1. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY ? IS IT AN ART FORM?

2. Photography The first camera obscura was invented in the 11th century
Literal meaning- “dark room”
Room sized cameras were first used to study eclipses
A small hole in a window shade of a dark room could invert the image of the sun onto the opposite wall

3. 1600’s a lens helped focus images more clearly
1700’s a table model of the camera obscura became available
A small mirror inside projected a right-side up image on a screen that artists could use for tracing
The lens could be moved inward or outward to do a close up or long view of the image
No light sensitive material to record the image
The first permanent photographic image was the the daguerreotype introduced to the world by French painter, Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre in 1839
His pictures were produced by a complex chemical process
Silver-coated copper plates were made light sensitive by exposure to iodine vapor. After exposure to light the image was developed by treating it with mercury vapor. The image was fixed, or made permanent by soaking in salt solution.

4. Daguerre- Collection of Fossils and Shells

5. These early pictures did not use film so only a single image could be printed William Henry Fox Talbot was the first to invent photographic film that used the negative-positive principle. His development of negatives made multiple prints from a single image possible Commercial possibilities of the new medium Some artist began to explore the aesthetic rather than the commercial possibilities of photography.

6. Julia Margaret Cameron
Attempted to capture the essence of beauty through her photographic portraits. At the age of 48 she received a camera as a gift.
As a middle class Victorian wife and mother, she worked as an amateur artists that reflected both her personal vision and the ideals of the period.
Cameron’s close-up images of her friends and family have a monumental, mythological quality, each face representing both an individual and a perfect type of beauty.
Alice Liddel modeled for Cameron and for Lewis Carroll. She was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland.
1870’s-1880’s

7. Pomona by Julia Margaret Cameron

10. 5 parts of the camera A light-tight box
A lens which focuses the light onto the film
A shutter which is triggered by the photographer and controls the time of the exposure
An aperture and adjustable opening that controls the amount of light entering the camera
The viewfinder that allows the photographer to see what the camera sees

11. In 1887 George Eastman introduced a simple box camera called the Kodak
“You press the button, we do the rest”
After shooting a roll of one hundred exposures on the Kodak, the camera would be sent to the factory in Rochester, New York.
The film would be removed and developed, and a new roll would be loaded into the camera.
The Eastman Kodak company became the largest photographic manufacturing company – introducing new lenses, flashes, film, color film, and instant photography, digital photography, and other advances.

12. Photography- drawing with light
One of the first uses of photography was to make images of distant, exotic lands available to the public.
Timothy O’Sullivan, one of the pioneers of the medium, began his career as a Civil War photographer. After the war he traveled with geological survey groups throughout the Western U.S.
He had to carry his camera, chemicals, and plates with him, all of which were extremely heavy. Then he brought a portable dark room with him. It was an ambulance pulled by mules.
His landscape photographs are some of the most beautiful ever made.
Canyon de Chelle- immense scale of the canyon and tiny ruins of buildings, tilted parallel lines, great height, and unity.

15. 35 mm camera’s changed everything
Light weight
Portable
Fast exposures
HenriCartier-Bresson
1932
Straight photography

16. Documentary photography
Straight, authentic, unretouched photographs that record important social conditions and political events.
“a photograph cannot lie”
Photographers as social realist artists in the service of humanity
During the great depression the U.S. government hired photographers like Dorothea Lange to provide pictures illustrating the miserable living conditions of Americans, suffering from hard times.
Photographs as evidence to support the New Deal programs

17. Dorthea Lange

18. Migrant Mother by Dorthea Lange

21. Photography as Fine Art
Alfred Stieglitz-The first in this country to exhibit photography alongside paintings, prints, and sculpture- At his 291 gallery in NYC
Believed that the eye of the photographer was more important than the sophistication of his or her equipment.
Looking for design and life in un-posed images
Believed photographers should be free to manipulate their images
Played with the chemistry of photography to achieve more painterly effects.

22. By the way Alfred Sieglitz married Georgia Okeeffe- remember her?

23. Pepper 30 by Edward Weston

24. Man Ray liked to experiment with photography and use it as an art form
Man Ray liked to experiment with photography and use it as an art form. He invented a new kind of photograph that didn’t require a camera (placed objects on photographic paper and exposed them to light). He called this images “rayographs”.

25. Photomontage Collage made out of photographs
Hannah Hoch- political satire
Found images

26. Contemporary approaches
Sebastiao Salgado exposes the plight of migrant workers

27. Jerry Uelsmann- 2001
Works in a dark room with 8 enlargers, each holding a negative with just one of the elements for the final image.
He blends the images by moving a sheet of photographic paper from enlarger to enlarger and exposing only part of the paper at each station.
His goal is simply to “amaze myself with scenes that are emotional, irrational, intellectual, and psychological”.

29. Radioactive Cats by Sandy Skoglund

31. Remember any other photographers we have learned about?

32. Photography today:
CINDY SHERMAN: GREGORY CREWDSON:

33. EXTRA CREDIT:
Need some extra credit? Take an hour and do some photography. Take a camera and go somewhere and take some interesting photographs. Be as innovative and creative with your photographs as you can. Then, write about the experience and include 5-10 of your favorite photos from the experience.