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Photography in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The practice and appreciation of photography in the United States began in the 19th century, when various advances in the development of photography took place and after daguerreotype photography was introduced in France in 1839. The earliest commercialization of photography was made in the country when Alexander Walcott and John Johnson opened the first commercial portrait gallery in 1840.[1] In 1866, the first color photograph was taken. Only in the 1880s, would photography expand to a mass audience with the first easy-to-use, lightweight Kodak camera, issued by George Eastman and his company.

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Transcription

Modernist Photography in the United States Photography has not always been accepted as an art form. After the introduction the Kodak Brownie camera by George Eastman in the late 1880s, the medium of photography was transformed from a specialized trade to an activity that anyone -- even women and children -- could do. In a snap, the modern snapshot was born. And amateur photgraphers were everywhere. They even began congregating in clubs to share their new, exciting creations. Kodak's motto, You Push the Button, We Do the Rest, showcased the simplicity of the new, modern photographic process, delivering mass production at a low cost -- a quintessential industrial innovation. The public loved it but the new "easy" version of photography created even more challenges for photographers who were actively pursuing the use of photography as an art form. Alfred Stieglitz is an early figure who played an integral role in fostering a critical discourse about the art photography in the United States. He did this in a variety of ways. First, through his own photography, often reflecting his trips to Europe and the new modern American city landscape in New York. Photography was Stieglitz's self-proclaimed passion and he stepped far outside the role of a photographer to promote it as modern art. In New York in 1902, Stieglitz single handedly took on the creation and publication of Camera Work, a high quality journal dedicated to the work of contemporary art photographers. Over the next 15 years, Stieglitz produced regular issues of Camera Work. Inside an issue of Camera Work, a reader would find announcements for photography competitions, literary works including statements from Stieglitz himself, poems written by prominent literary figures like Gertrude Stein, and essays about art and photography. Also included, of course, were photographs. But not just any photographs. Work by photographers hand-selected by Stieglitz for inclusion in Camera Work -- including photographs of his own -- and photographers like Edward Steichen, Frank Eugene, Gertrude Kasebier, Anne Brigman, and Clarence White. The pictorialist photographers showcased between the pages of Camera Work were exploring methods to raise photography's status to an art form. And those methods included making photographs that often looked more like paintings. The reproductions of the images were created with the highest of standards. Rather than printing the images on photographic paper, Stieglitz had photogravures printed of them and hand tipped the prints into pages of Camera Work. A photogravure is a high quality intaglio print making process that produces rich, warm images with rich tonal ranges printed on thick paper. Arguably, each copy of Camera Work was a work of art in and of itself -- right down to its hand bound seams. In addition to being a photographer and producing Camera Work, Stieglitz established a gallery, known early on as the Little Galleries, and re-opened in 1908 under the new name, 291. 291 became a tremendous catalyst for the development of art photography in the United States. While Camera Work told the story about art photography, 291 showed the story. Stieglitz curated and promoted exhibitions of pictorialist photographers, like Gertrude Kasebier and Clarence White, who were showcased in Camera Work. Within the walls of 291, intellectuals and artists congregated to discuss cutting edge photographic work of the day. But photographs weren't the only thing that adorned the walls of 291. Edward Steichen, a prominent photographer and friend of Stieglitz, spent much of the early years of the decade in Europe where he became familiar with the work of the european avant garde artists that were pushing the boundaries and redefining painting and sculpture in Europe. Stieglitz saw an opportunity and began to arrange small collections of work by european artists for the first time on American soil right there in 291. Some of the featured work included drawings by Auguste Rodin, sculptures by Brancusi, various works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse. Together, Camera Work and 291 fostered a convergence of photography and new european avant garde art which was brand new to Americans. Juxtaposing photography and bewildering modern art was just the right blend to get photography out of the shadows of the Kodak craze. But by 1917, the direction of photography had changed. The final issue of Camera Work showcased the work of a new, emerging artist named Paul Strand. And Strand's aesthetic was drastically different from the misty, fairytale-like images created by the Pictorialists. Strand's photographs were direct. Rather than adopting the gum bichromate printing process which was more painterly, Strand preferred platinum prints which produced an exquisitely rich range of tones from black to white. Strand's photography emphasized the innate qualities of the photographic medium, rather than disguising them under the veil of painterly qualities as the Pictorialists did. With the context and dialogue set through the work of Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand played a pivotal role in ushering in a truly photographic style -- referred to today as Straight Photography. According to Strand himself, "The decision as to when to photograph, the actual click of the shutter, is partly controlled from the outside, by the flow of life, but it also comes from the mind and the heart of the artist. The photograph is his vision of the world and expresses, however subtly, his values and convictions." "I like to photograph people who have strength and dignity in their faces; whatever life has done to them, it hasn't destroyed them. I gravitate towards people like that." This photograph by Paul Strand stands out to me as one of the most memorable images ever taken. Strand's work influenced a new generation of artists. One particular group, known as f/64, emerged in Oakland, California. The small group of seven artists included many of the most well known American 20th century photographers. Each, in their own way, took the aesthetic of Strand's straight photography and develop their own, unique body of work that focused on particular subjects and conveyed an authentic artistic style in and of their own. Some explored the formal qualities of the finished print -- hinging, at times, on abstraction. Others, the camera's ability to capture the raw beauty of nature. And others conjuring up the early whispers of documentary photography by capturing the compelling social and economic contradictions that had a tendency to be rendered invisible in the blossoming suburbs of 20th century America.

Nineteenth century

Daguerreotype

In 1839, the daguerreotype photographic process invented in France was introduced into the United States by an Englishman named D.W. Seager, who took the first photograph of a view of St. Paul’s Church and a corner of the Astor House in Lower Manhattan in New York City.[1][2] Painter and inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse had met Louis Daguerre in Paris in the spring of 1839, becoming the first American to see his photographic process and becoming enamored with it as a result.[1] When he returned to the United States later that year, he enthusiastically promoted the daguerreotype while hailing Seager's prototypical image.[2] Morse had painted The Gallery of the Louvre in 1833, and the appeal of the medium of the daguerreotype was an obvious one to him: it was a means of making faithful copies of artworks, in addition to anything else that would be still in front of the slow eye of the camera.[2]

Portraiture

Given the long exposure time initially required to capture an image, sitters had to be immobilized, so buildings and other stationary objects proved to be the most practical to photograph. However, as the photographic chemistry and techniques improved, American inventors were soon winning prizes for innovative techniques at world expositions, establishing the US as a leader in the developing art field. Thus, it became easier to make images of the human subject with this new technique.[2]

At a time when the painted portrait was a luxury few could afford, the daguerreotype arrived with the promise of letting virtually everyone establish a visual self-image, even if it might be only slightly bigger than a large postage stamp. The working-class daguerreotype studios charged 50 cents an image, the equivalent of half a day's labor. It wasn't cheap, but it was far less expensive than a portrait.[2] Not all of the portraits were successful, however. The subject was generally required to sit without moving from between five or ten seconds (at best) and several minutes. The discomfort of having one's head fitted into the frame of an iron positioning apparatus could produce startling results: stony stares, wild-eyed glares, and eyes frightened by the staring lens of the camera.[2] Despite some unflattering images, however, photography was establishing a new standard for visual representation. The portrait's most treasured quality was that it was an exactly corresponding record of what had existed in front of the lens.[2]

In addition to the private aspect of portraiture, there was a public one. Portrait galleries sprang up in urban centers around the country, and the aspiring middle class would go to view the portraits on display.[2] Daguerreotypes of various public figures - often enlarged and hand-colored - would line the walls of these galleries. Viewers would admire and study the images for signs of distinction, substance, and character that they felt the subjects of the portraits represented.[2]

In 2021, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in Washington, D.C., announced the acquisition of a private collection of early photographs, taken between the 1840s and the mid-1920s, with 40 daguerreotypes made by three 19th century African American photographers. The collection includes photographs of African American men and women abolitionists and documents the work of 19th-century African American photographers such as James Presley Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge and Augustus Washington.[3]

The Civil War

On April 15, 1861, Abraham Lincoln called up 75,000 militiamen to put down an insurrection of southern states after Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter on April 12–14, 1861. Mathew B. Brady, one of the preeminent photographers of the day, secured permission from President Lincoln to follow the troops, for what everyone thought would be a short and glorious war.[4] He only saw the first major engagement, The First Battle of Bull Run, and lost his wagons and other equipment in the chaos of the Union defeat.[4] Deciding to forgo any further action himself, Brady instead put together a corps of field photographers who, together with those employed by the Union Army and Alexander Gardner, made the first extended coverage of a war.[4]

The war photographers worked with collodion wet-plate photography, a photographic process invented by the Englishman Frederick Scott Archer.[4] Unlike a daguerreotype, the process produced a negative, which could be replicated. A major complication, however, was that the photographer had only ten minutes from the coating of the plate to the development of the photograph in which to take the picture. One needed a portable darkroom to use it properly.[5] The photographers could only depict such scenes as strategic sites, camp scenes, preparation for or retreat from action, and, on occasion, the grisly aftermath of battle. This was due to the chaotic and dangerous nature of the battlefield.[4]

The beginnings of the consumer camera

With the progression from the collodion process to the dry-plate process, amateur photography was already on the rise in the United States. However, there was the issue of the annoyance of changing the photographic plates between each shot.[2] The lasting solution to this issue was a product introduced by George Eastman in 1884: a flexible, gelatin-coated paper, followed closely by a holder for a 24-frame roll.[2] Soon after this, Eastman introduced Eastman American film, which featured a thin gelatin layer that was removed from the paper backing after development for additional clarity in making prints.[2] In 1888, Eastman's company issued the first easy-to-use, lightweight Kodak camera. It was priced at $25, loaded with a hundred frames, and was almost instantly popular.[2]

When the user had used up all 100 exposures, he or she would simply mail the camera back to Kodak, where the used film was developed and the camera was reloaded with a fresh roll of frames and was then mailed back to the customer along with the previous batch of printed images.[2] In 1889, Eastman's company began producing cellulose nitrate, or celluloid, film, which didn't require the Eastman American film's paper backing. This last innovation paved the way for motion picture film stock. However, it was highly flammable and this material eventually gave way to cellulose acetate.[2]

Notable nineteenth-century photographers

In the nineteenth century, various American photographers started to develop new methods and techniques for photographs. Among others, these include

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Teicher, Jordan G. (2017-02-22). "The Hidden History of Photography and New York". Lens Blog. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Miles, Orvell (2016). Photography in America (First ed.). New York. ISBN 9780199314225. OCLC 904528804.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ D’Souza, Aruna (2021-08-17). "Smithsonian Acquires Rare Photographs From the First African American Studios". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Photography and the Civil War, 1861–65". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  5. ^ Wood, Gaby (2010-07-07). "Collodion photography: self-portrait in cyanide". ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-12-10.
This page was last edited on 18 March 2024, at 20:49
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