CHAPTER 12 ___________________________ PHOTOGRAPHY AND TIME BASED MEDIA

Photography Photography may be used to “capture reality,” and in the medium’s infancy it photographs were certainly regarded as informational: as showing the viewer a documented glimpse at something that exists in reality – you can photograph anything see, so it must be there it a photograph exists of it. Photographs, in essence, carry a promise of truth with them – they project an authenticity that rarely exists in other art forms. Although this “truth” is hardly a reality, as photographs are easily manipulated to where the final image is far different than the starting point, it is still important that we perceive them as true. Photography and the camera arts allow artists to explore time and motion. The camera can capture and preserve a moment in time, and in doing so, it allows our eyes to see motion slowed down.

Eadweard Muybridge, Annie G, Cantering, Saddled, December 1887, Collotype Print, image size: 7½ x 16⅛ inches. This is part of Animal Locomotion, an 11 volume work of over 20,000 photographs of animals and people performing various actions, such as running, walking, trotting, fetching, and lifting. These photographs influenced a great number of artists in their depictions of people and animals in motion.

Early Photography Camera obscuras were first used by artists in the 16th century. They allowed a 3-D space to be projected onto a 2-D screen, but they maintained the color and perspective of the 3-D world. They could capture an image in two dimensions, but they could not preserve it. In 1839, the problem of preserving this image was solved simultaneously by two inventors – William Henry Fox Talbot from England, and Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre from France. William Henry Fox Talbot developed a process for fixing negative images onto paper coated with light-sensitive chemicals. The resulting image on paper was called a photogenic drawing. While Talbot was developing the photogenic drawing in England, Daguerre was developing a different process in France. He was able to fix positive images onto polished metal plates, and the resulting image was called a daguerreotype.

Above Left: Unidentified printmaker, Camera Obscura. Engraving, c. 1544. Bottom Right: illustration of camera obscura.

William Henry Fox Talbot, Mimosoidea Suchas, Acaica, c. 1839 William Henry Fox Talbot, Mimosoidea Suchas, Acaica, c. 1839. Photogenic drawing. The object (a plant specimen) acts as a stencil, blocking the light-sensitive chemicals it covers on the paper. These un-hardened chemicals can be washed off, revealing the negative image of the object.

William Henry Fox Talbot, Photogenic drawings.

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Le Boulevard du Temple, 1839, Daguerreotype. Developed in France, a daguerreotype is one of the earliest forms of photography, developed in 1839, made on a copper plate polished with silver.

Richard Beard, Maria Edgeworth, 1841. Daguerreotype Richard Beard, Maria Edgeworth, 1841. Daguerreotype. As photographic portraiture became a successful industry, portrait painting went into rapid decline. Photography replaced painting as the preferred method of portraiture, and it democratized the genre, making portraits affordable and available to the middle and even the working class.

William Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, 1843. Calotype William Henry Fox Talbot, The Open Door, 1843. Calotype. The calotype process is the basis for modern photography, developed by Talbot in 1841. The image above marks a turning point in Talbot’s view of photography. He considered the image to be more complex than merely documenting the natural world: he saw it as a study in beauty and design.

Julia Margaret Cameron, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, 1863, silver print Julia Margaret Cameron, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, 1863, silver print. Around 1850, English sculptor Frederick Archer introduced a new wet-plate collodian photographic process that was almost universally adopted within 5 years. It allowed for short exposure times and quick development of prints. Silver nitrate is integral to the process, and the resulting photographs are called silver prints.

Timothy O’Sullivan (negative) and Alexander Gardner (print), A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1863, from Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War, published 1866. Albumen silver print.

Additional silver prints from the Photographic Sketchbook of the War.

Form and Content

Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907. Photogravure Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907. Photogravure. A photogravure is an intaglio print process where the copper plate is coated in light sensitive material, it is exposed, etched, and then printed. This photogravure serves as an excellent example of the modernist thought that beauty derives from formal relationships. (For more, see page 267 in your textbook.)

Charles Sheeler, Criss-Crossed Conveyors – Ford Plant, 1927 Charles Sheeler, Criss-Crossed Conveyors – Ford Plant, 1927. Gelatin silver print.

Joel Meyerowitz, Ten Grapplers Daisy-Chaining at Dusk, November 5, 2001, from Aftermath, World Trade Center Archive, Phaidon Press, 2006.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Athens, 1953. The decisive moment…

An-My Lê, Small Wars (Ambush I), 1999-2002, Gelatin silver print.

The Photographic Print and its Manipulation The Zone System is a framework for understanding exposures in photography developed by Ansel Adams, where a zone represents the relation of the image’s (or a portion of the image’s) brightness to the value or tone that the photographer wishes it to appear in the final print. Thus, each picture is broken up into zones ranging from black to white with nine shades of gray in between – a photographic gray scale. Dodging decreases the exposure of selected areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter. Burning increases the exposure to areas of the print that should be darker. An aperture is the size of the opening of the lens.

Ansel Adams, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 Ansel Adams, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941. Gelatin Silver Print. Large parts of the sky are burned, so that they develop darker. The village towards the bottom of the photograph are dodged, so that they appear lighter and can show more detail. The end result is an image that shows cohesive space, but also presents some interesting contradictions in time of day.

Jerry N. Uelsmann, Untitled Jerry N. Uelsmann, Untitled. These photographs have been dodged in the development process in order to only expose certain parts of the composition. The artist will then expose a single piece of photographic paper to all three fil negatives, creating an image that combines all three layers (see image in next slide).

Here we see the image that combines all three photographic images into one print.

Color Photography Color photography was not readily available and easy to control until the 1970s, when Kodak introduced new color technologies that provided more reliable results. At this point, fine art photographers began to explore the use of color photography. Artists that use color photography are still concerned will all of the elements and principles of design that black and white photographers use, but they also consider how the power of color can enhance their design.

Joel Meyerowitz, Porch, Provincetown, 1977 Joel Meyerowitz, Porch, Provincetown, 1977. The artist is capitalizing on the powerful complimentary color contrast to add energy and interest to the image. This design contrast also enhances the differences between the two spaces: the warmth of the porch, and the cool storm on the ocean.

-Annie Leibovitz, Karen Finley at her home in Nyack, New York, 1992 -Annie Leibovitz, Karen Finley at her home in Nyack, New York, 1992. Chromogenic print. - Again, we see an art photographer aware of the power of color in their design. There is a strong complimentary color contrast between the red robe and the green hues of the chair and socks. - This image also plays with the public’s reactions to female sexuality. How does staring at a photograph of a naked woman differ from staring at a painting of a naked woman?

Edgar Degas used photography as a reference study for his pastel drawings. Does the content of the artwork change (considering it is very similar subject matter), based on the change in medium, and our perceptions of it?

Digital Photography Color photography was (not that long ago) new technology. But the rise in popularity of color images through television, along with new products that allowed for convenient color photography (the Polaroid camera, inexpensive color processing for film), contributed to a rapid increase in the cultural taste for color images. Today, digital technologies have transformed the world of photography, offering conveniences that film cannot and transforming photography into a highly manipulable medium.

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (House in the Road), 2002 Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (House in the Road), 2002. C-print mounted on aluminum. Is this an image of a real event, or is it staged?

Eleanor Antin, Constructing Helen, from Helen’s Odyssey, 2007 Eleanor Antin, Constructing Helen, from Helen’s Odyssey, 2007. Chromogenic print. This image was created through extensive manipulation of various photogrpahed digital images.

Alexandre Cabanel, The Birth of Venus, Salon of 1863, Oil on Canvas.

Although we can recognize digital manipulation as a reality in many images we see, there is still a powerful ingrained remembrance of a photographic image as “the truth.” Much of advertising uses this to its advantage, by manipulating images into unrealistic products, but by presenting them as authentic, and as real.