photography

= = = = = = =Imaging History=

1829: Nicephore Niepce creates the first permanent photo: a view from the window at Le Gras 1880: George Eastman sets up Kodak 1889: First Kodak film camera 1963: Poleroid invented 1970s: Digital imaging by Kodak 1991: First professional digital camera by Nikon (http://www.photo.net/history/timeline)

= = =**Various Forms of Photographs**=

Documentary Images
representation is a vehicle for documenting one’s conditions (of living, working, society; for creating alternative representations of oneself and one’s sex, class age-group, race, etc; of gaining power of analysis and visual literacy) over one’s image; of presenting arguments and demands; of stimulating action; of experiencing visual pleasure as a producer, not consumer of images; of relating to by objectifying, one’s personal and political environment.” Don Slater (studies how technologies affect society) “This is how documentary works…It defies comment; it imposes its meaning. It confronts us the audience, with empirical evidence of such nature as to render dispute impossible and interpretation superfluous. All emphasis is on the evidence; the facts themselves speak…since just the fact matters, it can be transmitted in any plausible medium…The heart of documentary is not form, style or medium but content.” –William Scott
 * 1930s paradigm, truth and subjectivity
 * shifts in documentary practices: Subjective Documentary: Robert Frank, Diane Arbus
 * A Loss of Innocence in the 1970s: “The camera as an active mass tool of
 * Subjective Documentary: Nan Goldin (entering her personal life)
 * Fiction, Contrivance, Artifice

History of the Documentary Photo

 * 1930s: “Documenting America: The Depression and the Farm”
 * “During the 1930s and 1940s, the dominant paradigm in American photography was the social documentary style. Photography was seen as a way of drawing attention to social problems and calling for change. During the New Deal, Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange brought the social documentary style to new levels of acceptance within the critical community while using their cameras to document and comment upon rural and small-town life in the United States. In New York City, from the mid-1930s through the late 1940s, a small group of reformist photographers, taking their cues from the FSA group and from Lewis Hine, an earlier proponent of socially aware photography, formed the Photo League and sponsored large-scale documents of the urban milieu,” (http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/87.4/br_116.html)
 * 1950s fashion photography
 * 1960s straight photography
 * 1970s conceptual photography, ie: Jeff Wall

Social Documents (evidence and truth)
> >> 1) for good of people (Hirsh, 268) 2) commercial to sell newspapers (Hirsh, 268)
 * [|Jacob Riis]
 * Took images of the slums and sweat shops located in New York City.
 * considered first tabloid journalist (Hirsh, 268)
 * Era of **mudrcking**: going and finding crime scenes and news stories start to be driven by images (Hirsh, 268)
 * goal of these photographers were to report corruption but for 2 ends (Hirsh, 268)
 * - wrote diaries about his experiences (Hirsh, 268)
 * - was the first to make use of the flash (Hirsh, 268)
 * - 1890 published book of his images called: “How the other half lives” (Hirsh, 268)
 * - this was important because he believed that just like himself these people could pull themselves together and work hard and get out of the state they were in (Hirsh, 268)


 * [|Lewis Hine]
 * Inspired by Jacob Riis, Hine was keen on making child labour illegal through his photographs
 * Understood how powerful and influential images can be and utilized this knowledge in order to promote social awareness of what was going on in the real world
 * Reached a huge audience
 * Reached a huge audience


 * Documenting The Great Depression**

>>>> [|Dorotha Lange] >>>>>> Migrant Mother http://www.youtube.com/v/-CE3EV3kRto http://www.youtube.com/v/-CE3EV3kRto"
 * images were full of human despair (Hirsh, 285)
 * part of fsa (Hirsh, 285)
 * Always focused on the individual and their relationship with society (Hirsh, 285)
 * Migrant Mother photo can be seen as one of Langes most famous prints as well as one of the most reproduced prints in the world (Hirsh, 285)
 * Migrant mother was also seen as artistic due to its iconic reference to the Madonna and Child. (Hirsh, 285)


 * [|Russell Lee]
 * His images were more intimate

[|Walker Evans]
 * [|Arthur Rothstein]
 * constructed his images (Hirsh, 286)
 * Steer Skull, Badlands was the second most famous fsa photo that shows man against nature (Hirsh, 286)
 * was criticized for image of Steer Skull because of the artist reconstruction of the scene.(Hirsh, 286)
 * This resulted in the public addressing issues of truth in social documentary as well as giving the fsa a reputation as constructing fake scenes (Hirsh, 286)
 * [[image:evans_hale_county.jpg width="161" height="205"]] Hale County, Alabama 1936
 * images were more pessimistic, bleak and emotional (Hirsh, 285)
 * part of fsa (Hirsh, 286)
 * Images were seen as an inventory of everyday life (Hirsh, 286)
 * images were ofeten taken in snapshot, journalistic style (Hirsh, 286)

**Ethnographic Documentary** > > == ====The Photo Essay==
 * When practicing straight photography the photographer does not manipulate the subject nor the subject matter of the photograph. Straight photography proves valuable to science as it takes the documentary form and acts as evidence.
 * >> Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), an American photographer followed this practice in New York City during her life time. After discovering her passion for photography she wrote, "I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else." She was strongly influenced by Eugène Atget (1857-1927), a French documentary photographer, (mncy.org)
 * >> Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), an American photographer followed this practice in New York City during her life time. After discovering her passion for photography she wrote, "I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else." She was strongly influenced by Eugène Atget (1857-1927), a French documentary photographer, (mncy.org)

>>> >>> >>> >>>
 * a picture story with a beginning, middle and end
 * [|Eugene Smith]


 * Works Cited**

Hirsh, Robert. Seizing the Light. A History of Photography. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000. >>> [|http://www.mcny.org/collections/abbott/passion.htm] >> >>