1. Pictorialism and Photo Secession
Late 1800’s – Early 1900’s

2. Is it art or is it science?
Invented 1839
Is it art or is it science?

3. William Henry Fox Talbot
“Impressed by natures hand”
Louis Daguerre
“Chemical and physical property which gives [nature] the power to reproduce herself.”
Neipce
“Spontaneous reproduce, by the action of light …”
These inventors, or founders of Photography, unknowingly laid a foundation of this perception that Photography could not be art or self expression. This may have led to the movement we know of as Pictorialism.

4. An early photograph produced on a silver or a silver-covered copper plate.
Positive images produced directly onto the plate, could not be reproduced.
Developed with warm mercury vapour.
Daguerreotype
The earliest reliably dated photo­graph of a person, taken in spring 1838 by Daguerre

5. “… the idea occurred to me
“… the idea occurred to me... how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper."
Calotype
Henry Fox Talbot called his work the 'art of photogenic drawing’. His process produced prints on paper that were coated with silver iodide (salt and silver), which made it light sensitive. This process was called calotype First to produce a negative that you could get prints from. Talbot went on to develop the three primary elements of photography: developing, fixing, and printing.

6. Heliograph Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
Niépce experimented with bitumen on pewter or zinc plates

7. Lady Filmer – 1864

8. Lady Hawarden 1860
Wet Plate &
Albumen Prints

9. Gustave Le Gray 1859

10. Oscar Rejlander 1857

11. 1888 – Kodak Camera
Eastman Dry Plate Company – Made the Kodak camera – first handheld “instant” camera.
Dry plates that were exposed by photographer and sent back to the company for development.
The snapshot was born!
Anyone could be a photography now …
“You push the button, we do the rest!”

12. George Eastman selling his camera on ocean liner – 1890
Art photographers were trying to get photography recognized as “Art”!
This snapshot emergence from Kodak didn’t help their case! How could it be art if everyone could do it!

13. Pictorialism Mimicked Painting
Born as a reaction to the point and shoot approach to Photography made possible by Kodak.
Art Photographers wanted to make a distiction:
Make it a hard process! Not point and shoot!
Relied on labor intensive processes that showed the human hand in the process
Emphasized photographer as craftsman
Heavily worked negatives: Retouched negatives; printed on textured paper

14. Gertrube Kasenbier, 1903
American Photographer
Founding member of photo secessionists

15. Heinrich Kuhn, 1898 Austrian
First photographer to do unique “above” perspective
Used Autochrome
Kodachrome later replaced Autocrome

16. Clarence White American Early 1900’s
Self taught
Opened first Photography School – Modern Photography

17. Edward Steichen – 1904
Trained painter/drawer
Editor of first photography publication – Cameraworks Magazine
Opened first gallery, NYC
1st Fashion Photograph
Military Photographer WWI & WWII
Founded Photo Secession Movement
First and highest paid fashion photographer
Film maker
Head of Photography Dept at MoMA

18. Alred Stieglitz 1892
Grandfather of Art Photography
Formed photography collection
American camera club
Advocate to push photograph as art medium
Showed photography next to painting in his art gallery

19. Equivalents “Are these clouds?” “I DON’T SEE WHY THAT MATTERS?”
“What do you see? What does it make you feel?”
“Equivalents idea or emotion attached to it by the viewer or photographer.”
Pushed the way people that about photography and what it could be.

20. Photo Secessionists