Genius of Photography 1 Empire of Photography

Decided to read book as watched the videos when doing TAOP. I is a book loosely following the history of photography, but thematic - e.g. the early debate about photography as art or science.

Like quote from Szarkowski that photogpraphs are windows when the subject is of prime importance, and mirrors when the main point is to reflect the photogpraher's viewpoint. Most images are of course both.

PRELUDE

Discusses the Meudon image by Kertesz - what is the subject? Was it posed or a 'decisive moment'?

EMPIRE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Art or Science?

An argument that commenced almost as soon as the medium was invented - contrast between the clarity of detail in daguerrotypes and the more diffuse paper-based calotypes.

Fox Talbot: "The instrument chronicles whatever it sees and certainly would delineate a chimney pot or chimney sweeper with the same impartiality as it would the Apollo of Belvedere". In other words, photography was too democratic, too indiscriminate for some in 19th century.

Scott Archer introduced the glass negative process, this cheapening and further democratising the process. Disderi introduced the concept of small photographs on one plate thus bringing about the carte de visite portrait used as a calling card for the lower middle classes.

Witness to the World

Photography rapidly became a recording mechanism in the British and french empires, and of course for war, American Civil War, and Fenton's images of Crimean War, notably Valley of the Shadow of Death. It was photography as illustration.

Flight from realism

Some believed that it was necessary for photography to ape art by being modified - even taking out of focus (Sir William Newton). Two Ways of Life by Rejlander was probably the most vivid demonstration of the attempt ot take photography into realm of high art.

Bodies in motion/the snapshooters

Muybridge's sequences and ultimately his proof that horse do indeed have all four legs in the air for a fraction of a second were very much scientific studies. Eastman's Kodak democratized the medium even more - you press the button, we do the rest. Kodak changed the medium socially and caused more scorn to be heaped on photography as Sarkowski said: "It was a common article of faith that art was hard and and artists rare; if photography was easy and everyone was a photographer, photography could hardly be taken as seriously as an art."

Picasso:"Every dentist would like to be a doctor, and every photographer would like to be a painter."

Stieglitz introduced modernism - crossed from pictorialism to modernism with his images such as The Steerage.  In same vein was Strand (Blind Woman) and Hine with his socio documentary portraits of child workers. It was 'straight photography' - no tampering.

Ultimate modernist photograph was Pepper no30  by Weston.