imita:ng rather than exploring photography the full poten:al of photography as an art form was not yet realized. Henry Peach Robinson, Fading Away, 1858.

Julia Margaret Cameron Considered herself an amateur. However Cameron was one of the first to use close ups and carefully controlled ligh:ng. Favored long exposures and profile views. Created thousands of images, portraits and posed scenes, some:mes with her famous friends such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Virginia Woolfe. Julia Jackson photographed in 1886.

Alfred S:eglitz Early major proponent of photography as an art form. Opened a photography art gallery in NYC in 1905, and published first photo journal Camera Work from 1903 to 1917. Known for shoo:ng straight meaning that it was produced with no technical manipula:on of the nega:ve. Flatiron Building from Camera Work, 1903.

Man Ray Famous photographer and painter. Influen:al with both the Dada and Surrealist movements. Supported his art by taking fashion photos for Vogue. Credited with inven:ng the Rayograph, a technique in which objects are placed on photographic light sensi:ve paper and exposing them to sunlight. (There is no camera). Visual inven:ons recorded on film.

COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY: Color photography began in 1907 with the invention of positive color transparencies. 1936- It became versatile and improved and therefore more widely used. Through the 1960s, most art photographers disdained color film: The negatives were unstable. Color was associated with family snapshots and tourist photographs. William Eggleston. Untitled (Nehi Bottle on Car Hood). 1974. 1976 William Eggleston exhibited his color work at MOMA and a new branch of photography took off.

Cindy Sherman Interest in self portraits began from an assignment at art school. Rather than true selfportraits, she creates stereotypical characters recognizable by the American/western audience. Works in both black and white, and color. Cindy Sherman, Film Still #21

Cindy Sherman, Un:tled #355, 2000

The Digital Revolu:on Today s cameras do not use film. Lens focuses informa:on on sensors that translate the hue and intensity of light into digital files. Files are very easy to manipulate today with computer soaware like Photoshop and Instagram. Further blurs the line between reality and created image. Truth is in danger, and the camera can indeed lie. Woman sitting in front of Gursky s Stateville, Illinois, 2002.